Why You Should Be Doing Content Marketing Right Now

Content marketing is, perhaps, one of the most flexible marketing strategies ever. It works for almost every industry, company size, product and even cultural scenario. Hence, content marketing cannot be just a trend. It should be a long-term approach to your marketing.

Content marketing is a powerful way to influence people. By letting your customers know what your company, brand or product offer is, you could persuade them to do (almost) whatever you want. By creating content, you share your company's values, ideas, purpose and why not, your company taste and humor. All these elements are essential to attract and retain customers.

Why is content marketing important?

"If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?"

No marketing, no customers

Having a fantastic product has no value if people are not aware of it, right? That is why companies do marketing.

Unfortunately, nowadays, marketing is not so simple because we are kind of overloaded with all the information and content around us. If you want your company or product to be found, it is no longer enough to just do some marketing campaign here and there. You (or somebody on your behalf) should talk about your product constantly and on many channels. 

In addition, this “talk” needs to evolve as you will be reaching different consumers and prospects simultaneously. Some of those are more ready than others to buy. This means, your content needs to fulfill the “knowledge gap" they (all) will be phasing before purchasing any product.

Content marketing is a flexible and affordable way to bring information to your customers and prospects and build that journey -from creating awareness to getting the deal (and even after that).

Creating content and keeping this "talk" flowing is not an easy task, as many companies including your competitors are willing to fulfill the same gap and to build the same journey. There is where a differentiated quality content will put you on the map, or better to say, on the rank of the search engines.

Content marketing is not just a marketing task. It can be the best ally for you company success.

5 reasons why you should be doing content marketing right now:

 - You can reach prospects who did not ever know that you existed. Content marketing can effectively help you building brand awareness. For example, by writing a blog you can increase the possibility to be found. At the same time, you can attract new traffic to your website.

- By helping people with your content you can build valuables relationships and gain the trust of people in an affordable way.

- You can reach a different kind of prospects -from a customer who does not know what he/she wants, to another who is ready to make a decision. You can provide suitable information and content to help them both to make the next move.

- You can enhance your brand image and your reputation, by for example sharing your expertise and your uniqueness.

- You can increase your customer engagement by opening new ways to communicate with them (and to find the solution for their challenges).

Remember, content marketing is not a sprint. It is more like a marathon. Constancy and perseverance are essential. You cannot expect to get results by just publishing two pieces of content. The more content you share the more people will see your content and remember your brand. Of course, quality matters. Make sure that your content is helpful and well-written.

SEO, Content Creation, Social Media and Courage: A Summary Of My First Year Of Blogging

A year ago I decided to start my own blog. I was missing writing so badly.  I wanted to practice my writing and to develop my marketing,  communications and social media skills. As you might know by now, my background is in marketing and in communications, however, during the last two years, I have been working mostly on sales.

Starting my own blog was something new and very personal. When you do marketing for a company, you focus more on the product, on the brand or on the corporation. In addition, you have to align your content with your company messages and you have to schedule your posts according to the company's plan. My blog is a perfect place to talk about the things that I am interested in. Here, I can focus on my own thoughts and I can arrange my own schedule.

The main goal of my blog is not to sell or to promote a company. It has been a personal experiment, a development plan. I have learned so much from my readers, and I am very thankful for that. In fact, there have been more readers than what I expected at the beginning of this journey. Some of my articles have been read around 1000 times. This is very encouraging and motivating.

I have experimented a lot and learned from each post. Here, the three most important things I have learned during this year of blogging:

1) Creating the right content for your blog

The process of creating content for my blog has been fascinating and challenging at the same time. It is good that you cannot see my drafts. At the moment, there are ca. 40 messy ideas. This blog has helped me to find a writing opportunity in almost everything in my life. Sometimes, I get topic ideas from things I see at my work place, other times, from my friend's conversations and experiences or from a book. I have accumulated a lot of ideas, however, some of those need to be very polished before I actually can publish those. Ideas are not very useful if I am not able to create something relevant from those.

Yes, content is the king, but I have learned that the way I present my content is also very important. It is not only about having fancy pictures but, more about having the right structure. SEO matters and you can see that very clearly when you have the chance to try these structures, titles, subtitles and wording, and measure the results by yourself. It is a great learning experience.

In a nutshell, a blog post should be:
- Relevant (information that matters)
- Easy to read
- With the right structures (titles, subtitles, etc.)
- With the right keywords to be found.

2) Mastering Social Media: 

To share your content on other channels is a must if you want to be found.  In my case, I use social media to promote my blog and my posts. Most of the visitors come to my blog from Twitter or from Google+. There is some organic search, too. I have used Facebook only a few times and I have gotten great results. However, I don't use Facebook so often because half of my contacts are not speaking English. It feels like I would be spamming them.

When I publish something on my social media channels, I can see the changes to the visitors' statistics. Following the Google and Blogger analytics have been very important part of the development of my blog. I have had the chance to play with many messages and content and see if those work or not.

There is something about the timing, too. I get more visitors to my blog if I promote at the right time for my audience. In my case, I write mostly in English so, half of the visitors are coming from the USA. When I tweet at the USA time I get more visitors than if I tweet at my local (Finnish) time. However, Finns are reading my blog, too. (Kiitos!)

Social media is all about interactions and getting to know people. I have noticed that if somebody "relevant" likes or share my tweet promoting my blog post, I get more visitors. If I am the one sharing other's people content, I also get more visibility. Sharing is caring.

3) Courage:
Jeff Bullas said once that "The biggest challenge for any blogger, social media marketer, content creator, and publisher is to -start- ". I could not agree more. It took a while for me to start this project, but, I am very glad I did.

Writing a blog is getting exposure. This can be very intimidating at some points. It took me a while to start my blog trying to find the perfect topic (or even the perfect language). The truth is that the perfect topic does not exist, so you just need to write and publish. I have done this experiment and I am glad about the results and the learning. Sometimes, I write and publish. Other times, I come back and edit. It is all about experimenting.  Hopefully, you have enjoyed this year on my planet as well. Thank you for be there.

Your Employees Are Getting Social: Are You ready?

I have always believed that the employees are the best ambassadors of the company, its brands and products. The companies need employees to be represented in front of customers, competitors, and even future employees. It is clear for all of us that if employees are happy, they will share it with the people around- in offline or online scenarios. Online, for example, they will share pictures of the company events or they will tweet about the good time they have at work. Their friends will get this info (and maybe they will get jealous, too) and they will ask for more information and maybe for a job in that “so good” company. Other case could be when your employee’ friends can be your customers, and they will be buying your products, inspired by the company guy’s comments.

With the reach of the social media, the messages that you employees are delivering are part of the company communication, in an easier, informal and yet more powerful way.

The power social media has given to employees can be intimidating for many managers, especially if they are not familiar with the new channels. If as a manager you are getting anxious and even stressed because this is something that you cannot control, it is moment to take it easy -to take it forward. You cannot avoid social media anymore. You cannot control the employees’ communication but, you can help them to understand the importance of their communication and the role they play in increasing your company online presence.

  

The debate about prohibiting to use or to check the channels at work or not has been on the table for a while. Prohibiting employees to take part of the conversation can be more a problem than a solution. Ignoring the role that your employees can play in this social media game just because they don’t master the channels is a fail, too. Instead, arranging some basic workshop on how to use the media, what kind of tonality is appropriate, etc. might help you to canalize the message in the right direction and especially, to avoid negative surprises in the future. The most important thing to remember is to use this workshop to encourage your employees and to improve their confidence in using social media.

The social media channels are inexpensive and give you access to the entire world. See social media as a networking channel which will help you spreading your message and get fans and followers. Employees can see what is happening around your product and in your business. They can also perceive the direction that the industry is taking, and therefore, react on time and innovate.

If you are in one of those industries in which social media is not yet a common practice, enjoy, you are very lucky. Don’t wait for the other companies to go ahead, you have the chance to show how to do it first. Social media is happening, you cannot avoid this anymore.

Your Social Media Channel Is Not Your Warehouse

The social media channels have been there for a while, however, there are still many companies just taking baby steps developing their social media strategy. It is never too late to start using those but, do not try to put all the information that you have accumulated during the last decades on the new channels. Social Media Marketing is not just about getting the traditional marketing material, the old content, on Facebook. We don’t want to have #throwback –everyday. 

Social Media is to think outside the box: 

 

I believe that social media is for fresh content. Do you agreed?


The good thing of these channels is that those have challenged us to see the content in a complete different way. Social media is about interaction, interesting things, new visual approaches, taking risks and a bit of urgency, too. Don’t forget to innovate, to think out of the box and especially, to have fun.

If you don’t know how to use Twitter yet, look around, is any digi-native out there? Put your pride on the warehouse and enjoy the journey. Social media does not need to be a torture. I can promise that, if you find your soul-mate “some” channel, you will love it to death.

I have been very lucky. I have had the opportunity to work in different business areas and to move from consumer oriented business to business-to-business (and vice versa). The way we do marketing and communication is quite different in both environments but, the truth is that the readers are all human beings, who will fall sleep and leave your site if you just give boring “yesterday news”. It does not matter how important that old picture or that old newspaper article is for you.

So, before writing your next 140 characters, take a deep breath and share something to shake your business and to engage new followers. Be patient and constant, you cannot get your first 1000 fans on one shot and therefore, you cannot get sales results by dropping two lines. Be realistic!