Probably what Bill Gates claimed back in 1996 still holds valid for the digital industry – Content is King; and it will reign for years to come. But what’s the worth of a king without a strong team backing him? Likewise, though content alone takes the throne, content marketing strategies are central to the success of social media. As the year swifts towards its latter half, here’s a look at the good and the bad of content marketing strategies, finally arriving at 10 that have made it to the top of the ‘most effective list” in the world of social media.
Businesses realize that there isn’t enough trained personal in the arena of social media today. The statistics don’t appeal. As per a study conducted by
Trend Analysis
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There Will Be a Clear Cut Definition of Content Marketing: Till date content marketing as a term has been used in every context and in any which way a business wants to make use of it. 2014 onwards the digital world will see a precise definition of content function. This further means that content marketing will grow from being a skill to becoming a role in the organization.
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Mobile Will Be the Face of the Industry: Research has it that a powerful content strategy cannot leave out the mobile aspect. In fact, it has been predicted that mobile usage will completely take over desktop usage within a time frame of 2 years.
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Attempts to Automate Will Fail: A number of firms will be resorting to automation for content marketing; however, all such efforts directed towards complete automation will drastically fail.
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There Will Be No Escape from Google+: In context of B2B Content Marketing, every business will have to take Google+ very seriously. Because Google Author Rank and Authorship will have a strong hold on the industry by end of 2014, there is no looking back for Google+ now.
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Location Based Marketing Will Be the Next Big Thing: Localization will set in and content marketing strategies will be sculpted for the smartphone enabled world. The key for businesses is to be more tech savvy.
Trends pave the way for strategies
Going by the trend analysis and having framed five points that help you get a clearer picture of where content marketing is headed, we list ten effective content marketing strategies for businesses to be successful in social media and otherwise.
- Be Search Friendly: Even when you are using a social media platform like Twitter, you have see to it that the content you type contains search friendly phrases. ‘How to’, ‘Where do you’, ‘Which is’, ‘Top 10’ are some of the most searched phrases. It is therefore a sure shot way to use them for winning visibility online.
- Go the Buzzfeed Way: Need inspiration? Check Buzzfeed. It is one of the best performing platforms nowadays that can truly make a difference.
- Don’t Ditch Email Marketing: The good old email marketing is still very much alive. It is disappointing to read the rumors above social media marketing beating e-mail marketing; however, it is just a fad.
- Word Count is Important: Content marketing requires that you keep your blog posts no shorter than 800-1500 words. Of course structure is important; and so is the information in the post.
- Conversational Still Works: Agreed that your blog post has to be informational. However, this doesn’t been it has to be dull and bland. Keep it conversational and give it a crunch!
- Image Based Definitely Works: Start compiling all the free image offering sites today because image based content is something that holds the potential to go viral. The simple psychology behind it is that image based content is more appealing to online audience.
- Timing: The time as well as the frequency of the posts that you are putting up on social media is as important as the content of the post. Analyze the trend that works for you and schedule your posts and content in a way that it doesn’t ever go ignored.
- LinkedIn Can Get You There: Till now you have been focusing on Facebook, Twitter and a number of other social media platforms. Now is the time to cash in on Linkedin as a content marketing platform.
- Going Real-Time: Though it might seem like a challenge, it is really required to steer towards real-time technology solutions. The mobile technology to some extent is tapping the power of real-time. Content marketing strategies that empower this will win.
- Recognize and Differentiate: Onsite Content Strategies from Offsite Content Strategies are two very different concepts with different elements. Differentiating between the two will help you define your goals with the two.
The long-term aim of content marketing strategies is to build brand reputation and enhance the business macro environment. Through the above listed strategies, a content and social media business will be able to set wider prospects for the times ahead.
Images: ”Hand writing ON Line concept with chalk, underline at Social media word/Shutterstock.com“
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