25 Top Places to Publish Your Content and Market Your Business

Still only publishing your content in a single place? If so, you're missing out on a huge amount of exposure, visibility and results you could otherwise be achieving.

To give your content the greatest chance of success, you need to publish it as widely as possible across a whole network of different content sites.

This involves repurposing content - in other words, creating new versions of the original content - to suit the specific platform you're publishing on.

For example, let's imagine your content is currently in the form of a blog post. Here are some examples of how you might repurpose it:

- Into an article such as this. Often they will be quite a bit shorter than the original post. Depending on the site it's published on, it may not use the same amount of visual imagery.

- Into a presentation for publication onto say SlideShare.

- Into a video for YouTube. If you've already created a presentation, the easiest way is to use that as the basis of a video.

- Into multiple Tweets spread out over time, taking some of the key takeaways from the post.

- Similarly into one or more updates for other social networks.

I've mentioned a couple of key sites already where you can publish your content. There are of course many others.

Here's a full listing of 25 such publishing platforms and content websites, starting with...

1. Your Blog

Your own blog should be central to your whole content marketing strategy. Through regularly publishing high-quality content, you build credibility, authority, and traffic.

Plus each post forms the basis for quality repurposed content you can then publish elsewhere.

Thanks to built-in audiences, these other sites can attract much higher engagement levels. This can also lead to your content spreading virally and reaching thousands you wouldn't otherwise reach.

2. Twitter

As already mentioned, multiple Tweets can be scheduled to go out over time, using different key points from the content you publish elsewhere.

3. Facebook

Each time you publish a new post - or publish content to some of the other sites listed here - schedule one or more updates for Facebook. Use an image such as your post's Featured Image to boost engagement levels and click-through.

4. LinkedIn

Similar to Facebook, one or more updates can be scheduled out over time, linking back to the original content. You'd generally do this through your Company Page.

5. Pinterest

If you're using a Featured Image whenever you publish to your blog, you can easily re-use it as the basis of a post on Pinterest, linking back to your blog. You can also post videos and SlideShares directly to Pinterest.

6. Google+

Google+ can be good for micro-blogging, where you create a longer synopsis of your content than you might do on say Facebook. Or even a series of posts based on the original content.

Publish content to your personal profile, your business page, and to different communities, you are a member of in order to widen your reach.

7. Instagram

Instagram is gaining popularity with marketers, as it can have much higher engagement levels than Facebook. Try reposting your blog post's Featured Image or perhaps infographics you can post here as well as say Pinterest.

8. Medium

The medium was created by a couple founders of Twitter, and designed to use all the best bits of the other social networks. As such, it can be a powerful place to publish your content.

9. Tumblr

A microblogging and social networking site, Tumblr is one of the top 10 most popular sites in the United States.

Posts will generally need to be visually-appealing to get good results. Experiment with say publishing an excerpt from your blog post with some images, and then linking back to your blog for the full post.

10. SlideShare

One of the top 200 websites in the world, and can give you a lot of exposure quickly. Simply create a presentation based on a blog post, and upload it to the site.

As already mentioned, the presentation can also be used as the basis of a video for publication on...

11. YouTube

YouTube is the second largest search engine just behind Google, though most marketers focus mostly on Google.

By regularly repurposing content like videos, you can build up your presence here and take advantage of all the additional traffic and exposure it can give you.

12. Vimeo

Another site you can upload your video to for additional visibility.

13. LinkedIn Pulse

Because it taps into LinkedIn's network, good content is readily shared and can easily reach thousands within just a few days who you wouldn't otherwise be in front of.

14. Google Images

You can't submit images here directly, but by using images within your blog content, for example, it can still deliver some additional traffic for you.

Here are some tips, which also help your SEO in general:

- Reference your domain name within your blog post's Featured Image.
- Be liberal in your use of images within blog posts, while ensuring they add additional value to the visitor.
- Use keywords in the names of your images.

15. Your Email List

All your content gives you ample material with which to stay in touch with your email list and keep your business front of mind. Re-use your content within a regular ezine, linking to the relevant content and driving up your engagement stats.

16. Other Ezines

Find ezines in your niche that readily publish content from contributors. Often you'll find such content is added to a related website too. For example, I've been regularly published in ezines going out to hundreds of thousands of subscribers.

17. Guest Post on Other Blogs

Contact relevant blogs in your niche to see if they accept guest posts - many blogs do. This can give you valuable additional exposure.

Rather than create content from scratch, save time by creating a new, unique version of a post that's already on your blog.

18. Printed Publications

Don't forget offline opportunities to publish your content. Think about businesses that offer printed newsletters, magazines, newspapers, and so on.

19. Forums

Relevant forums can be a great place to publish your information. You're not trying to sell anything, just attract people to you through your information.

Be sure to check out the forum's rules and simply aim to add value. Contribute regularly for example by reusing some of the content you've created before. Link back to posts or other content where it's relevant and helpful to do so.

20. Amazon

Think about repurposing blog posts as say content for the Kindle. For example, you can periodically create eBooks based on a collection of posts you've already published.

21. iTunes - Podcasts...

Content already on your blog can easily be repurposed into podcast content. Use a regular podcast to reach and grow an engaged and loyal audience who might not otherwise come into contact with you.

22. Reddit

Post content to subreddits related to your niche. You'll find subreddits have their own rules, so make sure you abide by them, but good content can end up reaching thousands in this way.

23. Quora

Search for questions and topics on Quora on which you have created content. Post answers in which you deliver a lot of value within Quora itself, but then link back to your content elsewhere for further information.

Answer other questions without any links to give some balance, while also helping to build your profile and attract followers.

24. Yahoo! Answers

Similar to Quora in some ways, but a less sophisticated user base. Approach in a similar way to Quora by fully answering questions and linking back to other content for further information.

However, you do first have to spend some time on the site getting involved. You can only add links once you are at Level 2 or above.

25. Google Web Search

Of course, your content is 'published' on Google Web Search, similar to other sites. You don't control your ranking, and therefore how visible you are, but you can heavily influence it.

For example:

- Focus on creating value for the visitor. The more value you create, the more visibility you'll be rewarded with on Google.

- Publish content on other sites around the web, such as those here. That increases your exposure, leading to more links to your content and higher overall authority.

- Focus on building your social networks. This can again encourage links to your content. Plus more views for content such as videos and presentations can give them higher search rankings.

Finally...

Try republishing content to just a handful of your preferred sites from the list above. By doing it regularly, you'll see your results really start to build.

Does it work? You're reading this, aren't you?

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Steve_Shaw/4373

P.S.

We would love to let you know about our Content Marketing Starter-Kit & our Conquer Your Content System. This system has been proven to increase reach, engagements, and followers. It also helps bring in new customers EVERY MONTH! 

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The Top 7 Mistakes Newbies Make While Building Their Online Empires

The internet began in the 1980s and became mainstream by the 1990s when the likes of Yahoo!, Amazon, eBay, and Google jumpstarted their empires. By the middle of the 2000s when YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter opened their doors for the masses to jump in, the world had become a huge flattened global village. Today we are the citizens of the world. George Orwell's nineteen eighty-four, first written in 1949, is here but unlike the dire prediction of 1984, the internet has democratized communication and commerce and nothing can stop its onward march.

While it took many global brands hundreds of years to acquire the status MNC (Multi-National Corporation) the internet is producing globe-spanning companies and billionaires at a rate and speed never seen or heard in history. While before the internet boom, there was only one documented employee who later became a billionaire, in the person of the late Roberto Goizueta, the former Chairman & Chief Executive Officer of one of the global brands, the likes of Steve Ballmer, Tim Cook, and Meg Whitman, to mention three, became billionaires while directors and employees of Microsoft, Apple, and eBay respectively.

Needless saying the founders of the global e-commerce giants like Jeff Bezos, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Jack Ma, Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey, to mention the topmost echelons are billionaires many times over. By 2018, Jeff Bezos had become not only the richest man in the world but the richest in all of modern history, with his net worth topping $104billion, barely 23 years after founding Amazon.

From publicly available information, the top 5% to 10% of employees in most of the global internet giants like Amazon, Google, Facebook, Ali Baba is multiple millionaires. The internet, of course, has also aided other global giants like Berkshire Hathaway, Apple, Microsoft, HP, and GE, to explode further also making a bigger percentage of their employee's millionaires like never before.

While you needed millions in capital and thousands of employees pre-internet to scale your business operations to make it to the big league, today you can become a millionaire with just your laptop and internet connectivity. Indeed, today the extent and how fast you can grow to millionaire status is limited only by your imagination.

To show how imagination triumphs online, let's take the founder of CD Baby, Derek Sivers, as an extreme example. An introvert, looking for a cure he joined a circus and became a clown; perfected his guitar playing skills; started producing songs; and became a musician and an artist. Long story short, he produced a music CD, which shops around his neighborhood would not stock. To solve his problem, he set up a website, CD Baby, in 1998 and started selling his music there and also invited other musicians to join. Just ten years later, he sold CD Baby for $22million in 2008.

Expectedly Americans, people from Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and Israel dominate the internet but anybody from any part of the globe can jump in. As someone who has studied the internet phenomenon for a while, these are the top seven mistakes that newbies to the internet make from my own opinion. Read and learn how to zigzag your way to internet success.

1. Hanging out solely with the internet 'gurus': Beware of gurus. They are in a class of their own. While the majority of them have made a further fortune online, the majority of the more familiar names made theirs before the advent of the internet. Why follow the gurus when you're not in the same league with them? It's like learning to run 100 meters dash and heading to the Olympic to compete with the likes of Usain Bolt, Florence Griffith-Joyner and Magic "Bullet" Johnson, and the like. You'll only end up in frustration. The solution, look for someone who is three to five steps ahead of you and learn from her.

2. Trying to do many things at the same time: Doing this is going to be your fastest road to failure because you're going to be a jack of all trades and master of none. Do you want to set up e-commerce, a market place, membership website, or do you want to learn HTML, how to code, develop software, or do you want to learn search engine optimization, develop e-products, or apps? Decide and focus single-mindedly until you prevail in one area before you jump to another.

3. Not putting in enough effort: It's easy to be misled into thinking that making millions is a walk through the park and anybody can do it. Thanks to motivational speakers, you're made to believe anything you can visualize and believe in, you can achieve. Beware, if it were that easy, we'd all be millionaires. True, it's easier to succeed online than offline because of the ease with which you can scale, however, you still need to burn the proverbial midnight oil, put in the hours, toil and sweat, but insufficient capital investment and learning before you start seeing the needle moving in your favor.

4. Lacking Skills or relying on shallow skills: When people read books and watch YouTube videos with headlines such as, How I Made My First $1million Online, How I Sold 1million eBooks Online and Set It All Up And Go Have Fun And See The Millions Roll-In, they take in what they hear hook, nail, and sinker." Again if it were that easy everybody would be a millionaire. As Tony Robbins consistently says, "It's not what you know it's what you consistently do" that matters. Though thousands are making it online, the technology for spectacular success is quite formidable and beyond the grasp of the majority of people. So be prepared to learn new skills like making videos, writing copies, scripting, podcasting, webcasting, doing webinars and so on. Though you can outsource things that are beyond you, you still need to know who you can outsource to and even what to outsource.

5. Not developing online assets early enough: Online assets such as websites, blogs, YouTube channels, vlogs, e-products, to mention a few, enable you to scale fast and monetize early. The mistake most newbies do is to wait until they are perfect. You don't need to be perfect to get your first website up and running. Sometimes newbies think the website is about beauty. It's not. It's about functionality. Though aesthetics has its place, what is paramount is functionality. Can people interact easily with you and your website or blog? Without online assets it's difficult for people to know you, meet you and enter into dialogue with you. So tomorrow get someone to design a website for you. If you have nothing to put there, just put your picture and say hello, my name is Internet Newbie. You may say I'm on Facebook; just know they serve different purposes.

6. Not Getting A Coach Early Enough: Derek Bok, the former president of Harvard, has the following quote attributed to him, "If you think education is expensive, try ignorance." The biggest mistake you will make while trying to carve out a piece of the internet cake for yourself is to go it alone. You can, but beware, you may spend years trying to figure things out what to do while what you already knew or was in vogue is already obsolete. Sure, you can learn literally anything through Google and YouTube, smart newbies get coaches and mentors to show them the way around the web. Some newbies think they cannot afford a coach or coaches because they erroneously believe coaches are for elite tennis players like Serena Williams, elite boxers like Floyd Mayweather, and elite golfers like Tiger Woods. Nothing can be further from the truth. Anybody can afford a coach. It all depends on where you're looking. Go out and look for a coach and you would have surmounted all the other mistakes in one fell swoop.

7. Lacking Mental Toughness: This is the toughness mistake to overcome. Newbies who lack mental toughness get easily discouraged and give up too soon. If you've not read the book, Acres of Diamond, borrow a copy from your local library and devour. Mental toughness means believing in your vision, mission, and goal. It's noteworthy to say that Amazon lost money for 58 quarters (about 14 years) before it became stupendously profitable. If you lack all the other ingredients but develop mental toughness, you will prevail.

I have arranged these mistakes in the order, with the ones easy to discontinue or discard at the top and the more difficult ones at the bottom. Mindset cuts across all the other mistakes. Take care of your mindset and your mindset will take care of the other mistakes. Do not just believe in your vision, start doing, start implementing, start executing, start getting your hands dirty! You don't' need more knowledge. What you need is the full belief in yourself, believe in what you already know, and an effective coach to show you the tweaks, bends and turns of the internet and before long you would have carved out a piece of the internet cake for yourself and loved ones.

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Paul_Uduk/1194732

P.S.

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3 Tips for Social Media Storytelling

How to Build Better Engagement for Your Business

Stories predate television, the internet, and social media, but they're a big part of the modern marketing landscape. Social media is-or should be-a big part of your marketing strategy, no matter what line of business you're in.

Social media storytelling can increase reach and brand awareness and help you gain new followers. However, there is a great deal of noise out there.

If you don't attract attention, your message is going to be lost in a sea of other competing messages.

When we're attempting to connect and engage with our followers, customers and potential customers, it's essential to remember that we're not talking at people or simply posting products or services.

Think of this as a chance to narrate your brand, to start a conversation about who you are and what you offer.

Here are 3 tips to help bring storytelling into your social media marketing strategy:

Tip #1: Be Human

People are going to connect with people first, not brands. Share what's happening in your world with your followers, what you're learning and what's exciting you. Reinforce your brand's message, your mission and what you stand for.

Audiences are savvy, and they can tell when a brand isn't being authentic in their posts. Recently, we've been engaging our eVision audience with questions, and based on the response we're getting, it's a fun and genuine way to learn more about our followers while promoting our business.

That said, only share things that you want the whole world to know! Once you put something out there, it's out there for everyone to see-and snapshot and share-so make sure it's well-thought-out and appropriate.

Tip #2: Create Value

Your creative has to have intent, which isn't necessarily to make leads or sales. Think of ways to inform, entertain or surprise your audience.

Provide people with unique and interesting content, like blog posts, articles, infographics, videos or eBooks on platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram.

Offering resources is one of the top ways to attract attention and followers. Inviting your community to be part of your brand is an ideal way to get them engaged with your resources.

For example, if you're an accountant trying to increase your online presence and engagement, you could ask your followers to share their top reasons for hiring someone else to do their taxes.

Ask them to hashtag their responses with #taxhelp or #relaxingnottaxing or something else clever and short.

If you don't have many fans, you'll need to gain more followers by sharing relevant content from your industry, interacting with people and finding relevant users to follow.

Here's an example of a brand that did this well: Lululemon with their #justmymat campaign. It began with a woman doing yoga in different settings in an Instagram brand video. As a result, thousands of followers uploaded photos and videos of themselves practicing yoga all over the world while using the campaign hashtag.

Tip #3: Show, Don't Tell

Telling your brand story doesn't have to mean typing out a whole bunch of copy. Images and videos can be a great way to capture the essence of your branding. Some platforms center around images (Pinterest and Instagram, for example).

Even the ones that don't have made changes to make social media storytelling easier, with more opportunities for photos, videos, and albums.

If you're not sure where to get images, do some research on design apps and sites that let you use your own images or templates and backgrounds to create engaging posts for the various social platforms.

There are so many ways you can tell a story that will best reflect your brand, business and you! You don't need to tackle the world of Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter on your own.

Susan Friesen, the founder of the award-winning web development and digital marketing firm eVision Media, is a Web Specialist, Business & Marketing Consultant, and Social Media Advisor. She works with entrepreneurs who struggle with having a lack of knowledge, skill, and support needed to create their online business presence.

If you are new to Social Media and online marketing or find it overwhelming and confusing, my monthly group coaching program, AMPLIFY! Business Academy http://amplifybusinessacademy.com/ is a perfect way for you to incrementally learn the best strategies and tactics to help you grow your business online.

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Susan_Friesen/260293

P.S.

We would love to let you know about our Content Marketing Starter-Kit & our Conquer Your Content System. This system has been proven to increase reach, engagements, and followers. It also helps bring in new customers EVERY MONTH! 

Gain clarity on your target audience, a downloadable and editable 6-month content calendar as well as a guide on how to set up the PERFECT content strategy for each month! 

Do yourself a favor & LEARN MORE about the Conquer Your Content System  & Content Marketing Starter-Kit 

Content Curation - 9 Top Tools To Boost Your Online Influence, Authority And Visibility

The easiest way to create content? Curate it. And in the process, build your online influence, authority, and visibility.

Content curation is becoming an increasingly essential component of effective content marketing. The truth is, it's nigh on impossible to create all the content yourself that you need in order to sustain and build your online visibility. Curating content offers a useful, and actually highly beneficial, alternative.

With increasing amounts of content available, people need a trusted resource who's willing to cut through the noise and clutter and gather the most important pieces of information in one place.

By performing that role within your niche, you attract increasing numbers of followers and enjoy increased influence, authority and visibility as a result.

So What Is 'Content Curation'?

In brief, content curation involves sourcing quality content from around the web and then sharing the results through your own channels, such as social media and your own website.

In fact, most success stories on social media involve a component of curated content. Those who insist on trying to use social media as a direct selling platform (rather than an influence-building platform), and only share their own content rarely make much headway.

The benefits come from 'giving' as much value as possible to those on the social media platforms, rather than the 'grabbing' mentality of trying to make a quick buck.

The profits come from the influence you build, and is far more powerful long-term.

So How Can You Get Started Curating Content?

It's actually easier than you think. Here's a list of nine of the top resources and tools you can use to get started with content curation quickly - and most are completely free.

1. HASO (Help a Socialist Out) [search for 'HASO guy kawasaki]

From Guy Kawasaki, once you subscribe you receive a daily email with potential content you can pick from and share.

Each email is based on its own content curation activities, and they actually use the stories they find in their own social media activities.

You should find at least one or two content items a day in the list they provide that you'll then be able to share.

2. ContentGems.com

ContentGems has over 200,000 sources such as blogs, news sources, and social media accounts.

By entering your own interests - or what you want to find content about, using keywords - you'll get numerous recently-published content items in the results that you'll be able to sift through and use. They also show you the number of times a particular piece of content has been tweeted, so you get a feel for its popularity level, and how well it might resonate with your own audience.

3. Scoop.it

Similar to ContentGems.com, you enter keywords relating to your niche and can then see the latest content on your topic.

You can also use the platform to share the content you find directly to Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn (additional channels are available for paid accounts).

4. TrendSpottr

TrendSpottr puts you 'ahead of the trend', enabling you to see content that has reached a certain level of sharing frequency but not yet achieved a general level of awareness.

One advantage is that you'll be able to share content that your followers have not yet come across from another source. And when they do, they'll credit you with telling them first, immediately boosting their sense of your authority on the topic.

Secondly, you'll be sharing content that you know is highly sharable. That means when your followers share it with their own followers, you'll gain increased visibility as a result.

5. Google+ Explore

You can find posts related to your niche by searching based on hashtags. You can see which of them appear to be resonating more than others (you can see which have had the most +1's and shares) then find the most appealing posts to share with your own social channels.

6. Evernote

Evernote software is effectively a digital notebook that takes advantage of all the internet has to offer. It means you can save all sorts of information, and access it through your computer, smartphone or tablet.

In terms of content curation, if you're browsing something on your smartphone that would be suitable to share at some later point, you can save it to a suitable folder in Evernote, and then access it when you are ready.

It's also useful of course for making notes when ideas and inspiration strike you for creating your own content.

7. Feedly

Feedly.com is an aggregator service that takes advantage of RSS feeds to compile content from sources you enter.

It comes in very useful for example when you have a number of blogs you want to keep up with regularly. You add all the blogs in, and can then see all the content in one place without needing to visit each one or remember where they are.

When you're looking for new content to share, you can pick out the latest blog post that your followers will appreciate hearing about, and share it accordingly.

8. Google Alerts

By creating Google Alerts based on keywords relating to your niche, you can immediately find out what's new and share accordingly with your niche. You can get alerts by email, or create an RSS feed based on your alert that you can then consult when you are ready (for example, plug into Feedly above).

9. Hootsuite

In curating content, you need an easy way to disseminate the content to the social networks you're involved with. That's where Hootsuite comes in. You can view your social media activity all in one place, as well as schedule posts and tweets in advance.

Conclusion

With content curation an increasingly essential component of content marketing, it's important to use the right content curation tools to make that job as easy as possible as well as assist you in finding the most authoritative sources of content to share. By curating content on a regular basis, you'll enjoy your own online influence, authority and visibility increasing as a result.

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Steve_Shaw/4373

P.S.

We would love to let you know about our Content Marketing Starter-Kit & our Conquer Your Content System. This system has been proven to increase reach, engagements, and followers. It also helps bring in new customers EVERY MONTH! 

Gain clarity on your target audience, a downloadable and editable 6-month content calendar as well as a guide on how to set up the PERFECT content strategy for each month! 

Do yourself a favor & LEARN MORE about the Conquer Your Content System  & Content Marketing Starter-Kit 

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The Top 5 Reasons Why Your Content Marketing Campaign Failed

I am, from time to time, asked to troubleshoot why someone's content marketing campaign has not been the success they had hoped for. Almost always, the cause of the problem falls within the scope of one of the following reasons. Here, in reverse order, are my top five reasons why content marketing campaigns fail:

#5. You are not content marketing:

Content marketing is a marketing business to achieve one or more goals of that business. If the achievement of your business goal is not the reason for producing your content, you are blogging. That important distinction is not always understood.

Many content creators do not understand the part content marketing plays in moving your prospects along your sales funnel. Different types of content are needed for each stage, which is for suspects, prospects, and retaining and selling again to existing customers. If you are not producing content that supports each stage in the sales process, you are not content marketing.

#4. There is not a market for your product or service:

It never ceases to surprise me how many businesses fail because the founders did not do proper research to establish whether there was a market for their business and or whether their product or service met that need.

You can have a technically excellent product, but it will fail if no one wants to buy it. I once worked for a company that had such a product. Every prospect the sales force presented to said what a great idea it was, but they would not buy it. It was a solution looking for a problem. Then you have the other side of the coin: There is a market, but your product or service does not meet it. There is a problem, but you do not have a solution.

No matter how good your content marketing is, your campaign will fail in its objective of acquiring new customers if:

• There is no market for your product or service, or
• If your product does not solve the customer's problem.

#3. You are publishing in the wrong place:

You must ensure that your content gets to your target audience. You need to know:

• Who your target audience is. That includes demographic information such as their age, gender, socio-economic group, whether they are likely to be married, and if they have a family;
• Where they currently go to get information; and
• How they prefer to consume data.

Let's consider a couple of examples:

Example 1: You have a business that provides support for WordPress websites globally. Your target audience is likely to be business owners that already have, or intend to have a website on the WordPress platform. They are likely to be in the age group 24 to 54 years old, likely to be married and probably have a family. They are entrepreneurs, not software engineers.

You will find them on Linked In, and they probably also have a personal and business FaceBook presence. They are also very likely to use mobile computing devices, which is their device of choice for consuming data.

You need to be publishing your content in the places these people go to for answers to their WordPress problems, such as YouTube, podcasts (think iTunes, Sticher, Podcast Republic, and Zune to name but a few) - you could either have your own show or make guest appearances on other shows, SlideShare, writing articles (think long SlideShare documents, not just article directories), blogs, and forums for WordPress users.

Example 2: You provide an on-line tuition course in mathematics. Your target audience is likely to be school-age children and their parents. They will have a personal FaceBook presence and will probably also use one or more of the other popular social networking sites such as WhatsApp and Line. They are likely to have a Gmail account and also use YouTube.

The nature of your service lends itself to visual media, which is how this group prefers to consume data. Your target audience will be using sites such as Udemy and YouTube to find content.

The preferences of your target audience will determine where you need to publish your content and predicate the medium you use to deliver your content. If your target audience prefers to consume visual content, text-based content will not appeal to them and they will be much less likely to visit text-based content sites.

If your target audience prefers to consume data at a time and in a place that suits them, in other words, they want to consume content on-demand, consider audio podcasting. However, you should only do so if your content lends itself to the spoken word.

Should you publish your content on your own website?

The answer depends on how long you have been in business, and what reputation you already enjoy. The Pareto principle or the 80:20 rule will apply in any event. If your business is a start-up or is a young business, 80% of your content should publish off your website. As your business becomes established and your reputation has grown, that ratio can be reversed.

Not only do you need to publish your content in the places your audiences go to for information, but you must also ensure that it comes to their attention. That means systematically promoting your content on social networking sites such as FaceBook, Google+, Linked In and YouTube, as well as on Twitter, Reddit, StumbleUpon, and other similar sites. Consider issuing a press release and linking to the piece of content in blog posts and comments, and on forums. If you have an email list, tell your list about the content you have created and ask them to share it with others.

You should expect to spend at least as much time promoting your content as you did in creating it. Not all marketers do this, which is why many content marketing campaigns fail.

#2. Your campaign is too short:

Although there are people who claim great success from a short campaign, these fortunate few are the exception. For most of us, content marketing is a medium to long-term exercise that performs different roles for the various stages in our sales funnel. Put another way, you need to create content that is suitable for and supports each stage in the buying process.

Let us say, for example, that you have a business selling video cameras and accessories. You will need to create content that explains the different types of cameras that are available, their prices, the uses for which they are most suitable, and the amount of knowledge and or experiences the user will need to operate the device. This type of content is aimed at the person browsing your online store looking to see what is available.

Next, you can segment your content to cover the different sections of your potential audience, such as those looking for a camera to take videos of the family and holidays, hobbyists, and the high-end amateur and professional users. Content that compares the features, benefits, and disbenefits, the pros and cons if you like, of each product in the market segment will help the potential customer make a shortlist of suitable products. The person browsing your site is now a prospect.

The next set of content will focus on a specific product and the benefits of purchasing it from you. This type of content will help convert the prospect into a customer.

The final set of content will help your customers get the best out of their purchase and will upsell product add-ons and accessories.

If you are not creating content for each stage of the buying process and after-sales support, your content marketing campaign is not likely to be as successful as you had hoped.

#1. Poor quality content:

Poor quality content is the main reason why many content marketing campaigns fail. The term "poor quality" covers a multitude of sins.

Earlier in this article, I said that your content must be created with the objective of achieving a business goal. That is true, but not only should your content marketing do that, but it must also solve a problem your target audience has. At the very least it should give them something of use and value. Unfortunately, a great deal of content that is created is little more than a thinly-veiled sales pitch.

It should go without saying that your content should be grammatically correct and free from spelling errors. It should also be well written and follow a logical sequence. If you are writing an article, your objective is to retain the reader's interest long enough for them to get to your resource box. It is there that you should give the reader a good reason to click on the link to your website from where you will do the selling.

Similarly with video. You want to keep the viewer's attention until they see the call to action, which is usually to click on a link in the description.

Poor quality is a description that can also be applied to content that is too short or too general to be of any help to the person consuming it. Your content should be long enough to impart all the information you need to give in sufficient detail, but short enough to ensure you retain their interest.

There is another definition of poor quality content that is often overlooked by content marketers, that is if they are even aware of it. If your content fails to engage with your audience, it has not achieved one of your business goals. Most marketers gauge the success of their content by how many views it has received, or how many likes it has, or a combination of both. A piece of content may have have been viewed a great many times, and it might have received a large number of likes, but nobody has engaged with it. They did not comment on it, or share it with their own audience, or tweet about it, or list it on Reddit or StumbleUpon.

For your content marketing to be successful, your audience has to engage with your content.

The Takeaway:

As marketers, I think we can take away the following points:

#1. There must be a viable market for your product or service;

#2. Your content must assist you in achieving a business goal;

#3. Your content must be published in the places where your audience is likely to find it, and you must promote your content;

#4. Your content marketing campaign must support all the stages in the sales process as well as providing after-sales support, and

#5. You must create good quality content that encourages audience engagement.

Your content marketing campaign is likely to be successful if you apply these five lessons.

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Robert_Reddin/43660

P.S.

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3 Tips for Social Media Storytelling

How to Build Better Engagement for Your Business

Stories predate television, the internet, and social media, but they're a big part of the modern marketing landscape. Social media is-or should be-a big part of your marketing strategy, no matter what line of business you're in.

Social media storytelling can increase reach and brand awareness and help you gain new followers. However, there is a great deal of noise out there.

If you don't attract attention, your message is going to be lost in a sea of other competing messages.

When we're attempting to connect and engage with our followers, customers and potential customers, it's essential to remember that we're not talking at people or simply posting products or services.

Think of this as a chance to narrate your brand, to start a conversation about who you are and what you offer.

Here are 3 tips to help bring storytelling into your social media marketing strategy:

Tip #1: Be Human

People are going to connect with people first, not brands. Share what's happening in your world with your followers, what you're learning and what's exciting you. Reinforce your brand's message, your mission and what you stand for.

Audiences are savvy, and they can tell when a brand isn't being authentic in their posts. Recently, we've been engaging our eVision audience with questions, and based on the response we're getting, it's a fun and genuine way to learn more about our followers while promoting our business.

That said, only share things that you want the whole world to know! Once you put something out there, it's out there for everyone to see-and snapshot and share-so make sure it's well-thought-out and appropriate.

Tip #2: Create Value

Your creative has to have intent, which isn't necessarily to make leads or sales. Think of ways to inform, entertain or surprise your audience.

Provide people with unique and interesting content, like blog posts, articles, infographics, videos or eBooks on platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram.

Offering resources is one of the top ways to attract attention and followers. Inviting your community to be part of your brand is an ideal way to get them engaged with your resources.

For example, if you're an accountant trying to increase your online presence and engagement, you could ask your followers to share their top reasons for hiring someone else to do their taxes.

Ask them to hashtag their responses with #taxhelp or #relaxingnottaxing or something else clever and short.

If you don't have many fans, you'll need to gain more followers by sharing relevant content from your industry, interacting with people and finding relevant users to follow.

Here's an example of a brand that did this well: Lululemon with their #justmymat campaign. It began with a woman doing yoga in different settings in an Instagram brand video. As a result, thousands of followers uploaded photos and videos of themselves practicing yoga all over the world while using the campaign hashtag.

Tip #3: Show, Don't Tell

Telling your brand story doesn't have to mean typing out a whole bunch of copy. Images and videos can be a great way to capture the essence of your branding. Some platforms center around images (Pinterest and Instagram, for example).

Even the ones that don't have made changes to make social media storytelling easier, with more opportunities for photos, videos, and albums.

If you're not sure where to get images, do some research on design apps and sites that let you use your own images or templates and backgrounds to create engaging posts for the various social platforms.

There are so many ways you can tell a story that will best reflect your brand, business and you! You don't need to tackle the world of Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter on your own.

Susan Friesen, the founder of the award-winning web development and digital marketing firm eVision Media, is a Web Specialist, Business & Marketing Consultant, and Social Media Advisor. She works with entrepreneurs who struggle with having a lack of knowledge, skill, and support needed to create their online business presence.

If you are new to Social Media and online marketing or find it overwhelming and confusing, my monthly group coaching program, AMPLIFY! Business Academy http://amplifybusinessacademy.com/ is a perfect way for you to incrementally learn the best strategies and tactics to help you grow your business online.

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Susan_Friesen/260293

Affiliate Marketing: BEST Ways To Start in 2019

7 Ways to Use Videos for More Engagement on Instagram

In the digital world, social media has become a very important part of a successful marketing strategy. Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. offer a lot of opportunities for brands to showcase their products. These platforms are free to use and you can directly interact with a larger audience at once. You don't need to invest a lot of money in building a marketing strategy that includes social media videos. No matter whether you have a small or a large business, it's time that you take social media marketing seriously.

Based on statistics shared by Lyfe marketing, 93 percent of videos on Twitter are accessed from mobile phones. Views of branded video content on YouTube has doubled in the last three years. Moreover, Facebook live videos receive 10 times more comments that a regular video. All these statistics show that video content is in demand on social media networks. This is because millennials connect more to videos on social media. Web Marketing Video Council has found that more than 60 percent of brands are using social media videos actively for promotions. Thus, it is highly likely that your competitors are also leveraging the power of social media video to expand their customer base.

Instagram is a very powerful social media platform that allows you to share images and videos online. Techcrunch has been studying Instagram trends since its launch. As per their study, Instagram crossed the threshold of 1 billion monthly active users in 2018. Moreover, Instagram is currently growing at a rate of 5 percent per quarter, the highest among social media platforms. So, Instagram should be your first choice in showcasing your brand's product and services. In this article, we will take you through some ways to use Instagram videos for engaging more audience.

Short Commercials

Create short, valuable videos that represent your brand. You can showcase your product in an artistic way through these videos. The commercial can be inspirational, funny, or emotional. Instagram currently allows you to share a 60-second video on your timeline. With such short videos, it is easy to grab the attention of the target audience. Also, short videos are best to share crisp information about your products. You can share the commercial in Instagram stories, IGTV or in the Instagram timeline.

Product details

Showcase your product's specifications or a 'product in action' video to demonstrate its capability. Focus only on important features to keep the viewers engaged. Keep the video more informative and less descriptive. Attention to detail is the key to creating a cool and sexy video. You can put the product video in your brand's Instagram page's timeline for the audience to see anytime. Creating such spontaneous videos attracts a lot of attention.

Do it yourself videos

An effective way to use Instagram videos is to create instructional content. 'Do it yourself' or 'how to' videos share your products working. This helps the users to understand the product's usage. You can also create troubleshooting videos related to any problem that your customer might face. To the point, videos are liked by the target audience as they get relevant information within a short span of time. By sharing such videos from time to time you can build a relationship with your existing customers.

Behind the scenes video

Customers have become picky in choosing a product, hence it is important to establish a connection with them. You can create behind the scenes videos that take them through trivia related to your product. You can even conduct quick learning sessions about tips and tricks related to your product usage. The fast forward video that Sheryl Cole has shared about her work will give some idea. You just have to be creative and smart in capturing the right moments for your Instagram video.

Instagram Stories Video

Instagram launched Insta stories in August 2016. Through stories, you can share images or videos with your followers for a 24-hour duration. This short span creates a sense of urgency and people tend to view the stories as they see one active. You can use stories to promote your business as follows:

1. Sharing short-time deals is a good way to attract people to your products and services. You can set up the offer so that it can only be redeemed during the story's lifespan. Once people get to know about such deals, they will come for more.
2. Let an influencer take over your Instagram handle to share a sneak peek of the products and discount offers. A familiar face is sure to attract more audience.

Live on Instagram

The best feature on Instagram is that you can stream live video on it. Once you go live on Instagram, you are at the forefront of your follower's feed. Hence, there are high chances of your followers engaging with your live stream. They get to see your stream even if they aren't physically part of the event. Product previews, product releases, Q&A sessions, educational streams, etc. are some ways in which you can engage with your online audience. If your event is pre-planned, then you can promote it through emails and other social media platforms.

Bring in the makers

Give a personal touch to your stories by introducing your employees who have created your products and services. You can get the team members to share their journey in product development. Also, you can let your employees handle your brand's Instagram account for a day. They can then share details about their work life and the hard work that goes into making the product. The employees can even conduct a Q&A session for the audience to educate them about the product. Such video sessions create an emotional connect with the target audience and more views to your Instagram account.

Conclusion

If you aren't incorporating the power of Instagram into your digital marketing campaign, then you are missing out on something big. Instagram's potential if exploited properly, can take your products to new heights. There is no perfect way to use Instagram video, the techniques mentioned above will help you in getting started in doing so. You can even hire social media management agencies that will help you promote your products by creating some amazing video content.

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Mark_S_Cooper/1296732