The subject of successful content marketing has become a hot topic in the last 18 months, particularly with the rise and rise of social media engagement. The main thing which drives social media engagement, of course, is successful content marketing.
Without solid, strategic and sizzling content marketing, social media marketing can be little more than broadcasting badly.
So, if content marketing is critical to social media success, what are the basic considerations to bear in mind?
When it comes to considering successful content marketing, there are six main elements which are pivotal:
* Relevance
This seems so obvious, but many fail to ensure that their content marketing is actually relevant to the audience. To ensure your content is relevant requires a close look at the makeup of the audience first - and then tailoring content for their needs. This takes time, effort, and awareness of the followers and fans on your social media networks. Relevant content wins every time.
* Reach
The reach of your content marketing is crucial. When content is passed on, it becomes a powerful part of your online marketing mix. But to ensure that your content has 'reachability', it's critical that you first ensure it is useful, interesting and timely. A constant barrage of broadcasting, selling content messages will rarely (if ever) achieve a profitable reach with your audience.
* Reactive
Good content marketing reacts to the current affairs, trends, industry events and best thinking happening in your sector or market - thus, using well-timed content around key commentaries happening on a regular basis helps to develop thought-leadership, readership loyalty and trust over time.
* Respectful
Effective content marketing is respectful - respectful of an audience's time, engagement and attention. The biggest gift we get from a readership is their time, so it's important to respect their time by giving them great content. Seems pretty obvious - but there's an awful lot of white noise, spam-based and outright selling content being hammered at people out there. Don't add to it.
* Researched
One of the most effective elements in delivering successful content marketing is to provide well-researched content. This saves your audience time, and gives them valuable information they can use. Well-researched content also speaks with an edge and authority very easily - which further adds to the readability and reach of your content marketing across social media networks.
* Reliable
Being reliable with your content marketing might sound like an obvious point to consider, but many forget it. There are many sporadic tweets, bombardment-based Facebook profiles and erratic blogs online. Make your content marketing reliable, consistent and deliver regular gems. By being reliable online, it also highlights your reliability offline. This matters - a lot.