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I’m probably going to offend a lot of people, but here goes. If I read one more article about how to create a social media strategy, I’m going to scream. Why? Because social media isn’t worth anything without content – unless, of course, your goal is to chit chat.

I can’t tell you the number of businesses I’ve seen invest valuable resources trying to make social networking a strategic part of their corporate marketing. While social has been marched out as a cheap and easy way to influence and ‘engage’ the modern consumer, these efforts never achieve real success when managed in isolation. In my opinion, social media is one component of a content marketing strategy, not a stand-alone entity.

Boosting social networking with SEO doesn’t help – much
When social media strategies don’t offer immediate results, many businesses supplement it with SEO tactics for a short-term solution. Google Adwords and Facebook advertising are sure to drive traffic to your website or your social networking channels, but at what cost? And for how long? What you’re really doing with a combined social media/SEO approach is entering the land of SPAM. Paid advertisements might boost your traffic but as soon as you quit paying, you lose your audience. I’ve yet to meet a single person who is really impressed with a SPAM strategy.

What you need is a content marketing strategy
So what’s the answer? Forget about a social media strategy or investing in SEO. What you need is a content marketing strategy. Guess what? A good content marketing strategy relies on 3 essential components:

• Original content
• Social media
• Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

That’s right, social media is not a stand-alone strategy. SEO might have been a stand-alone strategy at one time but that ended with the introduction of Google Panda. Original content isn’t a stand-alone strategy either. In fact, creating a bunch of content is a waste of time if you don’t know how to distribute it and optimise it properly for the search engines. While content is a huge asset to your company, it’s not worth anything unless people can find it.

What does a content marketing strategy look like?
I’m so glad you asked. I’m going to cover that question, in depth, at the Content Marketing 101 Workshop that’s part of the Content Marketing World Sydney event. There’s still time to register – use the SYDSPEAK discount code for an additional $100 off your registration fee. If you can’t make it to my workshop, plan to come to the event anyway. I’ll be there and will be happy to discuss my opinion on a social media strategy then.

3 Essential components to a content marketing strategy
In the meantime, let me leave you with an infographic I created to illustrate the importance of having a comprehensive strategy involving content, social media and SEO. If you’ve never thought of it this way before, this infographic should lend insight to my way of thinking.

What’s your opinion on a social media strategy? I’d love to hear what you think.

I’m a reader. If I had to choose only one way to receive information – and even entertainment – it would be through the written word. I have one of those brains incapable of looking at print without reading it.

While I’m not gullible, I do trust the written word for its ability to inform. I prefer making purchasing decisions based on my own research. Certainly a polished sales pitch makes me uncomfortable.

Shift in consumer behaviour
I’m not alone. We’ve seen an unremitting change in consumer behaviour since the general public embraced the internet. Consumers, for the first time in history, have the opportunity to educate themselves about purchasing decisions. All data points to the fact they believe what they read, especially when a lot of perfect strangers recommend a product or service to them.

Think about the last time you made a significant purchase, something costing $1000 or more. How did you decide what to buy? What was the first step? I bet it wasn’t heading to your nearest shopping centre to speak with sales people from each competing company. I’d put money on the fact you did a Google search.

People want information
Behind the millions and billions and trillions of internet searches done every day on Google, YouTube, Twitter and Bing, someone is looking for information. If you can provide them the vital piece of data they need – and do it with more authority than anyone else – you’re on your way to capturing your next customer. By developing content your prospective customer wants, you’re putting yourself on the modern path to riches.

If you can produce that same content in a variety of formats, you’ve cast your revenue net even wider. Videos, infographics, images and Powerpoint presentations are alternative ways to snag consumers with different content cravings. Your message is the same but the package you deliver it in is different.

Your content is an asset to your business
Content is an asset. It hangs around, unlike traditional advertising campaigns which evaporate as soon as they’ve gone to air or been used to wrap the fish guts. Consumers have taken control of the sales process by doing their own research and have an insatiable appetite for information. Any business providing quality information – quality content – is ahead of the pack. The smart ones are making it fun and encouraging interaction along the way.

I can’t imagine the consumer relinquishing this control, can you? But it doesn’t mean business has lost control. Social networking and the rise of the blogger makes distribution easier and more affordable than any time in history. Business has more opportunity than ever before to influence the consumer market and they can do it all with content.

Join me at Content Marketing World Sydney
If you want to learn more about how content marketing can help your business, join me at Content Marketing World Sydney. I’ll be giving a workshop on the afternoon prior to the event and will be attending every second of the conference. You can register here and make sure to use the SYDSPEAK discount code to receive $100 off your registration fee.

Will you be attending Content Marketing World Sydney?

This article appeared in a lightly edited form on 28 January 2013 in the print edition of The West Australian newspaper.

Image courtesy of Ambro / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

You know the first rule of content marketing is to think like a publisher, right? Our job as content marketers is to figure out what information or education our target market wants and then develop content to fill the void. It’s an important shift away from broadcasting the products and services we offer. If you ask me, the second rule should be to act like a journalist.

A blog post at PR 20/20 caught my eye this week. The (Self) Education of a Content Marketer speaks to the necessity of immersing yourself in every part of a topic you may be covering. It’s no longer sufficient to understand your message and how you want to position it. You also need to be able to tell a story worthy of captivating an audience. You want to ensure everything you publish is credible and that requires research, often quite a lot of it.

Acting like a journalist
In working alongside copywriters and other content producers on several different projects, the most creative pieces always come from journalists. When I asked print journalist Dan Hatch, Marketing and Media Editor at The West Australian, how he came up with so many good sources and content ideas, he told me it was his newspaper training. Reporters must 1) fill a certain number of columns with new content every day and 2) write a story. That’s two significant differences from traditional marketing copy. But if we really want to think like a publisher, then we have to be developing content like a journalist.

Good sources for information
So where do journalists find what they need to create a great story? It’s often in the most mundane places. Be prepared to troll through pages and pages to find the inspiration and sources to develop your content. Fortunately, we can do most everything on the web but you have to break away from Google search results if you want to stand out from everyone else. Move away from popular sites like Mashable and the Huffington Post because that’s where everyone else is snooping around.

Off the beaten path
Here are some of my favourite places to dig:

• Local and community newspapers
• Industry associations
• Industry newsletters
• Industry reports and surveys
• Government websites
• Press releases from government officials
• Online media release distribution sites
• University websites
• LinkedIn discussion groups

Does it sound like a grind? If so, you might be in the wrong job. Journalists, by and large, are incredibly curious people. They’re full of questions and willing to follow many threads on any topic to get the story they want. In the process, they make valuable contacts they can tap in the future when they need a comment, quote or expert opinion. It all goes into writing a richer, more entertaining story. As marketers, we absolutely have to be taking this approach if we want our own content to stick.

Do you think marketers should act like a journalist or is it overkill?

If you would like to find out more about content marketing, plan to attend Content Marketing World Sydney, from 4-6 March. Early bird registration closes on 31 January. If you’re not in Sydney, the Content Marketing Institute has arranged a special group rate at the Sheraton on the Park for people – like me – that will be traveling to the event. I hope to see you there.

Image courtesy of graur codrin/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Have you seen a paper.li newspaper? It’s one of the coolest pieces of content I use. If you don’t know, paper.li is an old-fashioned broadsheet newspaper but completely online. The articles are sourced from Twitter based on any number of criteria you specify. The paper is generated and distributed automatically. Once you have it set up, paper.li is a great resource to provide aggregated content from wide-reaching sources to your audience and you don’t have to do a single thing. Unless you’re like me.

One of the newspapers I produce every day is called the Mining, Oil and Gas Jobs News. My editorial direction for the paper is to provide jobseekers in the resources industry with career advice and employment information. Of course, I want to feature our daily blog post and the 2 jobs we feature on Twitter every day. Paper.li allows me to go into every issue and arrange the articles the way I want them, remove articles I don’t want, and add articles that didn’t make it into the paper. Why would I go to all the trouble?

Location, location, location
The most influential articles in any newspaper are `above the fold’. In other words, the stories published in the top half of the front page have the best chances of getting read. I want my daily blog post to be holding that spot and any other strategic content I tweeted from the MiningOilGasJob account.

Beating the competition
Despite the common belief social media, and Twitter in particular, is an open source of information, I have no intention of giving my competition space in my newspaper. I go through each section to make sure no one competing for business with me has their content on my page. You can block a website, and I do, but that doesn’t stop guest posts and articles my competitors write for other online publications.

Negative publicity
Protestors, activists and anarchists love social media. The last thing I want is an anti-mining article in my newspaper. I comb the paper to make sure the haters haven’t infected my content.

Offensive content
I once opened a paper.li newspaper published by a very smart business woman. The first thing I saw was a full-length photo of a man. The only thing he had on was socks and an erection. Do I need to say more?

Bad advice
For as much great content is swirling around the web, there’s just as much bad stuff. I want to make sure my articles are coming from reputable sources and providing valuable information. I don’t have to read every article but I made sure I scan the headlines, source and description of each one. I usually dump about 20% of the articles every day due to poor quality.

Building authority
The Twitterverse is full of super smart people. Every day I find new people to follow and articles on my topic of interest I hadn’t seen before. It’s a rare day I don’t find 2-3 things I wouldn’t have seen otherwise. The editorial process forces me to read each and every page of my newspaper and I discover lots of treasures.

Be an editor
I’ve written before about the dangers of content marketing on autopilot. While it may seem counterintuitive, adding a manual step to your automatic newspaper improves your brand and increases your authority. A newspaper with a strong editorial focus enjoys higher circulation. When then content is laid out properly, it also enhances your brand and increases your authority. The benefit far outweigh the time it takes to do a quick edit and schedule a tweet.
When do you make a manual intervention?

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Like most of you, I’ve been thinking about how to improve my business this year. I’ve spent the last 19 months working on a content marketing project designed to help people find mining jobs and other careers in the Australian resources industry. I’m still working on that gig but I’m turning my attention back to my own business – and my own blog. I know it’s essential to make sure every minute of my day is productive. One area I’ve been working on improving is my record keeping. Sound boring? I thought so too until I discovered improvements in the amount I’m invoicing clients.

Sun Dial by Khirol Amir, on Flickr

Here’s the issue
As a freelance copywriter, I want to spend as much time writing as possible. I’m happiest when I have a document open on my laptop and I’m trying to get words arranged on my screen in the right order. I’ve always tried to avoid dealing with numbers – spreadsheets, accounting packages, software. Not only does it take away valuable writing time, it makes my head throb. But this ‘numbers avoidance behavior’ (NAB) cheats me out of billable hours because I’m never sure exactly how much time I’ve spent on a piece of work. It’s no coincidence I always propose ‘fixed price’ projects.

Addressing NAB
While complaining about my plight, a friend told me about 88 Miles. I’ve used online time tracking tools in the past without much success. They tend to be fiddly and unreliable. My work schedule never seems to fit with the system settings of the product making the reporting features relatively useless. She assured me I would have a different experience with 88 Miles. She lured me in with the tip that it’s a product made in Australia and extremely affordable.

The scoop
I’ve been using 88 Miles for two months and have fallen in love with it. The software is extremely easy to use. (I know; they all are.) I haven’t had a single instance of the software being ‘down’ or sluggish. The time tracking allows me to add notes for every entry which is incredibly useful at the end of the month when I wonder what I’ve been doing with my time. It’s also given me insight into how much time I’m actually spending writing. It’s more than I thought – and more than I was billing.

Why it works for freelancers
The reporting feature is fluid – I decide what the date parameters are for a specific project or task. I love the ‘on-demand’ reporting that tells me at a glance how much time I’ve spent. You can set up tags to help you filter your project work even further. It’s all pretty fab. I haven’t used the budgeting feature yet but you can get the product to let you know when you’ve gone over budget on a project or task. For a NABber like me, I find it very intuitive and appreciate that I can download my data into a number of different formats.

Thank goodness for small miracles
It’s affordable, for sure. A single user pays $5 Australian a month. You get ALL the functionality of the product for that price so you’re not hassled with constant “Upgrade to the Pro version” messages. If you bill less than 40 hours a month, you can use it free of charge, month after month.

I recommend 88 Miles to any freelancer or small business. It’s ideal for copywriters but it would work well for any creative profession. It’s improved my business and given me more time to write. What’s not to love about that?

How do you keep track of your time?

Join me at Content Marketing World – Sydney in March. I’m conducting a Content Marketing 101 workshop and will be attending ever second of conference. It’s set to be the biggest content marketing event in the Southern Hemisphere with Joe Pulizzi and the gang from the Content Marketing Institute coming ‘Down Under’.