Internet Marketing

The 10 Step Framework for Building a Blog with Big Foundations

Nineteen with little money. Need wheels? So you buy a car that promises much but breaks down when getting to that important meeting or date that matters.

It’s expediency driven by budget, necessity and inexperience.

You bought a lemon.

Blogging is not that different.

Sometimes we are so eager to get started that we cobble something together and launch. Later we have to pull it apart because it didn’t have the foundations to handle the traffic or the flexibility to do what was needed.

Sometimes we borrow when we should have bought.

The result is that it can be painful, time consuming and often expensive. It’s called impatience, it can masquerade as frugal and it may even be called shortsighted.

We have all been there.

A blog that means business

If you are serious about turning a blog into income and then your business, then laying the right foundations is important. It means sitting down and doing some planning.

It means asking some questions

What am I going to focus on? What should the branding and design be like? What should I develop it on?

The list goes on.

If you do mean business then you need to create the right framework and foundation for your blog.

A framework for the future

Sometimes a little thought, the right framework and resources can be time saving and stress relieving in the long run.  

Here are 10 key building blocks to get you started.

1. Focus

Many people start a blog because they are passionate about photography, sales or leadership. This focus normally happens because of two factors.

1. Passion for the topic
2. Innate ability

Others start with an analytical eye on an opportunity. A topic that is trending and a business category that is growing. These can be identified around topics such as

• Health 
• Making money
• Success
• Avoiding pain

You can then choose a business focus that is growing using tools such as Google Trends or Facebook ads to see if the market is growing or shrinking.

Both approaches can be successful, but for me I find the passion approach provides a stronger and more sustainable foundation.

2. Branding

Branding is part science and part art. In its simplest form it involves two key elements.

1. Your visual design that resonates with your chosen category. This includes logo and colours 
2. Your messaging and voice which will carry into what you write and how you communicate across a range of multimedia

Being memorable and sticky within your category so that you stand out is key. If your competitors are zigging maybe you should be zagging.

3. Select a Platform

There are so many platforms to build a brand online. It can be confusing and it will make your head spin. Let me keep it simple.

In essence you have two choices:

1. Rent a pre-built platform such as Blogger or Tumblr. Advantages?…… It is fast and cheap
2. Design and build on your own platform using a WordPress Template. Advantages?…..You own it and have flexibility.

In the end it comes down to fast and cheap is more for those who are just playing and messing around.

If you want big foundations that mean business then build it on the WordPress platform using your own domain name.

Then you own it.

4. Design & Development

Design is what consumes most of people’s time. For many, it is how it looks. Yes…looks are very important… but design goes much deeper than that.

It is also how it works.

Design that matters and manages the tension between form and function can be beautiful to behold.

Steve Jobs knew and understood that.

So hire a designer that understands that it isn’t just about having a beautiful face but powerful and essential functions.

5. Hosting

Ever been to site that is so slow to load that you click away. That can sometimes be put down to having a slow internet connection. Often though it is because you are sharing a hosting computer with hundreds of other domains.

It has become vital with Google’s new attention to user experience that your site loads quickly. if it doesn’t then you will find that it will affect your sites search engine results as Google gives your site a small black cross.

This little rule is now written into Google’s algorithms.

Fast is good.

The other key here is having a site that is online 24/7. You may pay a little more but in the end you will be thankful. especially when you are building a blog that means business

I have found that my hosting supplier WebHostingBuzz provides robust and cost effective blog and website hosting with great support.

6. Content

So you have a great design and you are hosting your new blog on a solid foundation. What’s next?

You need content.

This comes back to your focus. Create content that meets the needs of your target audience. This will mean creating content that solves their problems.

Content can be put into four categories that may help you in your content creation.

Content that:

1. Educates
2. Entertains
3. Informs 
4. Inspires

That is the what… but how do you do it?

There are three ways to approach content creation.

• In house …You!
• Outsource… external writers
• Combination

You may have to start with creating all your own content from day one but you may find that the mixed model or outsourcing is where you end up.

One one powerful tip here. Create the best content you possibly can. It will surprise you how far and fast great content will flow across a social web.

So now its time to look at the 4 important marketing strategies to build that blog.

7. Build your social networks

Quite often people wait to design and, develop and launch their blog before growing their followers on social networks. I would recommend that you don’t delay this.

Build your social networks as fast as possible. The two big social media networks to focus on are Facebook and Twitter. Other social media networks should also be in the mix such as Google+ (which continues to gather momentum), LinkedIn and Pinterest. The amount of attention you pay to these will be driven by your blogs target audience interests and gender

I often find that many blogs and businesses build networks on Facebook and chase “likes” and forget about Twitter.

Hint…don’t forget Twitter.

Its ability for powerful networking , follower engagement and for driving traffic is often underestimated. This blog receives over 60% of its social networking traffic from Twitter.

8. Optimise for search engines

Despite social media being an attractive and shiny new toy for marketing, search engines should be in your marketing mix. In some industries over 90% of buying decisions start with an online search.

Today over 50% of my blog traffic comes from people performing a search and then clicking on the link to my blog.

It will take time to build this up, but the persistence will pay off as you build authority online in your niche.

Here are some key tips to building a search friendly blog

• Create the best content that you possibly can. Google loves unique fresh content that is popular and is linked to by other bloggers.
• Use keywords in your headline where possible
• Write an enticing description with keywords that people will want to click on when it turns up on the Google search result page.
• Include relevant categories when finalizing your article before publishing
• Put in the key words and phrases into the relevant “tag” section in WordPress before hitting the publish button that people would want to use to find information on that topic
• Use some free plugin tools such as “All in One SEO” or “Yoast” that assist you with some of the tasks I have mentioned

One last point.

Optimising and working at your SEO (Search engine Optimisation) is important for one big reason.

Receiving traffic from Google is free (unless you are paying for Google AdWords) and free is always good. 

9. Building Powerful Networks with Promotional Partnerships

The trick to building traffic fast is to get help. Now I don’t mean sending an email or a tweet to a blogger of influence and beg for some attention with a “please share my post” or “watch my awesome video on YouTube”

The secret is helping them out. Offer to write a guest post or share their content. Write an article about the top bloggers in your category and shine the spotlight on them.

Help others first and then they will help you.

If you get this right and are strategic then you will accelerate the traffic and the building of brand awareness. Affiliate marketing is built on this concept.

This powerful tactic starts with “how can I help you” rather than “what can I get from you“.

10. Grow your email list

So we have enlisted the power of social networks to market your blog, we have also understood that Google is a bloggers friend and we need partnerships.  

There is one key marketing tactic to include.

Email….Why? Because you own that list. Ownership is better than renting a “like’ list.

If there is one thing you should do from day one is to start building an email list.

This is called “list building.”

Where do you start?

Set up an account with one of the popular email platforms such as Aweber or MailChimp so that you can start building a list. They have all the metrics and tools to make your email marketing fly. Don’t ignore this.

It is vital.

An email list is yours and you own it and it gives you control to market to your subscribers when and how you like.

Just relying on Facebook likes and Twitter followers to spread your content is putting the control of marketing to those social networks.

You never know when they will cease to exist. Nothing is forever…remember MySpace? 

Offer an incentive

The best strategy to build a “list” fast is to offer a free eBook or video that offers something of value in exchange for their email address.

This should be prominent and either in the banner or the top right corner of your blog.

Another way to add more power to this tactic is to offer a pop up that hovers over the screen and dims your homepage whenever someone turns up to your blog and offers that free eBook or premium content such a s video tutorial.

You can create settings so that it only does this every 7, 14 or 30 days depending on your settings. 

You should also offer this on your Facebook page via a custom Tab. Make it easy for people to subscribe to your blog by offering an incentive. It will increase and accelerate your signups by 300 – 400%

What about you?

Now have an online portal and platform that means business. You can use this foundation to turn that knowledge into cash using a variety of new media monetization models.

How are your plans proceeding? What have you learnt on your journey.

Look forward to your questions and insights in the comments below

 

Want to learn how to market and supercharge your blog with social media?

My book – “Blogging the Smart Way – How to Create and Market a Killer Blog with Social Media” – will show you how.

 

 

 

 

5 Great Examples of Calls to Action for Your Facebook Cover Photo

Facebook keeps changing the rules.

Some of us will love them, others will tear their hair out and wring their hands. There will be those who complain and scream at the moon.

So what are the new rules, guidelines and policies that Facebook wants you to embrace? In essence you are now allowed to include a “call to action” for promoting that event, book or competition. The old rule of not having anymore than 20% text still applies.

The previous policies that prohibited effective marketing text in the image for brands was always a nonsense. So it’s good to see some commonsense emerge after 12 months!

How are some brands taking advantage of these new rules and breaking what were the old Facebook cover photo guidelines? How can you take advantage and apply them to Facebook’s cover photo and images to increase sales and conversions?

Here are 5 examples that you can use as inspiration to get people to book, buy or subscribe.

1. Mari Smith

Mari hasn’t messed about and has leapt in and is promoting her free webinar. You just gotta love that great smile!

2. Skype

The new rules from Facebook allow you to promote a contest. Here is one of Skype’s efforts with its “presenters” contest.

3. Hubspot

Hubspot has aalways been big on offering free ebooks that offer great value. Here is an example of their Facebook cover image which takes advantage of allowing that call to action in three simple steps. 

4. Inbound Zombie

John Haydon’s “CTA” couldn’t be much simpler for his Inbound Zombie brand. The “Call to Action” is very clear… text and arrow! 

5. ShortStack

It seems that simplicity is a consistent theme with ShortStack making asking for a “like” ….simple, fun and colorful.

What about you?

What are you trying to promote with your brand on Facebook? What design resonates with you? Is their a call to action you think is more compelling than the others?

Look forward to your comments and insights in the comments below.

 

 

Want to learn how to market and supercharge your blog with social media?

My book – “Blogging the Smart Way – How to Create and Market a Killer Blog with Social Media” – will show you how.

6 Tips to Grow Your Twitter Followers

Twitter has been my number one social media platform for quite a long time. That was actually the first social network I embraced after I started my blog.

Over the course of more than two years I dedicated a lot of my free time to not only expanding my Twitter network but to also to actually engage with  people who cared about what I shared and who enjoyed my content.

As much as you’d like to say that quantity doesn’t matter, well, it does.

The more people I “persuade” to follow me, the more visitors my blog ends up receiving. The traffic Twitter brings me is now significant with 5,500 visitors a month coming from the 140 character social network.

If you’d like to increase your targeted Twitter traffic the way I did, here are six of the most effective ways to get more quality Twitter followers that I have discovered.

Anyway, let’s get started:

1. Start with the profile picture

When someone lands on your profile, the first thing to catch their eye is your profile picture.

Especially now with the new profiles, where the photo is at the center of the header, it can really give people a hint of whether or not they should click ‘follow’.

So, when it comes to choosing a suitable avatar, there are three golden rules:

1. Make sure it’s a photo of “you”

When you follow someone you expect them to be a real person. And unfortunately when it comes to Twitter, there are literally millions of fake accounts. That is why you have to make sure to add a real photo and not one you found on the internet for instance. Additionally if you are a business then you are far better off creating an additional Twitter account instead of putting a business logo on your personal profile just to promote your business.

2. Make sure it’s big enough

A lot of people tend to click on the avatar to see a person’s profile picture in a bigger size. There are a lot of folks out there however, whose photo is just as big as the size of the frame. What I’d advice you is to re-size your photo to say 300 by 300 pixels, so that it actually becomes bigger once someone clicks on it. A small, blurry and pixellated picture says that you don’t pay attention to the small details and that isn’t a good start.

3. Make sure your face is recognizable

What many Twitter users do is to simply upload a picture of them in full-size. Consider how small the avatar is, if you put a whole-body picture, then end result will be hard to distinguish. So absolutely make sure that the photo is only of your upper-body.

2. Don’t forget about hashtags

Hashtags are kinda like when you use a specific keyword within an article to make it rank higher in the search engines. When you use them, you are targeting your tweet to the people using the words you’ve included in your hashtags.

I used to have a problem with hashtags. In my eyes they just didn’t look good and were making some of the tweets look quite unreadable.

But you know what?

Hashtags aren’t the problem. Using them is a great way to guarantee your message gains more exposure with the right people.

The problem is how you use them.

The 3 “Don’ts” of Hashtags

1. Don’t include too many

Let’s assume you are sharing an article of yours on Twitter and decide to add some hashtags to improve its visibility. Since the title is short and doesn’t take much of your 160 characters limit, you decide to include five hashtags. Is that a good move? No. It just looks spammy… And no one likes that kind of obvious self-promotion. I’d say two or three hastags at most.

2. Don’t be too specific

Twitter unlike Google doesn’t have a huge search volume. This basically means that you can get your message seen even if you use a broader term. On the other hand if you are too specific, probably no one is going to see your tweet via Twitter search. I’ve found that including more general terms like #Marketing, #SocialMedia, #Blogging or #Design results in the most retweets and favorites.

3. Don’t make your tweets unreadable

A bad practice I often see is replacing parts of an article’s title with hashtags. For instance if we have the article “10 Great Social Media Tips for Marketers”, some folks would tweet it like “10 Great #SocialMedia #Tips for #Marketers”. The end result is a tweet that you don’t really feel like clicking or retweeting just because it looks ugly.

3. Get into guest blogging

Guest blogging… What does this have to do with getting more Twitter followers?

 Guest blogging is a popular link-building technique. Many bloggers out there write guest articles only because they want to improve their search traffic. That behavior is probably one of the reasons why Google will keep a close eye on guest blogging this year.

And indeed guest blogging is much more than just being a way to improve SEO. In fact getting your content published on well-known, high-trafficked blogs is a sure way to create awareness about your brand.

This can be done by being a guest author. I have written articles for blogs like Traffic Generation Cafe and Kikolani.

Although all those guest posts helped me boost my organic traffic, the more important benefit was that I got in front of a new and highly relevant audience. This resulted in a torrent of new subscribers, followers and fans.

The thing is if people enjoy what you have to say, they will most certainly look for your social accounts. You don’t even have to share them. To date my five-week guest blogging endeavour has resulted in hundreds of new Twitter followers, Facebook fans and Google Plus users circling me.

4. Follow others with a strategy

Following new Twitter users is a great way to discover people with similar interests and to find interesting sources of information.

Another great benefit from doing so is that you can also get more eyeballs on your content.

How is that possible?

Well, the fact is a lot of people take a look at your Twitter profile when you follow them. So, if you follow people in your own niche who share your topics, there’s a good chance to get them to also follow you.

If we have to speak in numbers, I am able to get around 20% of the ones who I follow to also follow me back.

But how do you find relevant folks to follow in the first place?

Obviously you shouldn’t just go for the first dozen of Twitter users who you come across. You need to think strategically.

Tweepi is a great tool that allows you to follow either the followers or the friends (i.e. mutual followers) of a Twitter user of your choice.

For instance you can discover some of the influencers in your niche and start following their followers. Additionally Tweepi allows you to filter the list of followers by how active they are, how much tweets they are sharing, how much followers they have and how much people they are following.

How to use Tweepi

1. You sign-up for an account and connect your Twitter profile. You hover over “Follow Tweeps”, click “@user’s friends”, choose whose friends you’ll follow and click “Start Following“.
2. From that point on you can simply click on the different fields (e.g. “#followers”, “#friends”, “#statuses”), choose filters and set them up.
3. Once you are finished with that you start following people from the list. Make sure to follow only those who have a real photo as an avatar!

NOTE: You should be very careful with the number of people you follow per day. I’d say you are safe with around 100-150 follows every day. That way you are far from the 1,000 follows limit and your account is safe.

5. Think about your email signature

As a blogger you will be sending and receiving a ton of emails.

And when it comes to email that is probably the most “personal” way to communicate in the online world. That in terms means most of the people you email to will probably be interested to stay in touch.

The simplest set-it-and-forget-it kind of thing you could do is to create some sort of signature. The signature will be automatically inserted at the end of each email you write and send.

If you are an Yahoo user, you can easily set your signature by going to the wrench-like icon on the right hand side, beside your profile image. Clicking on it will display a menu. There you choose “Mail options” and go to “Signature”. Now it’s all up to your creativity. You can include fancy images and HTML if you like.

As for me I am sticking to simplicity:

Follow me on Twitter | Join my Facebook page | Connect with me on LinkedIn | Circle me on Google+

That is basically how my signature looks like. Simple yet effective.

You definitely won’t get a ton of new followers that way, but you can be almost certain that the ones who follow you will actually engage and click on your tweets.

6. Feel free to ask for retweets

Some weeks ago at my blog I shared a very interesting infographic that shared a study’s results on how to get more retweets. Something important that the study reveals is that you can get a lot more people (around 51%) to retweet your tweets if you simply ask them to.

And since that seemed like a very promising strategy I decided to give it a try. Now over the course of almost a month I have probably sent out over 30-40 tweets, asking people to retweet the tweet.

The interesting thing was that although those tweets ended up receiving double or even triple the usual retweets, people were not clicking at all.

So it turns out that for instance tweeting something along the lines of

“I would really appreciate a retweet! –> Post Title http://post.url.com” is a better way to promote your profile and get people to see it than to actually get a ton of traffic from clicks.

Basically since your post will get more retweets, more of the followers of your followers will see the tweet. Hence you can expect new follows from Twitter users, who you haven’t been able to reach before.

And there’s the question, how often should you follow that practice?

I am doing it every time I publish a new article, which equates to not more than three times per week. That is how I’d recommend you to proceed as well.

What about you?

These are six tips I have found to be effective based on what I’ve tried and tested. What techniques have worked for you?

Feel free to add and share your ideas to the list by leaving a comment! Also if you have any questions, hesitations or ideas, take a minute to share your thoughts!

Guest Author: Daniel Sharkov is an 18 year old student, marketer, blogger and a social media enthusiast. Make sure to check out Reviewz N Tips – the place, where he shares his insights and experience!

Want to learn more on how to grow your Twitter followers?

My book – “Blogging the Smart Way – How to Create and Market a Killer Blog with Social Media” – will show you how.

How to Make Money from Your Blog: 11 Powerful Case Studies

In 2005 a Greek American woman started a political blog. As the traffic grew more funding was required. This meant that in August 2006 the venture fund SoftBank Capital was called upon to invest $5 million into the site to hire more staff and to provide the resources needed to make the updates to feed the news cycle 24/7 as the site grew in popularity.

Two years later in November 2008, another $15 million was raised to maintain the momentum as the blog added more journalism resources and local reporting was ramped up across the USA.

The power of celebrity was embraced with politicians, academics and famous power brokers in all areas of business and industry contributing articles to the blog.

It was in June 2011 that the blog’s website traffic passed the doyen of traditional media, the “New York Times” for the first time.

“In just six years new media had disrupted 100 years of traditional media”

Seven years after the first post was published, it was sold to AOL for $315 million to add to its other online blog assets including Engadget, TechCrunch and MovieFone.

Today it’s website traffic is measured at over 77 million visitors per month.

That  blog is Huffington Post.

Tipping point

In the blogging world this was a watershed moment. Never before had so much money been paid for a blog.

New media is replacing and disrupting old media.

The old business model that made many media moguls billionaires and king makers was based upon the rivers of gold which were generated from classified ads. Today it is the website traffic that is creating the cash and the influence is moving online.

Huffington Post was purchased by AOL because of three key elements.

1. Its online and global influence
2. Advertising revenue
3.  Traffic

In one sense this new media is just a variation of old media except that it is online. It is still traffic, eyeballs and advertising.

It just happens to be digital.

The new media models

The new models are not so simple but multifaceted and convoluted. Making money from new media is not a singular approach but often a matrix of multiple opportunities and tactics.

Blogging has evolved rapidly because of the social web and in the past was driven by building email lists which took a lot of time. With the advent of social media their marketing and growth have been supercharged.

Global reach and influence at the speed of a tweet, a Facebook share or a viral video.

To make money from a blog in 2013 you do not have to be a Huffington Post. There are many ways to make a living out of blogging that can enhance your current business and lifestyle that are within everyone’s reach.

Let’s have a look at some of them.

1. Advertising

Just to show that the Huffington Post is not a one off, there are many blogs that generate significant revenue in then millions. One of those is Mashable.

Mashable’s model is based almost exclusively on building huge amounts of traffic that makes it an attractive platform for advertising. Current page views per month total approximately 50 million.  This also means producing a lot of content. To put that in perspective Mashable publishes dozens of articles a day to feed the content beast.

They work hard at optimizing their advertising and  have developed technology for:

• Infinite ad scrolling
• Story telling ads unit
• Content velocity algorithm

This blogging business model is becoming harder as advertising rates fall. But the rewards can be great with some reports that Peter Cashmore is worth nearly $100 Million US and the blog has been valued at over $200 million.

2. Sponsorship

Suzi Dafnis is the clever business brain behind a very successful blog that targets business women in Australia. It is called the Australian Business Women’s Network.  She must be doing something right! It has just won “Best Australian Blogs Competition” in the business Category.

Sponsorship is the main revenue source with sponsors including American Express, Optus and GoToWebinar.

3. Webinars and Seminars

Social Media Examiner was only started 4 years ago by Mike Stelzner and made its first million dollars within 12 months through paid online webinars. Mike (who by the way is one of the true gentlemen of the blogging world) has used his attention to detail, process and savvy business acumen to create a blog that is now ranked in the top 60 blogs in the world in just 48 months.

Mike knows how to shine the spotlight on others and hence they have returned the favour.

Prior to starting the Social Media Examiner blog Mike had run other blogs and businesses including one on how to “Write White Papers”. Mike has moved into producing conferences, with the recent success of the inaugural “Social Media Marketing World” in  San Diego.

If you want an insight into how he made his blog such a success I would recommend you read his book “Launch – How to Quickly Propel Your Business Beyond the Competition”

4. Speaking

Blogs can be the platform that makes you visible. This includes being invited to speak at conferences, workshops and seminars. Guy Kawasaki uses his blog as an online platform to promote his speaking and his books. 

Guy understands the importance of an online platform for building credibility and marketing his personal brand. He also understands the power of social media and has nearly 1.3 million Twitter followers

5. Books

Tim Ferriss is the author of  the New York Times best seller “The Four Hour Work Week”, which was about creating a success lifestyle in a web world. He has used his blog to launch not just one but three books after the huge success of his first book.

Tim uses his blog as his promotion platform for his books and for engaging and sharing his inspiration for experiments in lifestyle design.

6. Affiliate

Affiliate marketing  is the art of either selling other people’s products on your blog or getting affiliates to sell your products.  Brendon Burchard is one of many who have perfected this art and science.

One of the the key secrets to succeeding in this is building promotional partnerships with powerful online influencers and other bloggers who have significant followings online. Some of the pioneers in this space include Frank Kerns and Jeff Walker.

It can supercharge your revenue. For a further insight into how Brendon achieved success his book “Millionaire Messenger” is worth a read.

Another blogger and podcaster that understands how to use affiliate marketing to create revenue and is worth checking out is Pat Flynn, who is the force behind the blog “Smart Passive Income”

7. Consulting

Mark Schaefer is the force behind the awesome blog “Grow“. He uses his blog as his front door and shingle to his consulting, educating and training business that helps businesses grow by tapping into the marketing power of social media.

He is also the author of  several books including  ”Return on Influence” and “The Tao of Twitter”

8. Online Courses

Amy Porterfield is a blogger and a professional Facebook expert who has created and developed online training which is her main revenue stream. Her flagship course is Facebook  Training 101 – FB Influence. 

She understood the importance of her blog as the online portal to her online courses.

9. eBooks

Darren Rowse is the genius behind Problogger. Not only has he made that blog a business success but also started a Photography Blog called “Digital Photography School” with over 1 million subscribers . His eBooks on “blogging” and “photography” have become his main source of income

Darren makes money from his blog in 12 different ways. So making money from your blog is not just limited to one revenue stream. The challenge is working out how you can monetize with multiple channel sources.

10. Premium content – Paid Membership

Timothy Sykes blog is about how to make money on the stock market and his main source of revenue is by selling premium content which is accessed through paying to be a member on his site.

Premium content that is only accessible via monthly membership is a proven model and another one worth checking out is Psd.Tutsplus.com which is a resource and learning site for those who want to learn photoshop.

11. Sell Products

Tucker Max is a blog and brand that is memorable but maybe for all the wrong reasons. If hedonism is your thing then Tucker Max is is your man. He makes money from the blog in a variety of ways. The main source of income is selling his products on Amazon.

It highlights that even a bad image can be monetised. The creativity is up to you!

What about you?

As we have seen, blogging can  be both a business and an online portal to to express yourself. The challenge is deciding what you want it to be and how can you make it into a business and lifestyle that works for you.

So how do you make money from your blog? What types of revenue models attract you?

Look forward to hearing your stories in the comments below.

Want to learn how to create and market a successful global blog?

My book – “Blogging the Smart Way – How to Create and Market a Killer Blog with Social Media” – will show you how.

12 Common Misconceptions about Content Marketing

I don’t know everything about content marketing – no one does.

Sometimes we are tempted to think we do but when the truth comes home there is always a lot more to learn about content marketing’s role on the social web.

The concept is constantly evolving and we content marketers will strive to perfect it indefinitely. But currently, some are promoting false ideas about the concept of content marketing and these are sometimes preventing others from having success. 

Here is my list of misconceptions you should not fall for – I would be happy if you add yours to it… 

1. “Content Marketing is a new Concept”

Hey, I am part of the hype – makes me feel really up to date and cool. Still, marketing with (relevant) content is neither new nor an invention of Internet.

There is this great infographic by Content Marketing Institute on the history of Content Marketing. It gives some great examples of Content Marketing long before someone even thought of internet: Have you heard of the Michelin Guides developed in 1900 by Michelin?

Selling of content marketing as a new concept is truly dangerous, as it can prevent you from learning from past examples. Having a history allows you to do better in the future and hopefully build on past success.

2. Content Marketing is Digital

As stated before content marketing has a long history. Business people have been marketing with content for centuries without feeling the need to come up with a term for it. Content marketing strategies that have been used long before the web was in existence include:

• conferences
• lectures, seminars, workshops
• articles in industry magazines/papers
• industry report
• customer news papers
• Special magazines, guides and publications for clients
• …

Content Marketing is the art of producing and promoting useful and/or relevant content. There are many forms of content that businesses use to reach and communicate with current and future customers. Limiting your content strategy to digital and online marketing is limiting your action radius – and just because online marketing gives you new ways of reaching your audience does not mean you should ignore the traditional ways. In most cases the ideal strategy integrates both.

3. “Creating Content is Content Marketing”

You are producing content, so you think you are a content marketer?

Let me disappoint you: most likely you are wrong. There is much more to content marketing than producing content. A true content marketing strategy has to include concepts for content distribution, communication and interaction with the audience. You have to have a clear idea about which goals and which target group you want to reach.

Depending on your strategy, you need an editorial calendar and might need to include your company’s departments in your strategy for producing and distributing content. 

4. “Content curation makes you an expert”

There is a lot of talk about content curation and sharing other peoples’ great content.

This can definitely help you in your content distribution especially if you yourself do not have an endless reservoir of own outstanding content. Yet, it is not enough to share other peoples’ content to make you a thought leader and stand out as an expert in your field.

If you always know where to find great content it makes you an excellent researcher and shows that you know the great content marketers in your field. But: In the end your own views, ideas and concepts are part of your personality and expertise and one of the most important assets of your content marketing.

True content marketing includes your own, hopefully outstanding, content. If you are solely sharing other peoples’ content you are at risk of only becoming a multiplier for other peoples’ content strategy.

5. “Every content is good content”

Being active online and in social media, I sometimes get the impression that there is a competition going on who creates the most content instead of going for the best content. The truth is: you can gain more with one outstanding piece of content in the right outlets or channels and it will give you much more attention, feedback and branding effect than hundreds of cheap pieces of content no one really needs or wants to see.

The risk of creating too much (and possibly irrelevant or even bad) content is: it can easily backfire and mark you as a spammer.

6. “Producing SEO Content is Content Marketing”

Google is a friend of good content and Google is a powerful tool to give your content the attention it deserves – so far so true. But producing content for search engine optimization is not content marketing and optimizing your content for search engines (i.e. keywords etc.) does not necessarily give you success in content marketing. Focusing on SEO content strategies leaves out all the other great possibilities content marketing might hold for you.

Content in content marketing is created for an audience. This audience wants a well composed, informative and entertaining piece of content. Keyword staffing and optimization can kill the user experience and you are lost – Google might still bring people to your content, but you will not successfully market with this content.

It works better the other way round: producing quality content that your audience likes and recommends produces backlinks and social signals that improves your search positions in return. Google loves quality content.

7. “Content (Marketing) is for Google”

Content Marketing is for a target audience. Google might help you reach this audience, but you are still creating content for an audience and not for Google.

If you are creating content for Google, you are doing SEO, SEO is not content marketing (see above). Content in content marketing is created for people: your target audience. It is meaningful, interesting, informative and entertaining – it is created to speak to your audience and not Google.

Besides, I could base a complete content marketing strategy on content, that would never go online.

8. “Content Marketing is not for Google”

Wait – did I not just tell you, Content Marketing was not for Google?

Of course this only applies when your are online and your content is online:

Still, if done right content in content marketing will speak to Google. If your content attracts an audience, they will backlink to it. They will share on social platforms. They will recommend your content and rate it well. Being able to place content on high quality outlets gives you the opportunity to produce high quality backlinks to your site.

Search engines try to record all of this – because they love quality.

The one thing Google is trying to accomplish with all the recent updates is to bring users useful content they are searching for. Even if your content creation is focused on bringing good content to your audience without any thoughts about keywords, Google will eventually appreciate your efforts and help you get your content to your audience.

So, even while content marketing is not SEO and should not focus on satisfying Google, your SEO can profit from your content marketing efforts – or even more you should make sure that your content marketing and SEO go hand in hand.

9. “Everything in your editorial calendar is content”

 We once had a heated discussion in the office about what can be regarded as content and what isn’t content. The line between content and no content especially in social media is blurred, but I will try to give you some hints:

• If you tweet links and pictures, the links and pictures are content while the tweets are not.
• If you tweet a statement, your tweet might be considered content, depending on the statement and the audience.
• If you are running a site for jokes and you tweet jokes, your tweets are definitely content.

The same applies for Facebook.

A cat-picture might give you many likes on Facebook, but only in rare exceptional cases I consider it content.

10. “Your industry is too boring (or traditional) for content marketing”

Let me just quote Lisa Barone of Overit here. She made a statement about this point in an interview with exploreB2B:

“Complaining your industry isn’t glamorous tells me two things about you:

1. you don’t fully understand your customers need/pain points/ wants and
2. you are boring. 

The opportunity to create high-quality content is there, regardless of what industry you serve…. Just because your topic is toilets (or insurance, or telecom, or stained-glass windows), doesn’t mean your topic has to be 100-percent toilet focused.

Find those interesting periphery topics, or the topics your customers are passionate about, and create content around them.”

I do not think I have to add anything to this, as Lisa made it very clear.

11. “Content Marketing is the right strategy for every situation/Business”

Content Marketing is a hype and sometimes I get the feeling it is the new holy grail of Marketing which everyone has to do.

As with any business strategy you need to assess if it is really the right concept for you and your situation. In the end you might come to the conclusion that content marketing is not the best, most efficient and most effective strategy for you and you should rather be doing something else.

That being said: I do believe that most businesses can profit from a well designed and constantly refined content strategy – but in business you should always ask the necessary questions before running blindly into a new strategy.

12. “Content Marketing is a campaign”

This complete article was inspired by Joe Pulizzi, who in his recent article on Content Marketing Institute said: “Content marketing is not a campaign — it’s an approach, a philosophy, and a business strategy.“

This sentence says it all. You can have a video, a famous article or eBook – that does not make you a content marketer and it does certainly not make your company successful in content marketing.

Content Marketing is much more than the content, it is the strategic and well tuned combination of producing, publishing, sharing content, communicating and interacting around content and being part of discussions with a goal in mind.

Guest Author: Susanna Gebauer is one of the founders of the social publishing and content marketing platform exploreB2B. You can find more of Susanna’s content on her profile on exploreB2B. You can also find Susanna on Twitter.

 

Want to learn how to create and market your content?

My book – “Blogging the Smart Way – How to Create and Market a Killer Blog with Social Media” – will show you how.

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