Content Marketing

4 Easy Ways to Make Content More Shareable

by SEO Savvy July 3rd, 2014

Every day millions of blog posts, articles, infographics, and whitepapers get dumped into cyberspace. And while a lucky few are shared, retweeted and downloaded millions of times, most of this great content goes unnoticed. With similar content going out from a variety of sources over and over again, yours may often be getting overlooked, especially if you have yet to truly establish your brand.

If you’re reading this, chances are that you’ve already dedicated some serious time to creating quality, original content that people should want to read. The trouble is, no one knows that your content is out there, so no one is reading it – much less sharing it for others to read, too. That’s the bad news. Now, the good news: if your great content is not getting found, all is not lost. Better content marketing starts with learning how to create shareable content.

#1: Format for mobile consumption.

We already know that mobile traffic accounts for a large percentage of all internet activity around the world. From the length of your blog post to the design of your blog (you are using a responsive mobile-friendly web design, right?), it’s critical that your content is optimized for mobile consumption.

Think of it this way: When consumers are on their phones or tablets, and they click on your link, they want to be able to interact, share, and engage the same way that they do from their computers. If the process requires more steps, or is simply harder to do, they’ll likely give up, and find other content to share. If you want your content to stand out, make it easily sharable from a mobile device.

#2: Write real, unique, clickable headlines.

There are marketers out there who are going to tell you to use the most shocking, surprising, or engaging statistics to write short, attention-grabbing headlines. While this isn’t bad advice, there’s more to it then that. As StreamFeed writes, writing a “sticky headline” requires finding a way to draw in your readers, while still telling them the truth.

The fact of the matter is, we’re duped all of the time on the internet. And if you pull someone in with a “click-bait” false headline, they’re not likely going to want to share your content. Use real numbers to tell a story, make sure that your point is specific and clear, and be as unique as possible with your angle. Above all else, ask yourself this time-honored question: “Would I click on this headline?”

#3: Break longer content into more sharable chunks.

The folks over at Buzz Sumo found that when it comes to lists, 10 is the magic number for the most social shares, generating on average of 10,621 social shares. However, lists of any size are great because they make content easier to consume, which increases the likelihood it will be shared. There are interesting studies about the ways in which our eyes travel across a page when reading, which explain why it’s easier for us read something that is broken up into smaller pieces.

When you have an idea for a post, try and think of it in sections. Think about the various points that you want to make, and construct an outline. If there’s any way that you can turn that outline into bullet points or a numbered lists. Make sure that it feels natural, or readers won’t feel compelled to keep reading. Build upon each point, and if you find that you have a lot of them, and there is a natural divide, you could even turn one post into two, even more sharable pieces of content.

#4: Re-promote your post.

Unless your blog post is covering a breaking news story, it’s likely not going to “go stale.” So if your content didn’t catch the viral wave the first time you posted it, there’s no need to reinvent the wheel. Re-promote your post approximately a week after you first write it. Spice up the headline and break longer content into an easier-to-consume list format. Or, find old content that ties into a new industry trend, an upcoming event, or a holiday, and re-promote your post in conjunction with this event.

How Your Service-Based Brand Can Become an Industry Thought Leader

by SEO Savvy July 1st, 2014

Let’s face it: outbound marketing tactics like traditional advertisements and cold calls just don’t work as well as they once did in today’s service-based industries. Businesses that succeed are those who establish themselves as industry thought leaders through content marketing and use this favorable position to drive sales from inbound marketing.

With effective thought leadership, you can engage directly with your prospective clients through blog posts, whitepapers, and more. Ready to take your industry by storm? Here’s what your service-based business needs to know about how to be an industry thought leader:

#1: Freshen up your blog.
Don’t let your blog or its content go stale. In order to establish your service-based business as a true thought leader, you need to create a regular posting schedule, and stick with it. Your posts not only need to be engaging, but you need to determine whether you will publishing content that is timely, evergreen, or a combination of the two. Your posts need to be written in a tone that your audience can relate to, and your content should also reflect your knowledge of industry trends and challenges, and offer solutions and guidance.

#2: Be a LinkedIn publisher.

With more than 277 million members and counting, LinkedIn’s is the ultimate professional networking site. Recently, LinkedIn’s new publishing platform began to allow all members to share their professional expertise by publishing long-form blog posts. Because this can be a crowded platform, be sure to avoid simply rehashing what everyone else is publishing. Use your expertise to put a unique spin on the latest industry news, reports, or how-to content. Additionally, share your opinions and ideas on the posts of other industry experts.

#3: Curate and share the best content.

Once this strong content has been published, you need to work hard to get it seen. Every post needs to be pushed out over social media with accompanying hashtags and captions. One easy way to drive traffic is to tweet a short but surprising industry stat along with a link to your post for the full story. Remember that visual content still rules: don’t publish a story without an engaging image or infographic, which will enhance shareability. And again, you should also be sharing interesting insights from your peers, in order to establish yourself as a great curator for knowledge, and increase the likelihood that your peers will share your content in return.

#4: Stay connected

Humanizing your brand is one of the most important things you can do as a business in the service industry. Customers want to know that they’re being heard, and they feel more comfortable with brands that are willing to put themselves out there, and show that they can relate to your needs. By following point one on this list you’ve completed the first step, but you also need to engage on social platforms, and be accessible to your customers through email, social media, and phone.

Between content creation, content curation, scheduling, and social media, establishing your business as an industry thought-leader is a time-consuming job. However, if you’re managing your time wisely, sharing meaningful information, and engaging in conversations with customers and other professionals, you’re likely to find that it’s an invaluable pursuit to bring your business to the forefront of your service industry.

Psychological Tricks for Smooth Content Marketing

by SEO Savvy June 24th, 2014

Focusing on creating unique, high-quality content is a huge part of content marketing, but it’s easy to forget that it takes more than savvy wordplay to really hook your customers. You can use your look and feel to draw in viewers, but spend your time and resources on these simple strategic moves that use marketing psychology to really tap into what your customers are looking for.

Get Primal: Needs and Emotions

Tapping into your audience’s primal needs and emotions is one of the oldest tricks in the marketing handbook. Utilize those facts and figures to support your claims, but focus on invoking emotions like fear, anger, pride, and love, which can be the push a consumer needs. Build your content so that it inspires real, genuine emotions, and encourage your readers to take a stand by sharing their email address or engaging others on a blog post. Including testimonials on your website can encourage this sort of response; seeing the opinion of others can trigger a “herd mentality” that will lead your potential customers to go with the flow and join your brand, and even share .

More Than Words: The Power of Video

A recent study by Animoto showed that 73% of respondents were more likely to make a purchase after watching a short video demonstrating the product or service. Short videos can essentially teach your potential customers how to respond to your product. By showing real people using your product or services and enjoying them in their daily life, viewers can visualize how how utilizing the product or service will work for them, and become more aware of your brand.

Listen to Your Search Terms

Ideally, content marketing should be a two-way street in which your potential customers feel like your product or service has answered a question or provided a solution. As Search Engine Journal points out, it can be very useful to examine your most popular incoming search terms in order to get a clearer sense of what your customers really want. If you see a particular question over and over again, try to create easily accessible content that clearly answers the question.

This may seem obvious enough, but it’s easy to get off track when your focus is on trying to promote your brand. An FAQ is a good first step, but think even further than that – create whole blog posts around a popular search query, or even a blog series based on answering questions alone. We’re often told that everything we want to know can be found on the Internet; if your business can offer quick solutions, your brand loyalty is likely to increase.

Get Colorful

You may have known that red is often equated with anger, but did you also know it can increase your appetite? According to SmallBizTrends.com, 93% of buyers say that appearance played a role in their shopping, and almost 85% consider color to be the primary factor when making a purchase. Brands like McDonald’s rely heavily on this: the golden arches of their signs and the bright red and yellow of their logo encourage urgency, hunger, and positivity, as well as invoking a childlike quality.

Though color may not immediately seem as though it’s directly related to your content, this isn’t completely true. Headlines can be in color, and images, videos and infographics are vital components of content marketing. Consider the colors that you use when creating an infographic; utilize red to draw in focus to the most important points, and orange or yellow for adding excitement to certain facts. Also, keep in mind that neutral and darker colors lend themselves to information-heavy images.

Vetting Your “Viral” Content: Can You Predict The Next Big Thing?

by SEO Savvy June 19th, 2014

We’ve been talking about viral marketing and advertising since the 90s, and seen it come into play in forms such as music video clips, word-of-mouth advertising, and interactive online marketing campaigns, to name just a few. But how does one predict what will become viral, and create that on their own? There’s no exact science, but many have done the research, and determined a number of factors that have proven successful in viral content.

Strike a Chord

While it may be your first instinct when creating content to try and avoid offending anyone, this can lead to very neutral and sometimes boring content. The fact of the matter is, it’s almost impossible to avoid ticking everyone off, and the content that strikes a chord with people is that which takes a stand. Get passionate with your content creation, inspire emotion, and allow your consumers to vent their feelings via a comments platform. The debate will bring your readers back, and lead to organic shares to get more voices involved. In other words: We all love to state our opinions, so give us something to talk about.

Of course, emotions encompass more than just anger and agreement. Videos that make us laugh, cry, or just say “aww” are often the ones you see popping up over and over on your Facebook feed. This content is often void of controversy, and while it provides less fuel for conversation, it gets shared often, and still spreads your message. If you can figure out how to make cute kittens relate to your business, then this method may work for you. Just look at Budweiser and their Clydesdales.

Dig Deeper

No one wants to see a carefully constructed piece of their content marketing plan dismissed with the Internet’s equivalent of the cold shoulder, “TL;DR.” But a recent analysis of The New York Times’ most emailed list reveals that “too long; didn’t read,” doesn’t hold a whole lot of water after all; It’s actually the longer pieces that receive the most engagement. So if you have something important and interesting to say, don’t shy away from creating in-depth content that really explores an issue and presents a well-formulated opinion.

Immediacy vs. Longevity

Forbes recently named two different viral effects that we can use to describe successful viral marketing efforts. First is the Roadblock Effect, which refers to a kind of hyper-saturated content that becomes impossible to avoid. This is the content that is being shared by multiple users across multiple platforms, and seems to infiltrate a moment in consumer consciousness.

To achieve this kind of instantaneous shareability, you typically need some serious resources in addition to a canny sense for the right time to release your content. Weekly television shows receive this kind of bump with viewers sharing their thoughts on social media, but even brands without a captive audience can capitalize on a shared moment if they play the timing right. The downside to this is that while this content hits hard, the momentum doesn’t always last long.

More accessible is the “Stagger” approach. By targeting key influencers in your industry that will share your high-quality content, you can achieve a slower, but still steady saturation. This approach, like all quality content marketing methods, requires knowing your audience well and working within your industry to leverage the customers and collaborators who love your work. These are the people who will initially share your content, and the more of them that to so, the further the reach.

Creating intriguing content that is either very topical or solid and evergreen takes some luck, but it also takes work. Very few viral campaigns have done so without tapping into their resources, be it the right connections, an abundance of funds, the right platform or, more likely, a combination of these and other factors. Study up on what both big and small brands have done in the past, and you’ll be putting yourself in a good position to create very marketable content.