Content is your digital body language. Good content is a way for your business to be useful and become attractive through search (digital media) and sharing (social media).
People first need to believe, then they will support that belief in the way they behave -- and may eventually become ambassadors on your behalf.
Inbound marketing, or pull -- these are the inquiries you receive as a result of valuable content someone has seen/heard/read/used -- by far outperforms outbound marketing or push as an investment for your business.
Relationships become stronger over time when built upon benefits to the buyer. When you write customer-centric content, you develop trust and gain credibility, both of which confer you authority
Why have a content strategy?
Content allows you to build an audience, attract customers through opt-in (vs. the old opt-out tactics), and create advocates on behalf of your business or brand. In addition to planning for those milestones, you will need to plan content for each phase of the buyer's journey.
With traditional media, you used to be able to "borrow" the audience media channels built. You paid to rent eyeballs and ears with TV, print, even digital, and radio advertising and promotions. They had the audience, not you. You got to interrupt it in exchange for money.
In social media, you can go direct to customers and prospective customers. However, the media or channels are mere tools, they don't come with an audience you can buy, although many are selling you one. The best audience in social is the one you build.
That's where a content strategy comes in.
___________
Because content is such an important aspect of a successful social media strategy, I created this page to help you see how it works by collecting a few posts written as series.
___________
Future of content strategy for brands
The 5 Rs of 21st Century Content Curation
How Content Seals the Deal at Groupon
The Value Equation: Curators and Aggregators
Curating Information as Content Strategy
"Pay for" Content is Serious Business
Create Demand for Your Content
Capturing the Value of What You Create
Secrets of online content strategy
Where Blogs Are Going (Feed Sponsor)
Examples of Engaging Web Content
Overcoming Three Crucial Challenges with Content Strategy
Are You Using Your FAQ Page to Attract Traffic?
Power Tools for Content Aggregation and Curation
How to Source and Credit Content
How to Develop a Content Strategy Process (for your Blog)
Integrating a Blog in Your Content Strategy
For B2B companies and brands
Blog Your Way into Industry Conversations and Market Ecosystems
Give People Content they can Use to Persuade their Teams
Developing a B2B Content Strategy: Start with Who
Implementing a B2B Content Strategy: Consider How
Mapping your content to the buyer's cycle
Challenges in Content Strategy for the Coming Year
Writing Content for the Buyer's Decision Journey
Content Strategy: Secret for Writing for Buyer's Consideration Phase
Executing a Content Strategy for Buyers' Research/Evaluation Phase
Content Strategy for the Post Purchase Phase
Service / Product Experience and Content Strategy
More brand content strategy
Top Ten Reasons Why Your Content Marketing Strategy Fails
Lists, Permission, and Content Marketing
18 Ways to Walk the Talk on Content
There's no Money in Content Creation
50 Content Ideas that Create Buzz
7 Ideas for Writing Compelling Content
Having fun with content analysis
These 36 articles + 1 presentation should get you started in understanding the importance of having a brand content strategy for your online marketing.
+++
Valeria is an experienced listener. She is also frequent speaker at conferences and companies on a variety of topics. To book her for a speaking engagement click here.
