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How to Make Content Marketing Work for You
Influencer Marketing On Instagram
Now that you know why content marketing works, the next step is to make it work for you. There are a variety of ways to achieve this objective:
1) Demonstrate Expertise/Performance
Content marketing offers you a chance to show how your products or services offer consumers something they can’t get elsewhere. It also provides you with a platform to display your subject matter expertise. Both of these are crucial elements to building brand awareness, which in turn helps you attain your ultimate objective: increasing customer engagement and sales. Don’t hesitate to develop in-depth content related to your field. Unlike traditional advertising, content marketing can reward more detailed analyses and demonstrations.
2) Target Your Audience
In the age of mass media, reaching and treating consumers as a mass was the name of the game. While this was effective when distribution channels were limited, in today’s option rich media environment this is no longer the case. Consumers want to watch, read, or listen to what they want when they want, and technology has helped media providers of all types let them do just that. As a result, traditional advertising content which treats all or large amounts of consumers the same no longer has the impact it once had.
In its place, content marketing aimed at identifiable affinity, interest or social groups has arisen to help advertisers distribute content where it is most likely to be welcomed. If you are a manufacturer of sporting equipment aimed at the youth market, for example, the most effective way to reach your target audience might be to propagate content on the platforms most likely to be frequented by that audience: for instance, blogs covering extreme sports, video sharing platforms featuring extreme sports videos or social media accounts associated with leading stars in the field.
Whatever sector your products are in, sifting through the wide variety of media platforms available to design the most suitable outreach approach is recommended.
3) Use Organic Content
With consumers increasingly taking control of their content consumption, the success of content marketing relies on more than simply improving the targeting of your awareness efforts. In this new age of media, it’s not enough for content to simply be topical. The content should also be organic. It should feel like it belongs with the content that surrounds it. This includes its “look and feel” as well as the actual subject matter it covers.
4) Include Rich Content
To most effectively engage consumers, content needs to catch their interest. Using rich media content is one way to help do that. Rich media refers to content such as videos, images, and infographics. Humans are attuned to a visual stimulus; catering to this tendency is a good starting point when designing content. While different social media platforms lend themselves to different approaches, a comprehensive content marketing campaign should contain as much rich media material as is feasible within the scope of the campaign. Some examples: how-to videos, eye-catching images, video product demonstrations and infographics summarizing key statistics.
5) Engage Influencers
Cutting through the clutter of tweets, posts, blogs and videos and getting your product or services noticed on today’s social media platforms is hard to do. This is where influencers come in. Individuals or groups who have attained prominence in their field, for whatever reason, can be powerful ambassadors for your brand. This is true whether they sign up to officially represent you or simply let others know that they admire or use your products. Finding the influencer who is right for you and monitoring the results from working with that person can take some research; however, the power influencers wield when it comes to social sharing is substantial enough to make it worthwhile to add their use to your content marketing distribution strategy.
