Webinar: Blend Content And Social Strategies For Real-Time Marketing
- Written by Brian Anderson, Associate Editor
- Published in Content Strategies
As the content marketing and social media landscapes continue to intersect, and B2B marketers are striving to tailor their messaging for these fast-paced channels.
In a recent webinar titled: How To Impress Your Boss, Get Ahead, And Tighten Your Bottom (Line) In 2014, Ann Handley, Chief Content Officer at MarketingProfs, discussed key strategies for maximizing content marketing and social media outreach.
“When it comes to content marketing and social strategy, the basics are just not enough anymore,” Handley said. “I think real-time marketing is no longer a luxury anymore. It’s increasingly important for marketers to embrace some sort of real-time marketing as part of their content and social strategies.”
Having a real-time strategy for both business areas is critical when it comes to staying relevant and engaging with your viewers, Handley noted.
“With social media in particular, a lot of times companies try to get their followers to talk about them,” said Handley. “But I think the better model — the better way to engage followers with social — is to talk about what your fans are already talking about and figure out ways to plug into conversations that are already happening.”
Mining Social Channels For Content
The best way to start a real-time strategy is to leverage your company’s social channels. Social web sites tend to form online communities that can be easily tapped into if the members match your target audience. B2B marketers can look to trending conversations to curate content and gain inspiration.
“You can get a lot of story ideas through your social channels just by curating the voices you see on Twitter and Facebook,” said Handley. “It’s a bit of re-imagining, but it’s also curating the voices that are a part of the online community.”
Turning the people that interact with your company on a regular basis — your employees — into your social media brand advocates is another way marketers can stretch the overall reach of their content.
“There are some hidden assets within your organization’s workforce that are natural content creators,” said Handley. “Giving these employees an opportunity to do this for your company only enhances your brand.”
And with customer engagement comes behavioral data. Although the amount of data that comes pouring in can be overwhelming, making sure you are measuring the data that matters and regulating time management can help you learn more about your audience — leading to a more in-depth marketing strategy and even further personalized content.
“In 2014, strategy is going to be the name of the game,” Handley concluded. “It’s no longer going to be random acts of content — we’re not going to be producing content for content’s sake. We’re really going to think through how this is going to drive your business, and that means thinking through your overall content strategy and your story as the cornerstone for that.”
Bad Habits Diminish Social Quality
Along with discussing ways to enhance your content and social strategies, Handley also discussed several bad habits that marketer’s fall into that need to end before any progress can be made. Of all the bad habits listed, automating your Twitter account to send a direct message was at the top of the list.
“There’s nothing I find more unsocial than following someone on Twitter and then immediately receiving a robotic direct message,” said Handley. “It is so impersonal and unsocial, and it needs to stop.”
Many of the listed bad habits were in common with one another due to their negative effects on the social experience. Other bad habits included spam-like blog comments that are used as self-promotion instead of a method to promote conversation within a community.