Why Is It So Hard to Make Content?

“I don’t know what to write!” “When I write, it comes out wrong.” “I get jammed up and stuck for ideas.” Does this sound like you?

I started blogging back in 1998, when they called it journaling. I was terrible at it. Most of my posts were about my own opinion on things. There was no consistency of voice. I’d just finish the post when I felt done with my writing. Junk. And no one read my blog.

It took me eight years to get my first 100 readers. To my defense, no one was reading blogs back then. But also, I stunk. My mom read my blog. Becky read my blog. Jon. That was about it.

And then I got good.

How to Make Great Content Without So Much Effort and Fuss

I’ll tell you what I know. The reason YOU are probably having a tough time is that you’re really really (really!) self conscious as you write. “How will this be received? What will people say? What if they say I’m full of crap?” (They won’t say “crap.”)

When I came to master my voice in writing and creating content, I focused on just a few really important factors:

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Why Is It So Hard to Make Content?

The Death of Content Marketing: Why Brands Must Become Cultural Currency

Before there was social media—before there was mobile and the video revolution, there was blogging. Once heralded as a revolution in communications and to a degree, marketing—self expression and direct publishing of the written word became an influential force to be dealt with.

Blogging, in written word form of has been a commodity for some time.

Even as I write this on the reality is less people are taking in the written word, opting instead for “junk food” media which comes in highly shareable and snackable bits of sticky, mobile optimized content.

Today however, it is content itself that has and will continue to become the commodity. Content in all forms—even mobile optimized and snackable content. There’s simply too much of it. Most of it is not very good and even if it is—the amount of effort it takes to make sure that content will travel far and wide makes for considerable effort. Many will do this well but more will fail.

So what is value in today’s connected marketing and media landscape?

Culture

The ability to create it, influence it, co-create it and integrate a brand so seamlessly in culture and relevant sub cultures. This is the next frontier of marketing and communications and while it has much to do with things like social, mobile and content—it is the cultural aspect that must lead while everything else follows. A very excellent article in Harvard Business Review reflects some of this shift, labeling it within the context of something Douglas Holt calls “Crowdculture”:

“While companies have put their faith in branded content for the past decade, brute empirical evidence is now forcing them to reconsider. In YouTube or Instagram rankings of channels by number of subscribers, corporate brands barely appear. Only three have cracked the YouTube Top 500. Instead you’ll find entertainers you’ve never heard of, appearing as if from nowhere.

YouTube’s greatest success by far is PewDiePie, a Swede who posts barely edited films with snarky voice-over commentary on the video games he plays. By January 2016 he had racked up nearly 11 billion views, and his YouTube channel had more than 41 million subscribers.”

The challenge for brands is that they often times cannot create culture by themselves. Today’s culture creators often thrive in “sub cultures”—niche groups that exist under more mainstream areas whether it be food, sports, fashion—lest you think this only applies to “consumer brands” it does not.Subcultures exist in business as well and continue to diversify as business itself becomes more specialized and niche.

Brands and Organizations Must Become Collaborators and Co-Creators of Culture

Today and tomorrow’s challenge for brands and organizations is to tweak their marketing and communications infrastructure so they can effectively collaborate with influencers of culture across the spectrum. If brands cannot create culture from scratch—they can co-create it with the right partners across the paid, owned, earned and social spectrum. But to do this at scale, they must understand the ecosystem of influence and re-structure internally to connect that ecosystem and approach peer to peer influence from all sides.

The Influencer Ecosystem

Brands and organizations who wish to influence culture and become co-creators of it, must begin to coordinate how they approach working with those who wield influence, coming at it from different directions. For example, TIME magazine featured a cover telling us that we should “eat butter”. While earned in nature, the story and the journalists behind it are playing a key role in the resurgence of butter and how Americans are re-thinking fat. It’s an example of media influencing culture—in this particular example, this kind of influence cannot be bought—it must be earned, however, increasingly cultural influencers such as “YouTubers” require paid means to collaborate with. The influencer ecosystem can be broken down as such:

Cultural Influencers
These can be celebrities but increasingly, it is the influencers of subcultures—those who are building audiences via Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube etc. that are becoming today’s trusted voices. In 2015, Variety reported on a survey which displayed a trend where digital celebrities (YouTubers etc.) began eclipsing traditional celebrities in terms of popularity:

“Sehdev predicts that within five years, YouTube stars will consume the entire top-20 celebrity influencer list, and aging teens will grow into a sizable fanbase for online talent overall. But that will require YouTube stars to remain genuine and relatable as they gain in popularity.”

However despite this trend, there are significant implications for brands. As stated above, the digital stars must remain genuine and relatable which makes working with them a challenge as brands must learn to collaborate vs. dictate heavy handed marketing. Also, brands must develop repeatable ways they can work with all levels of these types of influencers. As it is an emerging space often requiring complex contracts, disclaimers and transparency—it brings new operational dynamics to the table.

Reputational Influencers
These can range from employees to thought leaders to analysts and experts and while they often influence consumers or customers who are highly informed and connected themselves. The challenge here for brands is that much of what they do in this space is often times disconnected from what they do with cultural influencers—but should be more integrated. Not long ago, Edelman (my employer) announced a strategic partnership with a start up called Dynamic Signal. One of the key benefits of their platform Voicestream is the ability to harness the networks of either cultural or reputational influencers acting as amplifiers of content that a brand places in front of them. Integration and accountability in terms of performance is now becoming possible, but brands must first connect efforts here.

Media Influencers 
As the TIME example illustrates—media in all its forms led by journalists and the media companies they work with can often influence culture and sub

The Death of Content Marketing: Why Brands Must Become Cultural Currency

How to Attract Relevant Blog Traffic with Content Promotion Strategies

Did you know that around 2 million blog posts get published every single day? That’s a huge volume of content for Internet users, but guess what: only few of those posts attract a great deal of traffic and convert the visitors to subscribers.

The huge activity in the blogosphere is an opportunity, but it’s also a challenge. You’re allowed to publish whatever you want on your blog, but you have to beat the competition if you want to get enough attention. You cannot sit back waiting for readers to find you, so you need content promotion strategies that will make you a successful blogger.

You’re already aware of the common advice for content promotion: share on social media, communicate with the audience, provide high quality, and so on. We will spare you from the same old things you read on a daily basis, and we’ll provide you with practical tips that help you attract relevant traffic to your blog.

1. Promote your blog through Facebook ads

You don’t have to try hard to find a way to attract relevant traffic to your blog; Facebook has already figured it out for you. There is a huge audience on this social network, and Facebook has all information about their interests. Thus, it can serve the ads to the right target audience. Facebook advertising will get you plenty of visits on a daily basis.

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As many other bloggers, you may have one question on your mind: how much will Facebook advertising cost? The good news is that you can control your budget, so Facebook will not charge any more than you have planned for your campaign. According to The Facebook Ads Benchmark Report, the average cost per page like in the USA is $ 0.84.

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These ads will appear like usual posts on the users’ timelines, so they won’t even notice the heavy advertising.

2. Make the posts engaging

You know you have to make the posts engaging, but how exactly are you supposed to do that? Engagement comes in the form of likes, replies, favorites, and shares. That’s determined through few factors:

• Visual appeal

You always make sure to choose the right images for your blog posts. Are you doing the same when you’re promoting them? You need to add images to Facebook posts, so your followers will notice them more easily. It’s even better if you complement the posts with videos. Thanks to Facebook’s autoplay function, many people will see those posts and they will click on them to visit your blog.

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• Hashtags

Some people mock hashtags, but even they can’t ignore the fact that the hashtag method is effective in content promotion. Use few 1-2 relevant hashtags when promoting posts on Google+, Facebook, and Twitter. On Instagram, it’s okay to use more of them, but don’t get carried away with a huge block of hashtags.

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• The post length

There’s not much consideration about the length of a Tweet; you know you need to stick within the limited number of characters. However, you don’t have such limitations on Facebook, Google+, Instagram, and other social media networks, so the question is inevitable: how long should the posts be?

According to the information published by Buffer, the ideal character count is 71-100 for Twitter, 60 for Google+, and 40 for Facebook. Who would’ve guessed that Facebook users expect shorter updates than the ones they see on Twitter?

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It’s important to keep your social media updates to the desired length if you want to keep the audience engaged.

3. Mention and quote influencers

Bloggers who create a buzz with each new post they published are considered authorities in the online world. Everyone is recommending their content, but not all fellow bloggers do that the right way.

When you quote influencers, you have to make sure their words are relevant to your topic. Always include a link to the source of that quote, and make that part of your post tweetable. Why would you want to do that? – Because you’re not only trying to add value to your content through their words; you’re also trying to establish connections with influencers.

Once the blog post goes live, tweet those parts and tag the bloggers you’ve mentioned. You can expect their retweets and recommendations, so you’ll gain visibility in front of their target audience.

4. Be an active member of forums and communities

Forums are the perfect spot for attracting visitors who are interested in the content you have, so you need to make them an essential part in your content promotion strategy. If you don’t have time to write awesome blog content, promote it all over social media, and make valuable contributions in these online communities, then you use online services which offer great assistance in writing and editing, so you can rely on them regardless of the niche your blog is focused on.

Back to the forums and communities. These are the ones you can explore:

• Quora – that’s where everyone goes when they need an answer from an expert. You can target the questions related to your blog’s theme, provide awesome answers, and gain points that make you more visible.
• Reddit – you can find anything on this forum. Locate the relevant categories and become an active member of the community. Do not insult people and maintain a friendly, but authoritative approach that presents your blog in the best light.
• it – you only need to submit your content to 10-15 scoops to attract hundreds of visits to your blog.

5. Make the blog content easy to share

Content marketing involves more than promotional activities; it also includes the actual content you write. You need to develop share-worthy, easy-to-read content; otherwise you’ll be the only one sharing it on social media.

• The structure of the post is an important aspect of its ‘shareability’. How-to posts, listicles, and infographics are the types of posts the audience prefers.

• The headline has to be very appealing, since it’s the only thing most people will read before deciding whether or not to give the post a chance. Plus, the headline is the main point that attracts attention when the post is shared on social media.

• Write longer, elaborate posts. Although the attention span of the audience is not that great, SerpIQ found that the average length of posts that show up at the top of Google search results is 2000+. Longer posts also get more shares on social media.

Content Promotion Is a Process; Not an Activity

You need a precise strategy that will help you promote your content to the right target audience. Only a focused, well-planned approach will yield good results. This process will involve a lot of time and effort, but that investment will return with a greater number of visits to your blog, better engagement, and more conversions.

 

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How to Attract Relevant Blog Traffic with Content Promotion Strategies