CONTENT STRATEGY

You can't just jump right into content! It can't be created simply for the sake of that's-the-way-things-are-done-now. Content strategy is the skeleton, it's what makes the muscles and flesh supported, stay standing, to last—without it, it falls flat.

Prior to creating your amazing content, you have to ask hard questions. You have to know what to do with it.

Are you asking and building your strategy around questions like:

1. Who has access to the content?
2. What will the audience be able to do with it?
3. When will they receive notification of blogs, podcasts, or webinars?
4. Where does the audience learn of new content: social media, email, paid or banner ads?
5. Why should the audience look to the brand for answers?
6. How does the audience access it, mobile, PC, Tablet, or iPad?
7. Can it be re-purposed into other advertising channels?
8. Does it offer the reader something worth returning for again and again?
9. Who will be creating the vast amount of content needed for this marketing endeavor?

One of the biggest mistakes made is using a “dartboard” content tactic.

They have a goal in mind, a bullseye target in sight, but they simply throw out content darts that miss the mark. It is imperative a content strategy is set in place to go along with the content marketing target goals. These overall goals make up a comprehensive strategy for all content production. 

Keep in mind the most important characteristic of a content strategy is flexibility. By analyzing performance indicators of certain content pieces, you are able to re-evaluate published content and change it up mid-campaign to meet the needs of the audience.

If numbers indicate visitors are coming to the set of “How-to” videos on the website, then it means add more how-to(s) to the editorial calendar. The production amount of content matters. It is obvious, the more that is out there, the better it is for the brand (only if what’s out there is high quality), which is why it is essential to track the performance of content. Any piece of content that is not performing, and meeting the goals of its purpose should be archived, and re-designed/re-purposed into a different format of published content.     

CONTENT MARKETING

One powerful piece = distributing in many different formats.

“The Little Red Hen” is a familiar, old folktale teaching the art of reaping the rewards of hard work. In this tale, the Hen finds a seed of wheat and asks the others around her, “Who will help me plant the seed?” All the characters simply state back to her, “Not I,” and they admit to being too lazy to work. In the end, they miss the rewards of a warm loaf of bread because of their refusal to work.

There's a lot to learn from the story of “The Little Red Hen,” but the main lesson is... a seed can produce a loaf of bread when given the proper amount of time and care. In this digital age, brands want to see results and success immediately. Brands want proof that the strategy set into place is actually working and paying off. However, sometimes results take longer time to measure, which is why it is essential to set both short-term and long-term goals for content marketing strategies.

I have to ask, "who will help me plant the seed of this concept?" and I hope the answer is not, "not I!"

CONTENT CURATION

Curated content is the spark that ignites the passion for a brand.

A content curator will dive deep into the formidable information pool of the internet and will not surface until they have found the treasure. They will clean up that priceless gem, and present it to the reader. Just as a museum curator digs through art pieces until they find that one amazing item that captivates the viewer’s attention. The viewer of the artwork walks away with a sense of enrichment.

The same goes with content curation—always keeping in mind that time is precious. The time a person does have to read ought to produce at least a smidgen of enrichment that continues long after they have left the page.

SOCIAL STRATEGY

Almost every family reunion, team-building event, or childhood obstacle course includes the precarious three-legged race. It is a race everyone has experienced, and more than once fallen because of how difficult it is to synchronize with another. 

You and your partner stand leg-to-leg with a rope tied around the ankles and through cues from one another, a rhythm is found (or not found) until crossing the finish line. The race of social media strategy and company promotion is like that three-legged race—it’s difficult to find a rhythm. 

Ah, but when you do get that rhythm, you win!

I'm happy to work with your team to find the rhythm your company is looking for when it comes to the game of social media.

LINK BUILDING

I'd like to use Wikipedia as THE example here. They have strict guidelines for link building (view the full manual guide here) and this is what they have to say about the internal linking of their site: 

“Internal links bind the project together into an interconnected whole.”

Websites are going to have more important pages and less important pages, but all the pages of the website should work as an 'interconnected whole', as Wikipedia so eloquently states. This interconnection needs to happen on the site, and not just in the submitted sitemap to Google. If you have a large website that spans over 50 pages, then you certainly need to understand the differences between inbound links to the website and the internal linking architecture of your website. Google cares about both.

Some say the strategy of “link building is dead,” but it is better said that the strategy of “manipulative link building schemes is dead.”

Link building is still highly valuable to a website, as long as it is well thought out, and implemented based on Google’s webmaster guidelines. Why is it not dead? The answer simply is because search engine spiders still “feast” on links, except now they can taste quality.

PROOFREADING & COPYEDITING

The world is filled with grammar police—that's where proofreading comes into play. I have news for you, 100% accuracy doesn't always happen. I've seen grammar errors from top publications like Time Magazine! I am that person who sees an error on social media posts, and I cringe. How didn't they see that before scheduling or hitting publish?! I want to report it, and ask them to fix it, but I don't. Why, you might ask... you're going to hear me say again and again that QUALITY trumps accuracy—always.

A generic piece of content with 100% grammar accuracy that doesn't connect with the intended audience is irrelevant. A quality piece of content missing a comma or includes a typo, but still connects with the intended audience is OK, and can still be updated and fixed after hitting publish (unless it's a graphic or print piece). Yes, when proofreading a piece that's already quality, I will edit it to be as grammatically correct as it can be. If the piece is not quality, then I will copyedit—not proofread.

For me, copyediting takes the approach of, "there's a better way to say that, and here's the rules why". It means keeping the "voice" while completely restructuring it to fit the brand's style guidelines, flow and readability, without changing the writer's unique tone. It means providing the necessary feedback to the writer to push them, and challenge them to level up. 

EMAIL MARKETING

BE human. SOUND human. Have a reply-to email that is MONITORED BY A HUMAN, your consumers will thank you!

Recently, I had an email from Etsy to "confirm my account", it said "Linda! To finish signing up, just confirm that we've got the right email."

Only my name is Erica, and I already have an Etsy account at this email address.

I clicked the link at the bottom of the email that said, "if you didn't create this account, contact etsy support." It didn't bring me to a contact form to submit. It brought me to their help database, where there is no easy way to submit a support ticket. It gives you the runaround. I chose to reset my password, then I deactivated my account. Finally, a week later, I received another automated email asking me if I received their previous emails, and I was able to find the support contact form after searching diligently for it for over 30 minutes. Their response to my ticket, "After checking the information you sent, it appears that someone made a mistake while entering their email address as they register with us and that mistake happened to match your email address." It's too late. My account is deactivated. Will I re-active, hmmm, time will tell.

Believe me, this is not the type of experience you want the receiver of your emails to experience—"contact etsy support" should be directly linked to a customer support form. All of it could have been totally avoided, if I could have simply hit "reply" to that email, and a human was able to read it, and direct me to the form. If it feels like humans are completely unavailable, your consumers will abandon you.

REPEATABLE PROCESSES

Math. That word evokes strong emotions in me, and I was never a big fan, that is, until I hit Algebra. Now algebra is not for everyone, but what I loved about it was that suddenly I was working with formulas. I only had to learn the way the formula worked, plug in the numbers, and ultimately, follow the same process over and over to get the right answer. If I got the wrong answer, I would look back at my process and quickly find my mistake. 

The same is true for creating processes within the organization. It's the MAGIC formula, right?! What all millionaire gurus pitch, follow my exact formula and find success. They're not wrong. Having a framework and process not only helps indentify inefficiencies/mistakes, but it also means knowing what works.

BONUS: When the right processes are in place, anyone can follow it, and the company does not depend solely on one or two people to complete certain projects. It means having a team that isn't siloed. It also means that people on your team feel confident in taking some vacation time, which means better, overall, mental health for your employees.