Why You Need A Social Media Content Marketing Plan

What Thought If Any Have You Given To Your Social Media Content Marketing Plan?

Traditional marketing techniques are less effective today as opposed to marketing strategies in building sales funnels for over the last 40 to 50 years. Consumers now have a variety of ways of getting around customary advertising by fast forwarding past television commercials, using streaming radio services that have no commercials, gathering information from social media sites, etc. Even newspaper and magazine advertising is less relevant because most people have taken to the internet for their information. Savvy marketers have picked up on this shift and have realized there has to be a more effective way to reach their customer base.

What is social media content marketing and how do you apply it to your network marketing business?

CMI defines content marketing as: “the strategic marketing approach of creating and distributing valuable, relevant and consistent content to attract and acquire a clearly defined audience – with the objective of driving profitable customer action.“

The old saying, “He who has the biggest advertising budget wins” today equates to “He who produces the Best content wins.”

Having a strong social media content marketing plan is imperative to getting your work found online these days.

SEO today has also taken a tremendous shift. Yes, having the SEO basics in place is still important but, the rules have changed! Backlinks don’t carry the same weight they once did. Don’t get me wrong, having a few backlinks to high authority relevant websites will make an enormous difference in Google’s eyes.

Although there was a time when linking back to several hundred website, whether they were relevant or not, made a difference.

Not any more!

What Does Matter? – The Quality of Content and The Number of Social Media Shares.

A few years ago it was fairly easy to do a little keyword research, throw together a four or five hundred word article, and if your on page SEO was done well, you stood a pretty good chance of landing somewhere on the first page of Google.

Those days are long gone!

If you want more quality traffic to your site then its time to hunker down, do your research, get some integrated technology services, and plan on penning 1200 to 1800 (or more) word articles from here on out. Your content needs to be killer and better than everything else out there!  You need to be educating your readers, not just entertaining them if you want your content shared.

Do you want your content go viral?

Then take a look at Brian Dean’s website and article he did on the 21 SEO techniques you can use to get more search engine traffic. It’s practically a Special Report eBook. It is unbelievable the amount of value Brian offers in all of his articles.

Oh and check out his social media share stats, 709 G+, 501 Facebook Likes, and over 800 Tweets. Not to mention the 651 comments the article has.

I would say Brian has his social media content marketing plan in place, wouldn’t you?

It’s not just great content that Brian delivers either, it is the way he lays everything out that keeps his readers engaged. These days you must include plenty of images in your articles, and make sure to use some LSI keywords for the Alt tags. Of course, don’t forget to use your main keyword in the first image.

How To Choose Which Social Media Platforms To Use

Part of your marketing plan must include knowing how and where to have your content found.

Just because you’ve created amazing content and uploaded it to your blog doesn’t guarantee that anyone will ever read it. Here are a few mind blowing facts that illustrate what the competition is like out there on the web.

• Close to 7.5 million blog posts are published each week on WordPress alone. I can’t imagine what that number is when you take into account all the other website platforms that are available.
• YouTube has 1 hour of video uploaded every second
• Twitter has over 340 million tweets posted daily
• 219 billion photos have been posted on Facebook and the “Like” button has been hit 1.13 trillion times.  (that’s with a T)
• Each month close to 18 billion queries are typed into the search engines and most people rely on their social networks for information.

Are you beginning to see why having a social media content marketing plan is so important? So how do you insure that your content will ever be found?

First – Know Your Readers and Where They Hangout!

• Are your readers and prospects there?
• Do you provide value on that platform?
• Are you active on the social sites they frequent?
• What do you want your readers to do with the content you share?

If your readers and customer base spend a majority of their time on Twitter and you don’t, that is major problem. Twitter takes time to build a following and without that, Twitter’s social platform isn’t going to do you much good.

Let’s Look At Which Social Networks To Share On

My advice would be to get your social media circles up and running and be consistent with participating in them on a daily basis.

The Top Seven Social Networks To Consider Are:

1. LinkedIn
2. Facebook
3. Twitter
4. Google+
5. Pinterest
6. YouTube
7. Instagram

No real surprise in that list. Do your research and know exactly which social sites your prospects use the most!

Pick the top two and start sharing and interacting.

Social Media Marketing Plan Key Elements

You’ve done your homework and have chosen which social sites to share on. Next map out a goal for each channel you plan to share on.

Each channel should have a particular purpose and desired action. Your audience will be different on each social site. Are you looking to create a larger email subscriber base? Is your goal to direct people to a webinar, visit your blog, comment or share your content? Is the intention to drive traffic to an affiliate product, video capture page, or just to register for a newsletter or special report that you have written?

Tailoring your content for social media is key. You will market to people differently on LinkedIn as opposed to Instagram, Twitter or Pinterest right? Know your audience and what is appropriate, structure your social content accordingly to gain maximum results.

3 – Ways To Understand Your Prospects Needs

1. Ask – Your prospect knows best so why not ask them directly? Put together a short survey or questionnaire and get it out to your email list.

2. Join different industry groups on the social sites you are targeting to see what content is being shared, what people are taking about, what solutions are being offered, (if any) then join in the discussion, ask more questions and provide solutions. You will look like a leader and people will naturally begin to follow you.

3. Examine your Google Analytics to get a clear understanding of what keywords are driving traffic to your site. Then simply create more content around those search terms.

Blog Commenting

One of the best methods I have found for having my content shared is by blog commenting and social sharing.

Here are some guidelines to follow:

• Comment only within your niche
• Comment on higher authority sites than yours when possible
• Provide value and add to the conversation
• Be consistent – Comment 3 to 5 times per week
• Find blogs using the CommentLuv plugin

With all the changes Google has made, taking advantage of every opportunity possible is key. The CommentLuv plugin actually rewards your readers by giving them a “DoFollow” backlink to their site and allows them to share one of their most recent articles when leaving a comment. Again, this backlink isn’t as important as it was in the old days, but sharing the luv for those leaving a comment is a big incentive for them to share your work with their networks. Allowing that many more eyes to view and potentially share your content.

CommentLuv Plugin At Work:

Adrienne Smith is a blogger who has perfected this method. She blogs twice weekly and offers high quality content. Adrienne has built quite a following and typically receives over 100 comments per post. Her low Alexa score, (the lower the better) proves being consistent and offering quality content does pay off. The more regularly you comment and share, the more people will visit your website to repay the favor. Not to mention everyone will be getting a nice backlink as well.

 Conclusion

Having an effective social media content marketing plan in place requires understanding your target market, where to find them, and how to effectively and consistently talk directly to them on a daily basis. Understanding what social content marketing is not, is equally as important. Far too many brands and marketers use social media as a way to constantly spam and blast their campaigns to everyone.

Content marketing follows the theory of attraction marketing  –  Provide quality content and solve people’s problems first without asking for anything in return. Build trust, loyalty, and a relationship, the money is guaranteed to follow. Your social media content plan is a long term strategy, learn to listen to what your prospects needs are and create information that solves problems.

To your massive success!

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I would love to hear your comments and know how you are implementing your social media content marketing plan. Feel free to share this article with your friends over at Google+, Twitter and Facebook.

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