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March 20, 2017 by RonTester Leave a Comment

Content Marketing Mistakes

Content Marketing Mistakes

Content marketing mistakes can undermine the impact your efforts are having. Find out what they are and what to do about them here.

Content marketing is a very important method of getting the word out about your products and/or services. Content marketing is the best way to inform, educate and engage your audience while building authority in the eyes of your audience. However, there are some common content marketing mistakes that you’ll definitely want to avoid.

Ignoring SEO – Search engine optimization involves both on- and off-page actions that you can take to ensure that search engines find your website, blog or product. SEO uses certain techniques and tactics to help your audience find you. Don’t think that it doesn’t matter. The more you put these improvements into place, the better your results.  And if you notice things have gone off the rails, SEO-wise, don’t be afraid to face the facts and fix what you can.

Not Using Automation Wisely – Automation can be misused, but it needs to be used to help make everything possible. You’re only one person. Even if you have an assistant, virtual or otherwise, automation will help you get more done. A good rule of thumb is that you should personally respond and interact with people on social media and within comments of your blog, but you should use automation for everything else.

Not Promoting Your Content – When you create any type of content that you want people to find, you should promote it via your social media networks and email. You can even promote it via pay-per-click ads (although I don’t do this, I know people that have and thought it was worth the investment). If you don’t promote your content, you’ll get a lot less positive results from it.

Forgetting to Optimize Your Headlines – Part of search engine optimization involves headlines, but it deserves a special mention. There are some ways to ensure your headlines are optimized. First, put the keywords in the first three words. Second, when possible, test out more than one headline to see what gets the best response.

Creating Poor Quality Content – Your audience doesn’t want a ton of content under all circumstances. If you cannot create quality content on a daily basis, don’t. Create quality content on a schedule that works for you. If it’s high quality, answers questions, and solves problems, it will be welcomed.

Not Publishing Enough – This may sound contradictory, but you do have to publish enough to get noticed and keep the interest of your audience. Don’t get so bogged down in perfection that you neglect creating new content at least weekly.

Giving Up Too Quickly  – We’re in an instant economy, and many people aren’t interested in building something sustainable. If a few blog posts don’t result in an immediate flood of business, it’s tempting to quit. The reality is that if you are building a business that will last, you’re going to have to build it brick by brick, post by post. There’s no real shortcut to sustainability. Ultimately, though, if you quit you won’t get the results you want.

If you can avoid these content marketing mistakes, you’ll have a lot more success with your content marketing efforts. To read about Neil Patel’s take on content marketing mistakes, feel free to check out his article here. If you have other mistakes you’d like to warn your fellow readers about, please share them. 

Filed Under: Content Marketing Tagged With: Blogging, Ron Tester

February 28, 2017 by RonTester 2 Comments

Creating Content for Social Media

Creating Content for Social MediaOne of the types of content that you need to create in your content marketing endeavors is social media content. Social media content is any content that you will use for purposes of promoting on social media. It might be a blurb that goes with a link to a video or blog post, or it might be an infographic or meme to help you get a point or two across. Creating content for social media is an important part of every business’s marketing strategy.

* Plan Ahead – Most people seem to totally forget to plan ahead regarding social media content. This is a mistake. If you create a blog post, for example, then you should create a tweet, a Facebook post, and other blurbs for whatever social media network that you plan to share the information on. I use PromoRepublic as one source of ideas, then post ideas on my calendar.

* Add the Content to Your Calendar – Include social media content on your editorial calendar. If you know that in August you’re going to promote a great new product or service, then you should also be planning for social media content to use in that promotion — both leading up to the launch and during the launch.

* Create Images for Social Media – Remember that images are a form of content, and that you need to create images for social media sharing. Images are more likely to be shared than text and are an important part of your marketing actions on social media. Using a variety of images as content, like infographics and memes, will increase shares and engagement. For images you can use for free (personal and commercial), I use Pixabay.com. If they don’t have what I’m looking for, I use a stock photo site such as DepositPhotos.com. Please be very careful not to use any image without explicit permission. If you copy and paste an image from another website, it could end up costing you thousands of dollars in legal fees. There are unscrupulous lawyers that make a living suing bloggers and small business people for unauthorized use of photos/images.

* Outsource It – You can use your content calendar to get help creating social media content with experts. These experts can help you create infographics, memes and a with a copywriting expert they can also help you craft just the right words to use for a blurb supporting your other promotions, products and services.  I have an awesome virtual assistant that I found on Upwork.com. She does a great job and gives me tremendous peace of mind.

* Share More Than Once – It’s important that you promote the content that you create and that you do it more than once. People do not check their entire social media stream, so sharing the same content with new blurbs and a new spin on the information several times will increase the view rate exponentially. This is something I’m working on. I am sharing on Twitter and Facebook pretty regularly, not so often on LinkedIn, and I rarely reshare content.

* Conduct A/B Testing – Also called split testing, you want to see what times, headlines, and topics get more attention than others. As you collect this data, you’ll soon know exactly what time is best to share any updates with your social media followers. This is something I am reading more and more about but honestly haven’t been doing that much of. Perhaps when I have more time or get more sophisticated in my testing.

* Target Each Audience – Each social media network has its own personality, and the portion of your audience that follows you and engages with you on each network is usually slightly different. Therefore, it’s important to ensure that the content you create is right for that network.

* Create Content Often – With social media you need to have content for most days of the week, and share it more than once per day. This can seem like a lot of content to create, but it all stems from the basic message you want to get across to your audience based on your promotions. I was inspired to post more by Grant Cardone, the sales trainer and author who wrote The 10X Rule. He’s a social media machine, posting a dozen times a day or more. I don’t feel like going there, but I did realize I needed to step it up.

Creating content for social media will be a large part of your content creation program. It will help ensure that the products, services and information that you need to communicate to your audience gets the attention it needs. While you’re busy creating all of this content, be sure to listen to your audience and see what they’re saying. Are they asking questions you can answer? Is there confusion in your market you can help to clarify? More good reasons to post!

Filed Under: Content Marketing Tagged With: Social Media

February 21, 2017 by RonTester 2 Comments

WordPress Plugins You Should Consider

If you’re using WordPress (and you should probably be), you might be wondering about which plugins to use. I know there are a zillion choices and each one seems to offer something a little different. As I was researching for my own blog, I came across this article: 14 Essential WordPress Plugins for Content Creators.

I’ve used Google Analytics and Yoast SEO for quite awhile and recommend them both highly. If you haven’t installed them both, I would recommend you start there. I am installing several others, including iControlWP and EditFlow Calendar, and I will check back in and let you know what I learn along the way.

If you have blogging questions or tips, please feel free to comment below or email me.

Happy blogging!

 

Filed Under: Content Marketing Tagged With: Blogging

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