Marketing Secrets
Marketing Secrets
Building a Content Castle
Part 2: How are you going to publish your content?
Make sure to catch Part 1: What are you going to write about?
You have created your categorized list of topics you’d like to publish. Now, we will work through how, where, and how often you want to engage your audience. This part can seem overwhelming, but when you break it down into a series of smaller decisions, it makes it a lot easier.
How are you going to publish your content?
Channels
There are so many places for you to put content, and it seems like the options for social media platforms grow daily. Never fear. The first thing to keep in mind is that you want to meet your audience where they are. Start by asking yourself (or your customers): Where do you get your information, entertainment, product/service recommendations, etc.? Also, look at your numbers. If you already have some content rolling, where are you getting the most traction already?
If this is your first rodeo and/or you only have time for a little bit, I suggest limiting the places you post outside of your website; two or three additional channels are plenty to start. Choose the channels that best align with the content categories you have created. While most would point to the major social media platforms, your industry might call for increased visibility in a specific space. Keep trade publications, niche websites and posting forums, as well as collaboration opportunities and podcasts in your sights when creating your shortlist of publishing platforms.
Let’s look at the three categories we used in our last post: Industry Insights, Products/Services, and People/Culture. Industry insights would do well on LinkedIn as well as industry publications and forums. Depending on the product/service, Facebook and Instagram might work, too.
Remember your friend Jemma with the Etsy shop, Jemma’s Home Gems? She decides to continue with Facebook posts, but also add in Instagram. After setting up a booth at a farmer’s market, she found an opportunity to regularly contribute to their e-newsletter. She also creates a blog to reconnect all her content back to her website. Her channels include:
- Website Blog
- Etsy Shop
- Farmer’s Market E-Newsletter Contributor
Keep in mind, you only want to do as much as you can do well. Spreading yourself and your brand too thin will do more harm than good.
Frequency
You have chosen your categories and channels. The frequency of your content contributions will be key. What commitment are you willing to make for engagement? How often are your followers going to or want to hear from you? How much is enough to stay relevant and top of mind?
For a B2C business like Jemma’s Home Gems, she will need to post more frequently to stay top of mind. She will also most likely spend more time on products/services rather than industry insights; however, Jemma’s advocacy for Autism Speaks and Special Olympics is an important part of her business, too. She decides to split the content focus throughout the week where 4 days are on products/services, 2 on people/culture, and 1 on industry insights.
B2B businesses might focus more on expertise and industry knowledge as well as people/culture. The choices you make really depend on what you want your brand to portray and your audience.
Scheduling
You know what you want to post, where, and how often. Now, you need to plan the release. If you’re only on one or two social media platforms, you might be able to manually post each time. With more than two, you might go bananas keeping it all straight and consistent. Even with a single platform, you can make the most out of your content days by using a social media management platform, like Later or Hootsuite, to schedule an entire month or year of content.
Scheduling your content not only lets you look at a literal calendar of posts but also allows you to make sure you’re staying consistent with your frequency and category goals. Go ahead and schedule the easy ones for holiday acknowledgments well in advance, so you’ll never miss another “Thank you, Veterans!” or “Merry Christmas!” post again.
There are a lot of options out there at different price points (free to thousands of dollars). I would start with a free option, like Later, and ease into the paid services as your presence and needs grow.
If you opt out of a management platform, I suggest keeping a spreadsheet of all your posts by day, category, and platform. This will be a good planning device, and it allows you to look back at what you’ve done over time.
Here’s a sample weekly schedule of posts and content launches for Jemma’s Home Gems. Make note that it includes holidays, hashtags, image ideas, and links for each post for every channel. This is just a sample.
You’ve figured out what you want to say, where you want it to go, and how often. Now, you need to revisit it with actions in mind.
Read Part 3: What do people do with your content?>>
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