Tightly integrating a brand’s content marketing and social media strategies makes both more successful. Research suggests effective content marketers are 5 times more likely to work from a documented content strategy and are using more social platforms than those falling behind.
This presentation excerpt identifies smart opportunities for effectively and efficiently integrating content and social strategies to deliver stronger business results. It includes questions to develop an audience persona as the foundation to identify business opportunities where content marketing makes sense, smart content topics any business can develop, and the types of conversion-oriented messages to incorporate in the brand's content stream.
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• What are you learning as an organization?
• How are you addressing industry issues?
• What customer service issues have you solved?
• How is your team working with customers?
• How does you improve your community?
• What does the team do outside work?
Do
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Involve the Audience
1. Answer questions your customers
or readers have asked you.
2. Ask a question of your readers to
see what they think.
3. Ask readers what they’d like to read.
4. Ask 5 customers in a row the same
question and write their responses
in a blog.
5. Interview a customer on concerns,
challenges, and views on industry
issues.
6. Look for blog titles from your
industry and write your version of
the topic.
7. Publish potential upcoming topics
and let readers decide what they
want to read.
8. Run an online survey for readers
and report the results.
9. Share a question on Facebook or
Google+ and use responses for a
blog post.
10. Feature guest posts from clients.
11. Solicit guest blog posts from
business partners.
12. Talk to customers at events and find
out what their current challenges
are.
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Sharing What Your Brand Knows
13. Interview yourself on a topic.
14. Recap a past event.
15. Recap the results of a research
report someone else published.
16. Report on a conference people
from your company attended.
17. Reveal background info on things
that make your organization
successful.
18. Share really cool work your
organization is doing.
19. Share the results of research your
organization has completed.
20. Summarize what your organizations
knows about a news topic.
21. Write about things your audience
might not realize.
22. Write about what your organization
does to serve customers.
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Teach Others
23. Expand your thinking on a published
post so it is more teaching‐oriented.
24. Take a new angle on a topic
you’ve written about already.
25. Teach a new technique or tips
you’ve been using.
26. Write about something you learned
in the last week to share with
readers.
27. Demonstrate a process your
company uses that is valuable for
your audience.
28. Answer frequently asked questions
that require video demonstrations.
29. Feature experts in your business
sharing their knowledge.
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30. Make a long list of ideas your
customers and readers can use.
31. Make a short list of steps readers
can take to accomplish something.
32. Write anything allowing you to put a
number in the title (it attracts
readers).
33. Add additional items to a list
you’ve already published.
34. List the types of customer
problems you routinely solve.
35. List questions you’re getting
in customer service.
36. Ask readers a question and
report the answers in a list.
37. List the steps in a process readers
could handle for themselves.
Make a List
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Share Opinions
38. Write what your organization thinks
about a topic or a news story.
39. Disagree with a well‐known business
perspective.
40. Write a response to an idea in a book
relevant for your audience/industry.
41. Predict what your organization thinks
will happen in the future.
42. React to opinions a competitor or
an industry figure is discussing.
43. Review a book or magazine article
you’ve read recently.
44. Review a fantastic product or service
your organization uses.
45. Review a topic people are thinking
about in your marketplace.
46. Share a half‐baked idea to see if
readers can finish baking it.
47. Write a blog post that’s 80% done
and allow readers to finish it.
48. Write about something completely
obvious as if you’re the first to think
of it.
49. Write about something completely
obvious in a new way.
50. Write about anything to interest
readers more than recent topics.
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Have Your People Personalize It
51. Complain about a personal recent
customer experience relevant to
your audience.
52. Share an anecdote from your
organization.
53. Talk honestly about an issue where
your organization is struggling to
improve.
54. Thank a customer who has been
loyal
to your business.
55. Write about the most interesting
thing
that happened in your organization
today, yesterday, or this week.
56. Write about what inspires your
organization and its people.
57. Cover community activities your
organization supports.
58. Create a post that’s slightly more or
less outrageous than the typical
content.
59. Write something dramatically more
or less outrageous than what you
typically write.
60. Write something that allows you to
name drop customers who will
share it within their networks.
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Use Video and Images
61. Video executives sharing brief
commentaries.
62. Video a demonstration relevant
for your audience.
63. Video an interview with a work
colleague or business partner.
64. Ask 5 customers to answer the
same question on video.
65. Use photos from corporate events
or customer interactions.
66. Feature photos of interesting things
your organization DOES.
67. Video a customer talking about
its business.
68. Have two customers interview each
other.
69. Video a day in the life of your
customer service organization.
70. Shoot a short video with reasons
why others should Like your
Facebook page.
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Repurpose Content
71. Combine shorter posts from your
organization’s blog into a longer
one.
72. Expand a comment from another
blog into a full blog post.
73. Group tweets from your
organization into a list or other blog
post.
74. Organize and refresh in new ways
relevant information that’s already
been published.
75. Publish links from your blog to make
it easier to find everything on a
topic.
76. Publish a presentation from your
organization on Slideshare to
embed in a blog.
77. Re‐edit and freshen something
already written with new content.
78. Re‐run the most popular post(s)
your organization has shared.
79. Share an intriguing video with
comments to give your thoughts
about it.
80. Write up the points covered in a
slide from a Powerpoint
presentation.
81. Embed a funny or on‐target
cartoon.
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• Non‐exclusive offers (A deal for everybody)
• Giveaways (Something for engaging)
• Sharing content for information (Permission to keep talking)
• Peaking interest (Sneak looks at product)
• Micro‐advertising (Links to ads)
• Exclusive offers (Deals for those acting)
• Direct response (Click the link to buy)
• Proactive outreach (We can meet your need)
• All Deals, All the Time (Dell – nothing but deals)