Create a Content Strategy

Content is seen as the force multiplier when it comes to marketing. It has an impact on social media marketing, search engine marketing and public relations. Just look at how a content strategy works with your marketing efforts:

Social Media Marketing - Content fuels your social media efforts, because without content social media is like having a vehicle with no fuel - it's just all show, with no go.

Search Marketing - Content wows your search engine marketing efforts. It used to be enough to have keyword-rich content and inbound links. With these two things gaining search engine rankings was fairly easy. That's changed. It's not enough to have just keyword-rich content and links, you now must have high quality content and publish often to gain high ranking results in search engines.

Public Relations - Content drives public relations. Your ability to create fresh content around the needs of prospects and customers has become more valuable than a product or service announcement.

We use content in our:

• Newsletters
• Websites
• Sales/Marketing Letters
• Thank You Letters

Content writing can feel like a never ending process. If you are the person doing the content writing it can feel like you are filling bottomless buckets. So when we add on the need for social media channels like:

• Blogs
• Facebook
• Twitter
• Google +
• YouTube

It can be overwhelming. Who has time? Where do you start? How do you stay organized? Where will all of the content ideas come from? I hear you and I'm here to help. Creating content can feel overwhelming, but when you chunk it into 3 phases it can become more manageable and less frustrating, I promise. We know that a content strategy works and we know that it can help with all of our marketing efforts so not doing it is, well simply not an option.

Let's get started, shall we?

Introduction to the Three Phases of Content Strategy Development

• Phase 1 - Think Ahead - Get Organized
• Phase 2 - Squash Writers Block and Generate Ideas Easily
• Phase 3 - Utilize Social Media to Help Drive Content
  

Phase 1 - Think Ahead - Get Organized

The Where When and How Often

In this phase there are 3 questions you must answer:

• Where do you need content? List every area that you must supply content to. (Newsletter, Website, Blog, Facebook, Twitter, etc)
• Which Channels? (Social Media, Print, Video, Web)
• How often do you need to post content in these channels?

Create a Content Schedule and Calendar

Create a content schedule - but be realistic. Don't set a schedule that you know is unattainable. It will only leave you frustrated.
Make a decision on how often you will draft new content daily, weekly or monthly?

Based on how often you will draft new content develop a content calendar. It doesn't have to be sophisticated, the simpler you can make it the better. A content calendar
helps when it comes to staying organized with your content.

Organize your calendar by:

• Channel (Web / Mobile / Email / Print / Television)
• Audience
• Program
• Format (Text / Video / Photos / Presentations)
  

I use a weekly content calendar that lists the days of the week on the left and the channels that I need to write for as columns on the left. This allows me to create a plan on what I will write and when.

As you start to create your content strategy and draft your schedule mark each item accordingly:

• Must Do
• Like to Do
• Ok to Bump
  

Give yourself flexibility!

Category Organization

Create category folders either in a master folder stored on your computer, your email folders or your internet bookmarks. Use these category folders to help keep your thoughts and ideas organized. Trust me, being organized helps ease the process of content creation.

Sample categories might include:

• Fact Sheets
• Web Pages
• News
• Photos
• Videos
  

This is where you will store resources that you want to refer to later to assist you in triggering and creating content. I would also recommend checking out tools that can help speed up this process by allowing you to tag content, keep track of notes and create categories. Three of my favorites include:

Delicious - Social bookmark service that helps in discovering, saving, organizing and sharing information.
Evernote - Virtual software that can be used for note-taking.
Webnotes - A tool that lets you highlight text and add sticky notes to web pages.

Now, that you've created your calendar, you've listed the channels that you need to write for, marked items that are a priority and gotten organized where do the content ideas come from? Good question!

Phase 2 - Squash Writers Block and Generate Ideas Easily

This is the phase that many people get stuck in. There are several ways to generate ideas. Consider trying one of the follow exercises or utilizing resources that are at your fingertips:

• Brainstorm
• Mind Mapping
• Tickler / Pending File - Use those tagging and category tools from Phase 1
• Stories
• Old Archives - Content recycling rule - for every piece of content you recycle you must create two new pieces, don't cheat yourself.
• Web and Email Analytics - This data will show you what people looking.
  

When all else fails and you still feel stuck consider using outside resources:

• Social Media Listening Tools
  • SocialMentions
  • Google Blog Search
  • Google Alerts
  • Twendz
• Surveys
• Content Aggregators
  • AllTop
• Mainstream Media Headlines
• Trade News

When creating content think in terms of:

• Lists (Top 5, Top 10, Most Popular)
• How To's
• Review
• Tips
• Question and Answer Interviews
• Opinion Pieces
  

Phase 3 - Utilize Social Media to Help Drive Content

How does social media fit into the content mix? Social media is the marriage of content and conversation.

Social media conversations can be made into content by:

• Highlighting trending topics
• Publishing Q & As
• Summarize Debates

Use social media to drive content for you by using it to:

• Asking questions
• Soliciting feedback from your followers
• Refining your content ideas based on comments that you receive.

Keep a clear and workable plan, collect ideas and data, write your content or get others to help. Implement and allow content to serve as a force multiplier for you in social media, search marketing and public relations. Start with a goal of at least one new piece of content per week. It's a start - the more you do it, the easier it gets!