This is a guest post by Anita Campbell, CEO of BizSugar.
Maintaining a Content Marketing Calendar
You've heard content is king, right? Well, it is. You may have the most fantastic product on the planet, but no one will know what it is unless you describe it to them. And no one will know it exists in the first place unless you get the word out. Both of those tasks are accomplished through content marketing.
But just having information on your Web site isn't enough. People have to find you, so you need a way to bring them to your site, which means you need content in more than one place. It can become difficult to keep track of it all. What you need is a content marketing calendar. The first step is to decide where you're going to place content. Here are a few essential locations to start with.
Your Own Blog
It's not enough to simply build a Web site that sells or displays your product. You need a place to talk about it, to provide information to current and prospective customers, and for people to engage in discussion about your products and services. Giving people a place to do that means you maintain some control over the conversation, so if there are complaints, you can deal with them head on. Post on a regular basis with the help of an editorial calendar—a part of your overall content marketing calendar—to keep people interested and coming back for more.
Social media will help you boost your company's visibility. Get a Twitter account (it's free!), and start engaging people. Try to tweet on a regular basis, and respond to those who contact you. To help manage this, a social media calendar is an important component of your content marketing calendar. If you're not sure how to structure one, look for a social media calendar template.
This is another important part of the social media content marketing strategy, but it gives you a little more wiggle room than Twitter. Facebook offers tools for business owners to enhance their marketing and their level of customer engagement. You can create an entire page for your business or product, talk to your customers directly, and even provide special offers for your products. Just be sure to always link back to your own site. That's your home base.
You know it as a great resume and job search site. But LinkedIn has also incorporated a news feature called LinkedIn Today that allows members to submit news stories which can then be voted up by other members. Share blog posts from your site, and not only will you be spreading the word about your products, you'll be gaining more links to your site, which will help your site gain visibility in the search engines.
Flickr
If your business is centered around creating actual products rather than providing services, sharing images is a terrific aspect of content marketing. Create a Flickr account, and share photos of your products, or even of the people who buy and use them (with permission, of course). Seeing your products in action will help customers make that all-important decision to buy.
Guest Posting
Find other blogs in your same or similar industries where you can publish guest posts to further spread the word about your business, and drive traffic to your site. Always follow other sites' publishing guidelines, and use this opportunity not just to seed content, but to build a network of colleagues. Remember to be open to allowing those contacts to also publish content on your blog. A little quid pro quo is a great way to build good will, and lasting relationships with fellow business owners.
Once you've established where and how to perform your content marketing, the next question is when. This is where a content marketing calendar will help you keep track of and manage your efforts.
- Try not to overwhelm the people who follow your business by bombarding them with content too often.
- Space out your posts, tweets, and shares so that your content distribution is evenly spaced, but still done on a regular basis. Just like you don't want to go overboard, you also don't want any long periods of quiet that may allow people to forget about you. You want to stay fresh in their minds and keep their attention.
- Remember, the information you post, tweet, and share doesn't all have to be created by you. By distributing information from other sites and blogs, you establish yourself as a reliable, go-to resource.
- Always respond to those who contact or engage you. But you can also set aside a specific amount of time to do that each day.
- Track results and responses to your content. How many blog comments did you get? How many retweets? How many likes? Over time, you'll be able to see trends, and learn what content resonates with people so you can give them more of what they want.
The actual content marketing calendar can be in any format that works for you, whether it's an actual calendar application, or a spreadsheet. Just remember to use it once you've created it. It will take some getting used to, and you may not see results right away, but within a couple of months, or even a few weeks, you'll be on track with a solid content marketing plan, and a good amount of quantifiable data to help you grow your business.
About the Author: Anita Campbell is the Founder of the Small Business Trends website and CEO of BizSugar, an online community for small business owners.
Do you use an editorial calendar for your content marketing? If you've got a resource you love for organizing your content, post it in the comments below!
If you need a sample calendar, check out the template in this post.
Hi Anita, I have created my own social media content calendar which should be useful:
http://www.jameswelch.net/seotools/twitter-content-calendar-generator.php
Thanks
James
Thanks for this great post. It highlights that we’re doing some things right, but missing out on the benefits of Guest Posting (love the good will graphic). Now we know what to focus on this year – thanks again:)
Great post! Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Here’s three other tips I have found useful:
1. Build an idea sheet.
I use a spreadsheet to build out ideas for content for my site. I find having an “idea” sheet helps me schedule and pick topics on a timely basis. I can do a brainstorm based on research and put in in a single sheet for review when I’m looking to schedule ideas. Having it in one place gets me focused.
2. Create an Industry Trends section
My other suggestion is to include a “Industry Trends” section. I have found sharing your thoughts about the industry and how it relates to other industry professionals can help build community.
3. Track results … (No really, track results!)
Often we have a sense of how well our posts are performing, but really look at what happens as a result of your posts. It will help you create content that is relevant and timely for your audience.
Hope this helps!
Thanks for stopping by, Melissa, and thanks for adding your tips. I really like #2 and think that including info about industry trends is often overlooked. Blog on!
This is very timely as I have an editorial schedule for my blog, but I have been trying to figure out how to squeeze in LinkedIn and more guest blog posts. And my Facebook page is pretty much dormant. So, thanks for this gentle reminder of what I need to do.
If you keep in mind that you don’t need to be on every site, every day, then it seems a little less overwhelming. Good luck, Marcie!
Great ideas in your post! I recently offered up some tips
for setting up a social media editorial calendar that may help your readers http://venpop.com/2011/5-tips-for-setting-up-a-social-media-editorial-calendar/
Thanks for sharing your tips, Cameron.
Good post, Anita.
I feel the key is to setup a calendar that’s low maintenance to manage but effective in controlling how you control the content flow.