This document provides tips for organizations to become powerful social media publishers by organizing content, channels, and connections. It recommends auditing existing material and determining keywords to develop helpful, entertaining content for people and search engines. It also suggests starting with a website and blog, then distributing content across social networks and forums while engaging communities. The key is thinking like a publisher, giving audiences valuable exclusive content through a consistent publishing plan.
4. Why Social Media? You can buy attention (advertising) You can beg for attention from the media (PR) You can bug people to get attention (sales) Or you can earn attention by creating something interesting and valuable and then publishing it online for free: a YouTube video, a blog, a research report, photos, a Twitter stream, an ebook, a Facebook page.
14. Content What do people like to read and see? STORIES HELPFUL TIPS NEWS/GOSSIP HOW-TO
15. Content • Write to your keywords and tags • Reuse and repurpose • Always be helpful (or at least entertaining)
16. Channels • Start with your website • Create newsletter and a blog • Create as many links back to your site as possible • Begin adding this content to fan pages, discussion groups and other forums
17. Channels For Example… Take your blog post… Tweet about it, Put it on Facebook, Linked In, Digg, Delicio.us, Friend Feed Email a link to your network.
18. Channels Think about: • Who you want to talk to • Where they are • What you want to do with them
19. Connections Engage everyone in your organization Connect with everyone in your business ecosystem Constantly join or create communities
20. Connections Once you have made connections: • Make them feel special • Provide insider information • Give them stuff • Create experiences for them
22. The Rules… • Think like a publisher, not a marketer • Make your content valuable: Give your audience something they can’t find anywhere else • Select your channels and communities carefully • Create a publishing plan and stick to it
How many of you have changed something on your website this week? Added a blog? Posted company news? Announced an event? The first thing you have to understand is that if you want search engines and potential customers to find you, you have to change your site constantly by adding new content. The simplest way to do this is add a blog and archive your news letters on your site’s back pages.
When you market using social media, you have lots of channels. And lots of choices to make. Well, let me tell you a dirty little secret, very few sales are made on Social Networks. The reason is that people are there to socialize, not to shop. Now with that in mind, why are so many companies trying to use social networks as a marketing channel?
You probably already have a lot of great content. It’s on your website, in product brochures, research studies, annual reports, customer testimonials and more. All you have to do is begin to look at it a different way. Become a reporter or an editor trying to develop stories that your readers will enjoy.
You want to be able to attract readers and search engine spiders. Both will improve your search engine rankings.
People love to read stories, news, gossip, and tips that simplify their lives. Make sure your blog titles and news articles reflect this.
Put keywords in titles and in the first four lines of text. Add keywords to tags. A blog post becomes a newsletter article becomes a comment on a forum. There are lots of ways to get a lot of mileage out of a single piece of content. Always remember, people are looking to learn. You are trying to help them do that.
Your website is your number one channel. Everything starts from here and it’s where everything should end. Once you have created a blog and a newsletter. Begin to promote the content there by linking to as many places as possible. Create a You Tube video. And be sure to archive your newsletters on your site.
For Mainbrain, the people we needed to talk to were small business owners who worried that their computer systems would fail. They should get on executive forums and offer articles on “How To Know When Your Server Is Going To Fail.”
Finally you need to begin building a tool kit. Here are a couple and there are many more.
There are several tools that can help you organize your social media publishing effort. One is the “Editorial Organizer.”
Just a simple, project management-style spreadsheet. Simple but terrifically helpful when it comes to organizing your efforts. It assigns content, sets due dates, indicates tags and keywords and lists the channels you’ve decided to use along with where the content should link to.
Social Toaster is one of the tools I use to help my clients make more of an impact with their Social Media marketing efforts. It helps increase the number of people you reach exponentially by automatically pushing your content out to a group of ambassadors who then push it out to their networks on Facebook, Twitter and Linked In.
The biggest barrier to a successful content marketing effort is how you find the resources to make it happen. How do you mobilize your people to create a constant stream of content?
Remember, the key is to publish on a consistent basis.
Content can be a real resource and can be repurposed in many ways if you get it right the first time. Now I want to leave you with a vision: Pretend for a minute that the Baltimore Sun comes to you and says, “I want you to write a daily column that talks about you, your company and what you offer.” Would you do it? Sure you would, but then the question is how to you find the resources to do it? Are you able to do it? And what if I told you I was from the paper and I wanted to give you a little box on the front page that you could fill with something everyday? Would you take that opportunity? Sure! But then you would still have to make a commitment to do it. Now here’s the secret—you not only have that opportunity, but you own the newspaper, too.