One of my favorite things about the content marketing industry is that it's such a collaborative and communicative field. We share each other's words on social media platforms and house each other's content on our blogs. It's very community oriented and I dig it. My best friends and mentors are people I've never even physically met. In fact, for most of them, I've never even heard their voices, but I know their Twitter handle better than I know my own phone number.
In that sprit of collaboration: I write about content marketing all day and every day for GroupHigh, so I feel that I have some good tips to share. The following eight tactics are content marketing mistakes that a lot beginners make, and I'm here to help you not look like a "newbie."
- Write content to sell your brand. Your content marketing strategy shouldn't ever include you writing about your brand. Instead, you should provide valuable resources in the genre your brand falls in to. This creates a trust surrounding your image.
- Tweet about yourself. Of course you want to share your content on Twitter and you should. But it shouldn't be the only content that you share. Think about what interests the majority of your audience and share any post from any author that would be useful to them. Also, don't ever send out a tweet talking about how cool you are; please refrain.
- House content on as many platforms as possible. You want to try different platforms but you need to be quick to get rid of the ones that don't work for you. Because you're tracking all of your efforts, right?
- Take on an overly formal writing voice. Okay, so everyone's audience members are different. But I don't know any audience that would rather communicate with a robot than a human. Hone in on the voice of your content and don't be shy to let inner human come out.
- Write for your audience. You should be writing with them. Letting your audience feel like they are part of your company and/or content process makes them feel so important and much more likely to advocate for your brand. Ask for their input and topic ideas and then give them a shout out on your social media channels when you put their ideas into effect. This will go a long way. Also, watch your posts with a hawk eye so that you can engage in the comments section as this is a great place to get their input. Collaborate with your audience members whenever possible.
- You don't need to reach out to other bloggers. Blogger outreach and influencer marketing are crucial to your marketing process because bloggers are the influencers who talk about your brand word of mouth-the best kind of "marketing" a brand can get.
- Let your content get found. I've seen too many people make the mistake of moving on after they produce an awesome piece of content with little to no promotion. One of the most time consuming components of my job is promoting my content. Honestly, I spend more time building relationships and promoting my content than I do writing...You know when you have written something good, so let the world see it!
- Keep pumping out content. You should never write a piece of content because you feel like you need another post. You should only write content when you think you have some worthwhile tips, piece of information or a unique view to share.
Whether or not a tactic should be used or thrown out is usually stumbled upon through experience. I would love to talk about tactics that you've tried and then got rid of in your own content marketing strategy in the comments below. Cheers to a good discussion!
(image: content marketing rookie mistake / shutterstock)