Content marketing is not just about content.
Content marketing excellence is the result of the successful intersection of search engines, social media, email, content and blogging. Done well it is a multidisciplinary approach to the challenge of making your content as visible to as many people as possible in the shortest amount of time. It doesn’t matter whether you are a blogger, corporate marketer or a small business.
Content marketing is many moving parts.
But there is a problem with how many people view content marketing. They get “content” but they sometimes forget the last word “marketing”. It smells of the of the mantra of “build it and they will come”. Do you expect readers to just show up when you create content?
So what is it that even some of the best content marketers forget?
What is forgotten?
They forget to hustle their content.
What do I mean by hustle? It means pushing, prodding and publishing to as many digital channels as time and resources allow. it means optimizing for search engines, emailing your grandma and making all your social media networks sing.
Many of us have a preference for a certain social network. It may be Facebook, so your blog post is published and also posted to Facebook. They think they are done. It’s publish and it’s tweeted..once. That’s it. If they have a email marketing bent, they send it to their email list. Time to sit back and relax.
You need to do more!
The art of content hustling
So how do you press, push and thrust your content into the web spotlight? How do you elbow your brand in front of the crowd?
Here are some tips to online blog post and content visibility.
#1. Optimize for search engines
If you have a blog post in the production line there is an important element to complete before hitting “publish”. It’s called “optimizing for search engines”
I use the WordPress plugin called WordPress for SEO by Yoast. It makes it easy to get the basics right for optimizing for search.
Now this search engine optimisation practice doesn’t mean immediate rankings at the top of Google for your post. But it does mean that you are making it easy for search engines to identify your key words and phrases and index them. So over time as you build domain authority and keep optimizing that you are giving yourself a chance to appear on page one of Google.
#2. Tweet that content
Twitter is one of the top social networks for making your content move. So continue to grow your Twitter followers and tweet it straight after publishing.
Also include the headline, the link and don’t forget to add several hashtags.
#3. Published to Facebook
This a no-brainer but it shouldn’t be forgotten. Also keep in mind that it should be optimized for maximum visual effect. This often means manual posting to ensure you have a large image for that big impact rather than letting the default thumbnail be published to your Timeline.
Also don’t forget to include the now ever present #hashtag
#4. Posted to Google+
Google+ is too big too ignore anymore and it follows a similar process to Facebook. Hashtags, link and the larger image upload.
#5. Pushed to LinkedIn
Linkedin is maybe not where you will see any content go “viral”. But it is evolving to becoming more content centric. So make sure you include it in your content hustle and share your post on LinkedIn.
Other people will help make it move!
#6. Pinned to Pinterest
We know that Pinterest favours visual content but even if you are a text focused blogger you can still use it to pin your feature image.
#7. Flipped to Flipboard
A few months ago I noticed significant traffic emerging from Flipboard. So I took a closer look and decided to add it to my content marketing hustle. I am finding now that it can drive several hundred page views to my blog every day.
Give it a try.
#8. Emailed to your list
Building an email,list from day one should be in the content marketers “must do” list. But there is one top tip that I would like to highlight. When emailing your content out to your email list, don’t include the complete published post. Include the introduction and ask them to click on the hyperlink to visit your website/blog.
Once you have them on your site then they may hang around.
#9. Tweeted again and again
There is one thing to keep in mind with Twitter. It isn’t an inbox but a stream. So tweet your post several times on the first day. If it is evergreen content then it can be tweeted on a recurring basis.
If your content is just tweeeted once, it maybe and often is missed or forgotten.
What about you?
How do you hustle your content? What works for you?
Look forward to reading your insights and stories in the comments below.
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