Originally delivered to the Chesapeake Regional Tech Council for the monthly Social Media Marketing Forum on January 31, 2014.
Includes a basic overview of content strategy, marketing, and planning; how to create an editorial calendar; how to brainstorm and repurpose content; and other planning tips and resources.
2. Our Goals for Today
● Reviewing content strategy, marketing, and planning
● Setting goals for your content
● Creating your 2014 editorial calendar
● Finding ideas
● Creating and repurposing content
● Additional resources and ideas to keep your content
marketing fresh and effective
@suchthekaitlin
5. We’re Going to Assume a Few Things . . .
● You know content marketing is valuable.
● It will take time, resources & dedication.
● It needs to be relevant, high quality & channel-appropriate.
● Your content needs to be technically accessible across
devices.
● You need to track its effectiveness the best you can.
● There’s more you need to put together to be successful,
including:
○ Content style guide
○ Audience personas
○ Publication, distribution & promotion plans
@suchthekaitlin
6. Content
Strategy
The “how”
A repeatable
framework for
content
development
Don’t duplicate
effort
in silos
@suchthekaitlin
Content
Marketing
The “why”
Creating &
delivering content
to drive consumer
actions
Planning
The “whats” and
“wheres”
Content style guide
Audience personas
Ideation
Your editorial
calendar
And more
http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2013/10/content-strategy-content-marketing-separate-connected/
8. Setting Goals for Your Content
● Start with your
organizational goals
● Visualize the best possible
outcome
● Refine it into something you
can track
● Break into monthly or
quarterly focuses
● Test & optimize
@suchthekaitlin
9. “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.”
@suchthekaitlin
10. @suchthekaitlin
Creating Your 2014 Editorial Calendar
Ideas
Structure with time &
topic-based
breakdown
Align multiple tactics
Form mini-campaigns
Accountability
Assign responsibility
Avoid redundancy
Goal Alignment
Start with
organizational
marketing calendar
Work toward
organizational goals
Define direction of
your content
11. @suchthekaitlin
Creating Your 2014 Editorial Calendar
● Tools
● Templates
● Structure:
o Post type
o Topic
● What if there’s breaking news?
● Keep backup posts
● Schedule regular brainstorms
12. @suchthekaitlin
Creating Your 2014 Editorial Calendar
Monday
Guest Blog
(type)
Recipes
(topic)
Wednesday
Advice & How-
Tos
(type)
Health
(topic)
Friday
Video Case
Study
(type)
Chefs
(topic)
13. @suchthekaitlin
Creating Your 2014 Editorial Calendar
S M T W T F S
Tweet
Facebook
Podcast
Email
Frequency: Days of week and time of day
19. Finding Ideas
● Play to your strengths
● Start with what you know
● Keep an idea bank
● Ask questions
● Answer FAQs
● What’s #trending?
@suchthekaitlin http://www.copyblogger.com/get-ideas/
20. Finding Ideas
● Monitor your industry &
competitors
● What’s your “Purple Cow”?
● Answer these three questions:
o What questions is no one in
your industry willing to
answer?
o What does nearly everyone
disagree with you about?
o What do you believe will
happen in the future that
other people consider
impossible or unlikely?
@suchthekaitlin http://www.copyblogger.com/get-ideas/
http://sisarina.com/blog/you-die-what-happens-to-your-business
21. Creating & Repurposing Content
@suchthekaitlin “4-1-1” http://www.copyblogger.com/influencer-plan/
● Define your repurposing rule
o Turn top content into feature emails
o Make it a series
o Follow up on previous content (and link back)
o Refresh something that had traffic/impact
● Use a content ratio, like the 4-1-1 by Andrew Davis,
author of Brandscaping
Content from influencers,
Relevant to your audience
Sales ContentSales
23. Additional Resources & Ideas
● Things you can do today
o Put your blog or channel URL in your email signature
o Finding influencers: wefollow.com, muckrack.com, klout.com
o Connect your content and keep your audience engaged. Link to
related content, “other articles you might like”, subscribe to our email,
you might like to download this whitepaper, etc.
● Track your success
o Track clicks (Google URL Tracking tool builder, Bit.ly, Ow.ly, Buff.ly
etc.)
@suchthekaitlin
24. Additional Resources & Ideas Cont’d
● Don’t reinvent the wheel. There are some great resources out there,
including:
o Content Marketing Institute:
http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2013/06/essential-content-
templates-checklists/
o Copyblogger.com
o Contently.com
o Onboardly.com
o Bufferapp.com
o Hubspot.com
o Moz SEO guide: http://moz.com/blog/the-web-developers-seo-cheat-
sheet-2013-edition
o Content strategy overview:
http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/33363.asp#singleview
@suchthekaitlin
We have a looooot to talk about. It’s like a sandwich - and if we try to stack on ham and lettuce and cheese and bacon and turkey and meatballs and on and on, you have a lot of great stuff on that sandwich, but you’ve made it too big to eat.
So I want to keep it more like an egg mcmuffin - just some of the basics, and then I’ll give you the menu so you know what else you’d like to order.
But I’d also like to keep it a conversation, so I hope when we talk through some of these things, you’ll be willing to share your ideas.
Think of one of your favorite brands and which channels you see them on.
Then think about what you see them produce on those channels. It’s not just ads, commercials & marketing messages, it’s content. It’s value-based storytelling to engage customers, build brand loyalty, and ultimately, drive action.
The best part is - you’re probably already doing more of it than you realize.
A great example is Barnes & Noble - they’ve always run a great blog, and have been a great brand example on social media. Just look at the mix of this recent content. It directs traffic to an event, their blog, shares consumer content, encourages you to visit a physical location, and it looks effortless. But the trick is - it’s not.
Includes: Message (mission, tone and output), Audiences, Delivery, Timing (editorial, schedule for review)
Next we’re going to talk about setting goals, so this cartoon from marketoonist.com is really great.
Why are you producing content? To support your business goals. Coca Cola’s Facebook page isn’t just sharing heartwarming stories to cheer you up - that’s part of their marketing strategy to support sales. So when you’re setting goals for your content, align with your organizational goals.Visualize the best possible outcome from your business producing content - picture that scenario. “What do you want your reader to do next?” Is it growing your Facebook fanbase to talk to?Visualize the best possible outcome and write that down. Now make that more concrete. Define it into a goal we can track on our editorial calendar.Then let’s use that to determine what your goal is (you’ll always have more than one goal, but we’re keeping it simple today).
Potential goals include: Prospecting (Generate leads), Sales, Marketing (Generate interest), PR (build & influence public opinion), Community (Develop fans who interact with your brand socially), Customer support, Thought leadership (Develop name recognition and respect, influence your industry)
Testing & optimizing - if 500-word blogs work best for you, ditch the 1,000-word posts. Stick to a formula
Tools: Google docs, Smartsheets - things like that make it very easy for everyone to see and update
Templates: customize for your needs
structure: i’ll show you an example on the next slide
don’t be afraid to disrupt your calendar when there are new developments or breaking news
That’s why it’s always good to keep a few “evergreen” posts
You’re not going to sit down tomorrow and plan out 12 full months of content - break it into pieces and schedule regular brainstorms
Structuring by post type or topic
So you could start with something very simple, like this. This is just frequency per channel.
frequency, days of the week and time of day
marketing calendar
editorial
blog publication
Think of some of your favorite brands.
I’m willing to bet that they’ve put out some content related to the Super Bowl - and it’s not a coincidence. It’s planning. This is one of the biggest storytelling opportunities of the year, and it happens around the same time every year.
A brand I follow on Facebook is promoting nail polish in the playing teams’ colors. They don’t need to know which teams will be in the Super Bowl to plan for that content.
And that kind of opportunity, albeit often on a much smaller scale, happens all year.
Play to your strengths - you know your customers, your industry and your employees or co-workers best
Start with what you know - conferences, events, things you know are coming up you can talk about
Keep an idea bank: carry a notebook, keep a whiteboard anyone can add ideas to, whatever works for you
What’s going on in your industry? Competitors?
Answer FAQs from other channels and conversations with your customers
Trending topics - what can you add, or how can you use that to frame?
This is an idea from Seth Godin about setting yourself apart by being remarkable.
Set yourself apart from your competitors
I want to talk about one more thing before we do a little brainstorm.
Define your own repurposing rule BEFORE, NOT AFTER - how many pieces of content do you need to be able to create from each major idea
For day-to-day content, like Twitter & Facebook, use a ratio of your industry influences, promotional content, and content marketing content