The ultimate goal of every content writer is to reach to maximum audience. With the emergence of Social Media, the scope has been widened.
Facebook says it has 665 million active users each day on average. The total facebook accounts in March 2013 has reached over to 1.11 billion.
Google Plus has 540M active users and Google claims a 54% rise in the number of users. Although it needs a lots of catch up to even compete with Facebook, but the fact that big G has most tech savvy and people with high level of knowledge in every discipline, makes it as much important as Facebook.
So, if you are ignoring Social media for your Content Marketing Strategy, you are missing a major plot towards your blog development.
When you write a piece of article, you main aim is to be shared, linked, and reach to the pool of readers and you expect these shares to be organic. People willingly share your articles making your blog posts viral and driving some traffic and sales to your blog.
How to Market your content through Social Media?
1# Build a brand
The first step towards successfully utilizing social media as a content marketing strategy is to build up your reputation. Yes, your status will compel others to read what you share and to re-share. Presenting yourself as brand is important.
Let us understand it through an example. If you share a content somewhere on Facebook and you have been an active participator in the discussions and hangouts in that group, people will surely follow your link. The case is otherwise for those who drops a link and forget it.
So, how can you set up yourself as a brand?
The answer is by engaging with your connections, active participating in discussions and being in touch with people around you. This is going to take some time. Social media like LinkedIn points out the active members explicitly in any group. I have personally noticed that I get more connections requests when I am active in some discussions.
It’s not the people who you join that is going to pay off but the people who joins you are those who are willing to have a relationship with you. These people will be eager for your articles and re-share when they find something useful. These are your genuine and loyal readers.
2# Create Useful Content
It’s the plain old thing – Content is the king. If you want your articles to be shared, your content must be great. Poor content might get read but will never attract social media engagement. If someone finds your article useful for them, they will refer it to their audience and you get a wider reach.
I have already written much about Creating Useful Content – you can read it here.
3# Choose your audience
Are you engaging with wrong audience? If yes, then most certainly you are wasting your time and your social media strategy for content marketing is not going to work. It’s the people who are particularly interested in your niche that is gonna benefit you. If you are sharing an article about Search Engine Optimization in a group named “Cars”, you are surely wasting your time.
The problem is how to choose your right audience.
With time people are going to connect to you on their behalf. But for the start up, you have to give time to study what people are talking about and discover what kind of content they share. Searching people with the same interests as yours, and following/adding them will build up your audience.
4# Your presentation skills
So, you have been dropping links on Social Media and hoping for shares and likes and traffic to your blog? Perhaps you won’t benefit from it. The way you put up your content on Social media will be the driving factor. No one notices how and what you have in your articles and how much deep understanding you have about the subject, unless they go to your blog and read it. And to attract people to your blog, give them something at first hand . Eye-catching titles with a brief (and best) descriptions about the topic, attaching a highly contextual image will surely do the job.
It’s been noticed that when an image is attached along with a link, it is going to attract 3 times more readers and there are 32% more chances for re-shares and likes.
5# And last, it will take time.
It didn’t take Jeff Bullas to reach to 2 lakh visitors in a week. It will take time – both your branding and your reach.
Final Words
Social media has the greatest influential power. With right content marketing strategy on social media, you are going to drive success to your blog. You have to constantly produce high quality articles and engage with your audience.Do I missed some points? I’ll love to hear that from you. Do mention it in comments – what’s your content marketing strategy through social media.
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