In honor of spring time coming our way, it's time to revisit and liven up our content marketing strategies. Here are some ways to boost the effectiveness of the content you generate.
Acquire an Active SlideShare and LinkedIn presence
Lately there has been a lot of buzz about companies having a strong presence on LinkedIn and SlideShare and rightfully so. Marketing research shows that companies have been getting great results by utilizing these channels.
Try spicing up your companies LinkedIn profile with pictures and banners and make sure you have solid and helpful content on your company's page. This site is generating a lot of leads for B2B.
Joe Pullizi, founder of Content Marketing Institute (and content marketing guru) said that SlideShare is "the most underutilized content distribution tool - and it's not even close." If you haven't used SlideShare yet, it allows you to upload power point presentations to live on the web.
Produce More Evergreen Content
Evergreen content will appeal to your audience all year around-just like an evergreen tree! While using the holidays and news headlines make for interesting content, be careful of doing too much of this because once the holiday is over or the news headline has passed, your content expires.
Create Epic Content Instead of More Content
Epic content is content that is original and worth sharing. It's an idea put in to words that has the potential to go viral.
Though it can be a contracted out infographic or extensive case study, it doesn't have to be. It can be something inspiring, engaging, unique, etc. that readers want to bookmark or share.
If you focus on creating one piece of epic content a week instead of writing filler content, you will be sure to see an improvement in the traffic to your site.
Experiment with Alternative Story Forms
Alternative story forms are posts and articles which deviate from the traditional block of text.
Readers want visually appealing stories and blog posts. You have about three seconds to reel in their attention and though your title could be awesome and your content might be really informative, a reader still may not read your words if they don't contain pictures and an easy to take in structure.
Here is a great SlideShare presentation on a bunch of good alternative story form examples.
At the very least, your posts should contain images, heading and sub-headings to break up an intimidating wall of text.
Boost Your Blogger Outreach
This is the number one way to maximize and revive your content marketing strategy. Bloggers act as the middle man and recommend your brand to their large audiences.
Here are some resources on how to boost your blogger outreach campaigns:
-If blogger outreach is or will be a big part of your strategy, try an outreach tool like GroupHigh.
-If you are new to blogger outreach, refer to this guide for a rundown on all aspects of the process.
-Kikolani is a great site with tips on how to help you take your blogging to the next level.
From alternative story forms to the bloggers you reach out to, make sure that you are tracking what works and what doesn't so that you can mimic the tactics that give you success.
I would love to hear and respond to comments below on the content marketing tactics that you've been focusing on lately!