Too many organizations commit to building a social media strategy without first providing a solid foundation for their efforts. This leads to a rather shaky operation that has the potential to topple down and cause a lot of damage.
I believe the foundation of any social media strategy is content. Content comes in many forms including blog posts, webinars, ebooks and whitepapers, videos, etc.
Without great content you will never own the conversation and you should never forget, social media marketing is all about hosting great conversations.
Empowering Experts
Great content helps position individuals within your organization as a thought leaders within their various fields of expertise. Employing expert opinion will not add credibility to your social media output, it will drive lead generating engagement and ultimately help you retain clients and sell more products or services.
Expert-based content gives you an excuse to broadcast via social media. This great content can often mean the difference between being useful and simply creating noise.
The Golden Rule of Content Marketing
Great content marketing (like all great products or services) must solve a problem (or a series of problems) for your clients or prospects. If you content doesn’t solve problems – you may be wasting time, effort and money on its creation.
If you are struggling to come up with creative solutions to solving problems with your content, I suggest you pick up the phone and speak to a trusted client. They will probably give you a list of 10 items they need help with. Solve just one of these problems for just one client and you will likely have solved a problem for hundreds or perhaps event thousands of potential clients.
Finding the Time to Create Great Content
One of the biggest roadblocks to creating great content is the investment in time it takes to pull it all together. Because of this, many companies might consider outsourcing its creation. This can be an expensive mistake.
The best content should always come from an organic source. No outside content producer will ever have the insight to produce the kind of “useful” content your clients and prospects are looking for. If you are unable to produce your own content, you should (at the very least) provide the original inspiration for the work.
Learn how Viralheat can help you drive greater engagement by combining the power of social media and content marketing.
Photo credit: George Smith
