How much time do you waste trying to reach people on every social media platform you use? It can be frustrating getting no website traffic from all the energy you are putting into generating social media content as your marketing strategy.
Are you using your content as effectively as possible? How should you adapt to changing social media environments?
The answer to these questions lies in your content distribution system, and here I’m going to demonstrate for you an example of how to use your content effectively.
Step 1: Start with Your Website
Your website is the ideal hub for all content on your website.
Unlike social media platforms where you can lose your audience and dilute your brand messaging, your website can provide you a blank canvas to display precisely what type of company image you wish to project and build a loyal following.
If you build your website in WordPress, you have a massive developer community at your disposal with an array of free, freemium, and premium softwares that will interface to build a marketing system tailored to your needs. More importantly though, you will have the freedom to use the exact language your customers need to hear, display your brand aesthetic, and drive people into the best way to connect with you.
No matter what website platform you have, though, these days it’s easy and critical to install Google Analytics to measure where your readers are coming from, how they’re accessing your content, and which content they seem to enjoy most. This is a FREE tool that far too many company websites lack – get it started before you publish content!
A note about Traffic Retargeting/Remarketing:
While this is an advanced technique, if you implement tracking codes for Google Ads and the Facebook Pixel, over time you will have the ability to send paid advertisements to the people who visit your content for education and entertainment. Work with your website developer to put this in place today, and you can thank me later when the successful results from a future ad campaign roll in faster because you took this step.
(If your current website or lack thereof is holding your back, you can do as I did and start by using LinkedIn Publishing as your blogging platform. If you need an awesome website to serve as your marketing hub, schedule a consultation with me so I can learn about your needs and help you get that started.)
Step 1.5: Setup your YouTube channel with the same email account you use for Google Analytics
You’ll need this in a later step. Make sure that your channel has an appropriate company brand so people who see your video there and then visit your website experience consistency in your aesthetic and messaging.
Step 2: Make Your Site Content Evergreen
Deciding what information to share in your content can be challenging. How do you decide what to share?
Start with what your customers ask you.
Think about the questions you get from your clients or customers, and consider the advice that you typically give out to them when they ask. If a couple of your clients have already asked you the same question, chances are that your answer will be valuable to someone who hasn’t yet decided to ask you.
If your content won’t matter in a month or even a year, restructure it.
Content is either topical or evergreen. Topical content is best suited for semi-temporary streams of media such as Facebook, where new content is constantly pushing your own content farther down by the minute.
Evergreen content will be informative or entertaining to your audience (i.e. valuable) when it is structured in a way that is irrespective of the date it is seen.
It is possible to take topical content, extract the lessons and takeaways from that content, and turn it into an evergreen resource – you’ll want to work with a copywriter to do this if you find it challenging on your own.
Once your website has a few amazing evergreen articles, your natural website traffic over time should improve as the world searches for the answers you’ve provided – without needing to publish new articles on the same topic.
Step 3: Combine Video with Long-Form Web Articles
How you go about producing your content is ultimately up to you, but here is my recommendation:
- Film a video using the best camera you have…
- A newer Samsung phone, Google Pixel phone, or iPhone should do the trick
- Find good natural lighting
- Remember that you are speaking to one person on the other side of that screen to be more personable
- Refer to your video when it is finished and write out your article using a similar content structure
- Publish the article on your website’s blog and get the article link
- Upload your video to YouTube
- Ask yourself, ‘what benefit will someone gain from watching this video’ and use the answer to help you name the video
- Use relevant keywords in a summary paragraph in the video description
- At the top of your video description, add your article link. (e.g. “Check out our article for more information: [LINK]”)
- Publish the video
- Edit the article on your website and embed your YouTube video somewhere in the content
Why is YouTube Important?
- YouTube is owned by Google, the world’s #1 search engine
- It is the world’s #2 search engine
- More than just a video site, YouTube is a social media platform (so once your content is up, try not to edit it too much)
Step 4: Publish Pieces of Micro-content to Drive Website Traffic
Great Job! At this point you have created video & article content to educate or entertain the people who you want as customers.
As soon as you publish it is time to drive as much traffic as possible to your content so Google will identify it as rank-worthy to generate more traffic.
You have created what is called ‘macro-content’ – longer content that goes in-depth about its topic.
We need to break it into pieces called ‘micro-content’ – bite-sized chunks that will still inform and entertain, but will only sample the information and grab attention so people visit your website or your YouTube channel to engage further.
Remember to link back to your website (or to your YouTube video which also links to your website) as often as possible.
It’s worth noting here that people consume content differently – some prefer to watch and listen to a video, while others prefer to read. Directing them to your website where they can do both is ideal for reaching more people more effectively.
Step 5: Go Where Your Customers Are
“Which social media platform should I use?”
The short answer is: “The platform that your best customers use most.”
If you’re a new business, you have an idea of who your dream client would be. If you have some time in business behind you, some digging can help you figure out whether your audience prefers Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, or even email marketing as their primary source of educational or entertaining social content.
This is where you test your detective skills to figure out which platform could net you the best return and engagement…
…and then you’ll post your micro-content everywhere, starting with the one your audience uses most.
No time to post content? Stick with the main one where you expect your best customers to be most engaged.
Some additional tips:
- Post in groups where people already know you, such as local networking groups or chamber of commerce discussion boards
- Post your content on your business Facebook page (be sure to include a link to your article!), and then share the page’s post on your personal profile.
- DO NOT simply post content on your personal profiles. Always post to business profiles first.
- Share it to your email list if you have one.
- Send it out to your customers who have been asking questions related to the content.
- Send it out to your pending business prospects.
- Share it as much as possible within a 24-hour period to drive initial interest.
In Summary
Producing content on a regular basis is challenging work, and it can take some time to truly pay off. Using this method, you will be able to increase your efficiency to send a little less time producing content and start leveraging your website to measure and convert traffic into your fans – and eventually into customers.
