Content is King. So...what's your content strategy?

Social Marketing channels such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Blogs, YouTube and Forums (and many more that I won’t cheese sandwich mention just now) are perfect vehicles for sharing content.

However, now more than ever, what we share has never been more important.

These channels provide excellent opportunities to share compelling content, content that helps others to want to know us, like us, trust us, share our message and ultimately do business with us.

So… we certainly shouldn’t be wasting the opportunity these far reaching channels provide by talking about the latest cheese sandwich we just ate. (Unless of course you’re Pret and it’s a tactic you’ve employed!).

Businesses of all shapes and sizes now need to be getting their ‘content house’ in order.

Ask yourself…

Have you got a strategy for regularly creating fresh and acceptable content?
Have you got a blog that you regularly update for your business?
Are you regularly creating videos for your business – how to videos, sharing FAQs, customer testimonials, new product and service features?
Have you got any research info that others would be interested in?
Are you an authority in a specific area - can you create 'whitepapers', industry reports etc?

Content is all around us – and so it’s a case of ensuring that you employ a mechanism for collating it and using it effectively.

Content is King for a number of reasons

Fresh and compelling content is key for a number of reasons:

Helps you get found online - Really good for SEO – (search engine optimisation) purposes – as search spiders love coming to find regularly updated, keyword enabled content.
Keeps your online presence fresh – Do you have any old news articles on your site? What’s the date of your latest blog post – January 2011 or even 2010! If so, how does that look to those reading your blog? Keeping your content fresh shares a really positive message about your business.
Grows trust and authority – The content you create gives you something credible to shout about. There’s an offline networking concept titled VCP – visibility grows credibility, which ultimately grows profitability…and this concept fits with how people get to know you online too.
Grows brand awareness and reach – Social Marketing channels can be far reaching, you just don’t know where your content is going to end up and who is reading it. It may get picked up and shared in a very ‘viral’ way – growing awareness in ways that traditional media, simply can’t compete with.

Of course, if you have a content strategy in place, there's also the opportunity of safeguarding what others are saying in your business. You can clearly set boundaries as to what is and what is not shared. Of course, content is best when it's authentic and transparent - but you certainly don't want to be sharing content that is potentially damaging to your brand.

No excuses… be sure what you ‘share’ is worthy of sharing and add a ‘content creation strategy and schedule’ into your marketing mix today. And once it’s there… commit to it.

@Michelle Carvill is owner and Marketing Director at Carvill Creative – the online visibility experts. A digital marketing and design agency based in Maidenhead, Berkshire. The agency covers all aspects of online visibility - covering social media marketing and social media training, user focused website planning and conversion focused website planning.

For marketing and social media advice – view or subscribe to the Carvill Creative Blog

Content is still King. So…what’s your content strategy?

Social Marketing channels such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Blogs, YouTube and Forums (and many more that I won’t mention just now) are perfect vehicles for sharing content.