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According to Wikipedia “Content marketing is an umbrella term encompassing all marketing formats that involve the creation and sharing of content in order to engage current and potential consumer bases”. That’s a great description but how do you decide on how to get the most bang for your content marketing buck? From the simple to the sophisticated, here are 10 suggestions that I know will work well.

# 1. Transform your website into a lively business community.

While social media may be important, your website remains the most critical online channel, building a community driven and socially integrated site is something that your customers will appreciate and that your business will prosper from. Why persist with static ‘brochure type’ websites when you could be embracing the benefits of a web 2.0 world?

# 2. Start and maintain a business blog

For most of us, a blog is the natural route into content marketing, the results are proven and it is both inexpensive and easy to do. Those businesses that by-pass blogging for social are making a mistake because they are sides of the same coin and limited without one another.

Related: Blogging For New Business: 10 Things To Consider Before You Start

# 3. Write guest posts for other blogs in your industry

Writing blog posts is only one part of a two part process, getting readers is the other and here networking is the key. Writing guest posts is one of the most effective networking exercises you can do, promoting your blog and its content – to already established communities and readers.

# 4. Comment on other blogs

With a similar emphasis to the networking point above, commenting on other blogs is an important first step when you are trying to build and grow your audience. Set aside some time each week to leave insightful comments on other blogs in your industry.

# 5. Create and use infographics

Infographics are taking the internet by storm and have become one of the most popular and sharable ways to create and present complex information – quickly and easily. Ignore them at your peril.

Related: Social Networking In Ireland Infographic

# 6. Create an E-book

They’ve been around longer than infographics but E-books are still at great way to both create and re-use content. For example, do you have a series of blog posts around a topic that your customers and prospects would be interested in?  How easy it would be to turn these into a valuable E-book that would be attractive to both?

# 7. Do video/audio interviews

Who are the movers and shakers in your industry? Are there any people that you do business with that are worth highlighting and may have an interesting story to tell? One easy way to do this while at the same time creating great content is to do a series of interviews.

# 8. Create an event/conference (or even just a Facebook or Twitter chat)

How often do you hear people complaining about the fact that they don’t have enough customers? Hook up with the experts in your industry and create an event of value for your market, it’s never been so easy to do. If you don’t want the hassle of organising an event, how about a Facebook or a Twitter chat?

# 9. Create a new award/s

People and businesses love to win and take part in awards. It’s a sure fire way to drive engagement, get known and build kudus amongst your peers and your industry.  It’s a real case of win/win and there’s has never been time to launch yours.

Related: EBA Launches Ireland’s First Ever Inter-County Business Awards

# 10. Build a mobile app

We all know that mobile is already the next big thing, how’s about developing a really valuable mobile app for your market and customers. Ok, so it’s going to cost a little but with the right idea the potential to market your business could be huge.

Of course, there are many other content marketing ideas, these are just some of the ones that I’m a fan of and know work well. What content marketing ideas have you previously used and what was your experience like? Have you anything exciting planned for your content marketing this year?

Image: “High resolution black chalkboard image with web 2.0 related tags./Shutterstock“