Question: As part of our business’s content marketing strategy we create articles and curate content several times a week. We schedule our posts to go out periodically throughout the day but still see little reaction. Any ideas to help us improve?
I think in the busy world we live in, both on and offline it is pretty normal to look for ways to expedite success. This happens with just about everything we do and our content marketing strategy is often no different.
While I cannot say for certain based on your question how much time you spend on your content strategy, your question did get me to thinking about something that I believe you and many other businesses like yours may be struggling with:
Lazy Sharing: Thinking that just throwing content (even relevant) in front of an audience is going to drive great online conversation and engagement.
Truth be told, sometimes this strategy may work, but most of the time it won’t. This is primarily due to the massive amounts of content thrown in front of us day in and day out and if we don’t do something to rise above the noise, all the content in the world won’t move the needle.
What I recommend is resist the urge to share “lazily.” Take the time whether when scheduling or when pushing the like, tweet or other share button to put a few thoughts down as to why people should connect with the content.
Notice I said “Why” and not “What.” People who are lazy sharers will also tend to tell you what they are sharing but not why they are sharing it.
When you tell people why you are giving them a more introspective look. When you tell them what you are just contextualizing the title.
There is no guarantee that spending a little more time curating your posts will solve all of your problems. But just remember to think of your online posts much like an offline conversation. Sometimes I will even read what I’m curating and I ask myself if I would say it to someone across the table or a room full of people. Then I ask myself how they may react?
Digital is a platform, but the conversation is all human. Make sense?
Avoid lazy sharing. Take the time to add context and value to what you share. Stop talking at and start talking to your community. Happy Marketing!
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Daniel Newman is the co-founder of V3*Broadsuite and is an experienced C-level executive, serving as a strategy consultant for small and mid-sized businesses. He’s also an insight/analyst partner to four Fortune 50 enterprises and previously served as the co-founder and CEO of EC3, a hosted IT and communications services provider. Prior to that, he served as the CEO of United Visual, Inc. in Chicago Illinois.
He is a widely published writer who contributes weekly to Forbes, Entrepreneur, Huffington Post and industry publications such as Commercial Integrator, Sound & Communication and Corporate Tech Decisions. He’s also author of three best-selling business books including The New Rules of Customer Engagement, The Millennial CEO, and just recently Evolve: Marketing (^as we know it) is Doomed.
Daniel has established a reputation as a leading thinker in topics such as Social, Big Data, Cloud and Mobile. He has been named to many top influencer lists in all of these areas, including recognition by the Huffington Post as one of the 100 business and leadership accounts to follow on Twitter. He is also an adjunct professor of management at North Central College.