What's your best content marketing tip?

Many people struggle with content marketing and some can never get it right. This is a situation where you may need to consider getting website content writing servicesor hiring freelancers to create content for you such as infographics and videos.

1. Tap into the vitality of great visuals

Let me show you the content marketing approach of a typical company. I’ve blurred out the content to protect the identity of the guilty party.

Even though you can’t assess the quality of the content, you can see the image. Good, right? I mean, shouldn’t you be “using visual content to increase blog engagement?” Isn’t that a “best practice?”

Why am I calling out this one? Just adding an image to an article doesn’t mean that the content will have higher engagement. An image in an article does not mean “visual content.” The picture with a dollar sign and “save customers money” text is, unfortunately, bland and generic. It doesn’t add value to the article and warrants little more than a passing glance because of its cliché nature.

Let me share a few points of visual content that do enhance engagement:

Infographics

Infographics aren’t as powerful as they used to be, but they still can take a blog from bland to awesome. Plus, you can easily double your traffic with infographics.

Charts, graphs, and relevant images

Throwing a stock image at the top of a blog doesn’t cut it. You should add relevant images throughout the article. Try to keep the user’s engagement high through the whole piece of content, not just the introduction.

SlideShare

Visual content isn’t merely the stuff you incorporate in your blog. It also includes content on places like YouTube, Instagram, and SlideShare.

I point specifically to SlideShare because it is one of the pre-eminent visual-sharing platforms. And, you guessed it, it’s woefully underutilized by companies.

If you have any familiarity with making slides in PowerPoint, then you’re ready to use SlideShare. Prepare to be visual.

2. Create content that is readable, shareable, hilarious — you know, really well-written

Want to know why some articles go viral? BuzzSumo analyzed 100 million articles and came up with some of the attributes of articles that go viral:

• Longer length – 3,000 to 10,000 words
• Includes images
• Appeals to emotions
• Is a how-to article, a list, or infographic
• Perceived as trustworthy
• Shared by at least one influencer
• Promoted several days, weeks, and months after it was originally written

When I compare this list with typical corporate B2C blogs, I have to shake my head in disbelief. It’s as if they are deliberately breaking all the rules of viral-prone articles.

3. Find that audience — and engage

I worked with one business that was producing content for the longest time and getting zilch engagement. I poked around its niche and starting asking some rather obvious questions:

“Where do people in your niche spend time online?” The response was a blank and uncomprehending stare.

“Where are people connecting online?” More unblinking, disbelieving gazes.

As it turns out, this company was simply putting content on its blog, without comprehending where its audience was interacting.

As it turns out, a thriving beehive of people buzzing around LinkedIn matched the customer profile perfectly. The audience loved LinkedIn, formed groups on LinkedIn, argued on LinkedIn, connected on LinkedIn, bought on LinkedIn, sold on LinkedIn, and did business on LinkedIn.

Once the company grasped that simple concept – where its customers were hanging out – it changed everything. It still maintains a blog, but it also has a thriving and active lead generation and content marketing strategy on LinkedIn.

It’s not so novel. If you want to meet skateboarders, go to a skate park. If you want to meet swimmers, go to a pool. If you want to meet New Yorkers, go to New York. Go where your audience is.

Many times, it’s going to be organic search, in which a blog is an appropriate strategy. Other times, it’s going to be something else entirely. Figure it out, and aim your content marketing strategy in that direction.

4. Don’t put all your eggs in a blog basket

Blogging has become an entry barrier for content marketing. Instead of being an appropriate entry point, it’s now a distraction that can keep a business from publishing content where it truly matters.

Why do I say this? Let me explain how some businesses view blogging:

• OK, we need to do content marketing.
• All right, let’s start a blog.
• Blog.
• Keep blogging …
• Keep blogging …
• Keep blogging, and, by the way, why isn’t this working?
• OK, stop blogging. (No ROI)

“Content marketing” in the minds of such businesses begins (and ends) with a blog. If, and when they realize that the blog is useless, they either give up or keep plodding on, throwing content into the lonely abyss of wasted online content.

5. (You learned this in grade school) Share it!

Here’s the next face-palm problem that I encounter when I consult with companies on content marketing. Scenario: A business starts a blog and starts producing content. So far so good.

But they don’t share it. Why aren’t they sharing it?! “Well, we’re focusing on organic traffic … you know, search traffic.”

This is a problem. Creating content is only the first part of a two-step process in content marketing. What is that two-step process? It goes like this:

1. Create content.
2. Share content.

Sharing is the next and necessary step after creation. Just creating content won’t get you anywhere. It only puts more content on the web, which isn’t what your brand needs. Sure, it might generate some marginal organic traffic to the content, but that’s not going to cut it.

Sharing is neither easy nor quick. In fact, you should probably spend more time sharing your content than you do creating it. It’s that important.

Keep in mind that sharing content isn’t just tossing it out on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. That’s good, but only a small start.