It isn’t easy to create quality content on a consistent basis. As much as people might take it for granted, marketers work hard to produce blog posts, white papers, videos and eBooks for their audience. Unfortunately, offering good content isn’t enough anymore. Every day there are literally billions of blog posts, videos, images, emails and articles uploaded to the Internet. In this highly competitive content marketplace, you can no longer rely on search and social platforms to get your message across. After all, search engine algorithms have become more complex and many of the major players continue to change it every year while the lifespan of social media posts continues to decrease. In order to get your content in front of a larger audience, you will need to create an amplification strategy. Below are some tips to get you started on your amplification strategy.
Set Goals
Before you even create your content, you need to figure out what exactly you want to accomplish. Are you looking to generate new leads, increase traffic, or gain more brand exposure? Having clear goals will keep you focused on your objective and also help you focus on your content’s structure, voice and tone and, more importantly, your audience.
Know Your Audience
The days of “If you build it they will come” content marketing is over. If you don’t already have a built-in audience for your content, then you are unlikely to get the most out of any kind of content amplification. Rather than creating content and then finding an audience, you should develop your content to a specific demographic. Your end goal should be to build an overall audience profile that clearly defines:
- Where they get their information
- Who they respect, trust and admire
- How they prefer to consume their content – visual or text; short or long form?
Use Different Amplification Options
There are several different avenues you can take to promote your content: owned, paid and earned. Most companies use a combination of all three for best results, but might depend more on one than the other based on their goals.
1) Owned Media – This is perhaps the most commonly used form of amplification as it encompasses all of the outlets that you have created. This includes your website, blog, social profiles and email lists. Unfortunately, the major disadvantage of your owned media channels is that it is only as good as your community. If you haven’t spent any time investing in community building then these platforms won’t do you too much good.
2) Paid Media – In the early days of the internet, many people looked down upon paying for exposure as it defeated the purpose of content marketing. Today, it has become commonplace and a necessity for many startup businesses. The best part is that many of these options allow you to target exactly who you want. Some effective methods include:
- Promoted tweets
- Sponsored Facebook posts
- Targeted Linkedin posts
- Reddit advertisements
- Content amplification agencies
3) Earned Media – While this might be the hardest to get, it also reaps the most benefits. Earned media basically includes all coverage done by a third party like: media coverage, social sharing and other word of mouth acts. The impact of this media type can be the difference between a huge success and a dud. This requires your content to actually be interesting, informative and engaging.
Create Your Strategy
While some materials might go viral with little effort, those days are more or less gone. If you want to create shareable content, you need to set aside some time to create a plan on how to promote it.
This guest post was written by one of our regular contributors – Ivan Serrano. Ivan is a web content writer that specializes in social media, business marketing, and globalization. Follow him on Twitter @IvanSerrano55.