You've launched a beautiful content marketing campaign but no one can find it? You're suffering invisible content syndrome. This ebook brings together some of the top minds in content and digital marketing to prescribe cures for this terrible marketing affliction. Contributors include: Ann Handley, Joe Pulizzi, Michael Stelzner, Ursula Ringham, Larry Kim, Michael King, Carla Johnson, Sujan Patel and Andrew Davis.
9. #contentvisible | @toprank
Wrap Content in Context Wrapping Paper
Your content marketing is a gift you give
your audience. Or it should be. If it’s not,
stop reading this article on distribution
immediately and go back to create
something that people want and value.
(You know, like an actual good gift.)
Still here? GOOD! Gold star! You’re
awesome!
Anyhoosie… share your content gifts on
social channels. You know, like you’ve
always done.
But now: make sure you wrap it first, using
Context as your gift paper. In other words,
share not just what the content is… but
why it matters to you and your audience.
Why did you write it/produce it/film it/
publish it? What about the topic is
particularly relevant to this audience on
LinkedIn/Twitter/Facebookstagram?
What news item does it relate to?
What’s so special about your take on it?
Why did you write it/produce it/film it/
publish it? What about the topic is
particularly relevant to this audience on
LinkedIn/Twitter/Facebookstagram?
What news item does it relate to?
What’s so special about your take on it?
Wrap gifts individually for each
distribution channel.
Ann Handley
Chief Content Officer
MarketingProfs
10. #contentvisible | @toprank
Bonus points if you do this by shooting a
quick video, so that people can actually see
and feel how excited you are.
I did this on LinkedIn with our
announcement about our B2B Marketing
Forum keynote speakers. I could have just
shared the speakers and told how excited I
truly am… but instead I shared why we
picked them, and how excited I was about it.
My excited face and googly eyes say it all.
People love nicely wrapped gifts. Because
getting one is way more fun than getting a
gift “wrapped" only in a shopping bag from
the airport Hudson’s News, right?
Context = the best kind of content gift
wrapping paper.
Wrap Content in Context Wrapping Paper
Ann Handley
Chief Content Officer
MarketingProfs
12. #contentvisible | @toprank
Focus on When, Not Where, of Distribution
Andrew Davis
Keynote Speaker & Best Selling Author
Monumental Shift
Most of us write a blog post, upload our
podcast, or finish editing our video, and
as soon as it's released, we promote it
everywhere. We tweet it and summarize
it on LinkedIn. We post it on Facebook
and email it to everyone. We create an
Instagram story and Snap it. In an hour
our content is distributed everywhere.
We vomit our content on our audience
all at once.
It turns out that some of the most
successful content creators see massive
success over a more extended period
when they focus less on WHERE they
distribute their content and instead
focus on WHEN to distribute their
content.
For example, first, send your content
to your email subscribers. Now,
before you post it anywhere else wait.
Wait until your most loyal audience
has had time to click and consume
your content. (Maybe this takes 24
hours or even a couple of days.) Next,
promote your content on one social
channel at a time, watching the
consumption rise and fall before
moving on to the next channel.
A
14. #contentvisible | @toprank
Influence Content Reach with Social Influencers
Ursula Ringham
Head of Global Influencer Marketing
SAP
Social media influencers are an important ingredient in creating and promoting
memorable content. As you’ve seen from industry reports, people are more opt to
trust influencers than brands. But you must start by including influencers in the
content creation process. Whether it’s a blog, video, podcast, or live-stream,
collaborate with the influencer on the story you want to tell and how best it will
resonate with their audience.
Secret Tip? While the content is being created, have the influencer create
anticipation about it before it even comes out, like a teaser of what’s to come.
That way, their audience will be hungry for it. And that’s when the value of an
influencer kicks in. They can take your promotion strategy for that piece of
content to the next level with their reach across multiple social platforms.
A
16. #contentvisible | @toprank
Create Demand for More
When we promote MobileMonkey's great content, we don't "give away" the ending in its
distribution and promotion. We hint at the payoff in a way that leaves the reader
shouting, "Tell me more!”. A secret weapon, a major loss, something personal, a
traditional model turned upside down... just a hint can avoid invisible content syndrome.
This isn't revolutionary, but it's overlooked and a constant in MobileMonkey's campaigns.
Larry Kim
CEO
MobileMonkey
18. #contentvisible | @toprank
A Plan for Content Distribution is a Plan to Win
Cathy McPhillips
Vice President Marketing
Content Marketing Institute
Have a plan. You spend so much time creating epic content, so why not spend
that same amount of time coming up with a plan for distribution and promotion?
It can be a down and dirty spreadsheet — fill in dates, audience, messaging, and
what you’re trying to achieve.
Mix up the messaging, hash tags, keywords, days, times that best suit your
customers, set up UTM parameters to then analyze what’s working. Find ways that
your content can help someone solve a problem. Don’t assume they’ll find you or
your content without you doing legwork on your end.
A
20. #contentvisible | @toprank
Take a Lesson from TV Content: Spend 5X
Michael King
Managing Director
iPullRank
It's remarkable to me that brands will spend a considerable amount of money on
building something, but very little on promoting it. I believe brands should take
the same approach that networks do with televised content: Spend 5X what you
spent to make something to promote it.
The tactic that we use to drive a wealth of high value traffic is creating bite-sized
relevant content pieces that we can guest post on other high traffic sites and link
back to our tent pole content. Effectively, you end up borrowing traffic from sites
that already have your audience. We tend to make the content asset freely
available in HTML format, but with key capture points such as Wistia's Turnstile
feature, which creates a point in a video where you can't watch any further
without giving your email address.
We'll also use Pay with a Tweet to offer the audience download versions. So, you
end up creating more opportunity to capture leads and drive social sharing
without completely gating your content.
22. #contentvisible | @toprank
Include Experts in Creation & Promotion
Carla Johnson
Chief Innovator
Type A Communications
Great content brings expertise to the table, but there’s hardly anyone who’s
learned all the tough lessons themselves. To help promote content, tap into
people who have solved the problem that your content helps your audience with.
Get their insights, expertise and, if they’re really honest, epic fails so that your
audience can get some leap-frog learning and avoid the same mistakes.
Doing this helps make invisible content visible in two ways – it’s sure to hit sore
spots and pitfalls that your audience deals with, so they’re more likely to share.
And when you make it easy for the experts you’ve tapped to share the final
content, you’ve added breadth, depth and credibility to it as well. People like to be
a part of, and share, great advice.
A
24. #contentvisible | @toprank
Understand Your Audience for Shareable Topics
Mike Stelzner
CEO & Founder
Social Media Examiner
My secret to getting content seen is to focus on the real needs of my audience. If
they are social media marketers struggling with exposure in the Facebook News
Feed, you can bet I'll be talking about that. When you hit a real need, people will
share your content and talk about it.
The only way to really understand the pains of your audience is to really know
them. That's where conducting studies, getting on the phone, or meeting them in
person can be exceptionally valuable.
26. #contentvisible | @toprank
Content Promotion 5 Ways or Not at All
Sujan Patel
GM and Co-Founder
Web Profits
There's one thing I do every time to ensure my content gets seen, I create a
promotion plan for every content idea that I come up with. This sounds very
simple and it is however it's an extra step rarely taken by content marketers. My
rule of thumb is that if I can't come up with at least 5 ways to promote the content
than it shouldn't be written. When you start with promotion you build content
promotion into the article itself which ensures it receives maximum visibility.
It's also important to note that content promotion takes significant time so you
need to carve out time and resources for promotion. I often spend 80% of my
time promoting content.
A
28. #contentvisible | @toprank
Core 20 Content Promotion
Joe Pulizzi
Co-Founder, The Orange Effect Foundation
Founder, Content Marketing institute
I call this the "Core 20" rule of promotion. In my experience, there are generally
20 people in your universe that will highly benefit from the content you create. If
you do your homework correctly, those 20 individuals have loyal audiences
themselves. They don't have to have large audiences, just loyal ones. Get those 20
people involved BEFORE you create the content. Insert their wisdom into the text,
the video, the podcast series, the event.
Consider these 20 your executive committee. Keep them updated as to how your
content is progressing and when it will be released. Then, ask them to do one
thing. Possibly an email to their audience. A few tweets...a FB post. Email is
always my favorite.
In this way, you have built a content promotion team that does not just rely on
your own distribution.
29. #contentvisible | @toprank
Plan to Create
Plan to Promote
Plan to Succeed
With Content Marketing
“Build it and they will come” advice was great for the movies but not
so great for modern content marke;ng. Take the advice from our
experts in this ebook to heart and give content promo;on some
serious considera;on during the planning of your next content
marke;ng program.
#contentvisible | @toprank
32. Image
CURE YOUR INVISIBLE
CONTENT SYNDROME
Rocket Science Simplified: How to
Optimize, Socialize and Publicize
B2B Content
Content Marketing World Workshop
Lee Odden, CEO at TopRank Marketing
September 4th, 1-4PM #CMWorld
https://tprk.us/contentvisible
View Agenda
#contentvisible | @toprank