“Tyler, I don’t know what to write about this week.” If you manage your company’s blog or content, chances are that you have heard different variations of this statement (with most of this variance coming in the name being used to start the sentence). Even the most talented, creative individuals can succumb to writer’s block on occasion. This article is for those facing a block of some sort or for those companies and professionals who may be writing or blogging for the first time. At the end of the day, a relatively new writer and a seasoned author will be on roughly the same playing field if the seasoned author is up against the dreaded writer’s block. Let’s get back to basics this week with our blogging plus a few tips on social media integration with your content.
- Content Calendar – This may sound simple to some, but earth-shattering to others: you should have a content strategy built out at least a month if not a quarter in advance. Our team at ROI has taken two different approaches to planning out our most recent quarters of content. For Q1 of this year (rapidly coming to a close somehow), our marketing team consulted our client success team regarding the top 10 use cases of our current clients. We cross-referenced this list with our top 25 most-viewed blogs of the previous six months. Between these two lists, we were able to come up with 13 weeks of content based on the most important demographic in our database, our customers. For Q2 our team analyzed our most-searched keywords over the previous six months and compared this to our internal list of core competencies. This combination also led to a relatively simple identification of 13 weekly topics for Q2.
- Research – Again, a pretty simple concept here. Anyone can google something, but what would you Google if you are stumped on the general topic itself? One of the most valuable resources that I utilize when planning my content topics are my company’s competitors. Yup, you heard that right. I consider Marketo, Eloqua, Hubspot, and Act-On to be proverbial gold mines when it comes to my blog topics. I routinely scan each of these company’s blogs to see which content topics are resonating most with their audiences because their audience are MY audience. Although I may find a topic I like on a competitor’s website, I understand that my writing style along with the Customer Lifecycle Marketing spin that Right On Interactive places on marketing automation will produce a vastly different post.
- Social Sharing – This goes far beyond blog posts; this applies to Every. Single. Piece. Of Content. Everything that is published by your company should be easily shareable by all who happen across it. Sites like Share Link Generator are excellent resources to create links that will instantly allow your followers to share your content with your network with a pre-made message, tweet, and/or post. Not only does this make it almost dummy-proof for your audience to share your content, but it also grants your business a measure of control in allowing the post to be pre-written by your marketing team. Every retweet and share earns your company valuable revenue and brand awareness, and tools like the one above make it very simple to execute.
There you have it. In a matter of three paragraphs you now know how to form a content calendar for an entire quarter, overcome specific topics worth of writer’s blocks, and how to ensure that your audience shares your now scintillating content! Happy writing!
