Content Marketing Habits to Start Using Now
We talk a lot about marketing, don't we? Specifically, content marketing: creating and distributing content, like blog posts, graphics, and videos, to attract potential customers and spark interest in your products.
And we talk a lot about using your social media channels to get your content to your audience.
It's pretty straightforward:
Figure out what your audience actually wants and needs.
Create it.
Be consistent.
That's it. No special magic, no secret sauce... the key is that your content has to be actually valuable to your audience, and it needs to be found by your audience, on channels and platforms they're likely to already be using.
The part of this process we're focusing on today is #3: Consistency! Writing one Tweet and walking away won't build your professional brand, and writing one blog post won't make you an expert in your audience's eyes.
Here are some habits to start making a regular part of your day and week, so you're fully engaged and able to take advantage of any cool opportunities that come your way.
Daily:
Even if you don't plan to post that day at all, check on your channels and inboxes daily. Scroll through your Twitter feed and check on your Facebook groups, and see if there are any opportunities to engage with someone and start a conversation. Use the tools we told you about last week and check if there are any big news stories or conversations going on that are important to your business. RT something, reply to someone, and scope out what your competitors have posted today.
Engagement doesn't take hours a day; you can easily spend 15 minutes every morning checking things and interacting a bit. We like to split this up throughout the day so it's even faster: once in the morning, once over lunch, and right before you're done for the day.
Professional marketers log in daily, because opportunities come and go real quick. You might be scrolling through Twitter and see a post from a journalist looking for interviews about exactly what you do every day. If you respond right away, you could be featured in a big publication, just because you checked Twitter! (This actually happens to our clients regularly, so trust us when we say this works.)
The other reason is to see what's trending. What is your audience gabbing about today? Did news break overnight that you could respond to? If you schedule your content a month out and don't check on it, you could miss something really relevant to your audience, and look totally out of touch.
We also recommend scheduling your social media content daily. This way, you won't forget about it, you can respond to breaking news, and you can potentially delete drafts before they're posted, in case the content is no longer appropriate.
If you're using an editorial calendar (find our how-to and a sample calendar here), you might be drafting your text and designing graphics or choosing photos well in advance, and that's great. But schedule your posts each morning so you're actually paying attention to what's going out. You'll also be more invested in these posts and how they perform!
Weekly:
It consistently surprises us that so many new clients of ours have never looked at their social media metrics, website analytics, or email open rates.
Maybe they're nervous to know if their posts aren't doing that well. Or maybe they just never learned how to look. Either way, checking your metrics regularly, as we've said time and time again, is really important! Use this guide to figure out what metrics matter most to you, and pick a day of the week to sit and look at them, preferably with your team. We recommend Mondays!
And also use this time to prioritize your content for the upcoming week. To be really spiffy, go back and read through our post on value vs. complexity, so you can plan your content according to what will help you reach your goals... without overwhelming yourself!