So let’s get the hard stuff out of the way first. Your content, excellent as it may be, researched and well crafted it may seem may do absolutely nothing for your audience. The first rule of content amplification is the idea that on it’s own, our content isn’t anything special. Over the course of the next 48 hours, 8 billion pieces of content will be shared on Facebook, endless hours of video will be posted on YouTube and hundreds of millions of emails will be sent. Unless you have the resources of a Huffington Post, Viral Nova, Lady Gaga or President Obama, your content isn’t going to automatically be seen by a large audience.
For the upwardly mobile small business, you need a leaner, more efficient strategy. A big reason is simply because people care about who writes the stuff just about as much as what the content is about.
It’s true, amplifying your content isn’t just writing great stuff, it’s about planning and execution when it comes to spreading the word on your content; it’s about who is reading your stuff – and ultimately what you’d like them to do. Now that wasn’t so bad, was it? The hard stuff is out of the way, now it’s time to blast through the content jungle and clear your path.
Create Your Plan for Amplification Before You Create Your Content
An effective amplification strategy should be in place long before you get to work on your piece. Actually, it should be in place before you publish anything on your blogs or social media. What exactly goes into this plan is critical, but not as complex as it may seem:
Focus on the End Result
The last thing you want to do is write content for the sake of writing content. So often, we’ve listened to blogging gurus who have preached their rhetoric of sticking to some schedule and producing content daily, every other day or weekly. There are several businesses today that pop out content like popcorn, but the content itself holds no purpose. What’s left is an aimless bowl of words that is of little use to their audience.
Quite simply, every piece of content you publish should have a goal in place.
Your Content Goals
Think about why you’re producing this content. Is it to build links? Your content will need to reach and attract the kind of people who can link to you. Is it for engagement? Your content will need to get in front of people who want to have a conversation about a critical topic.
Your market is ultimately unique to your business, so it’s important to design your content to have a purpose for your business. Without one, your content’s expiration date will be sooner than you’d think.
Play to Your Audience
Take a moment and think about the ones who are laying in bed at night and thinking about the problems you can solve. Where are they? What websites are they visiting? What are they posting on Twitter? Becoming your audience is key in creating the type of content that people can engage with. As content strategist and writer Monica Wells says,
“Every great content strategy must be based on consumer education.”
Another critical move is reviewing your content’s potential to attract inbound links to your site to help with SEO. There are excellent resources online, like this one that help develop your strategy further.
Think through the dimensions of your content and begin thinking about how your audience might react to it. Your content should always tie into what you’re trying to achieve as a business.
Get the Sophisticated Tools
In the social media forest, there are magic tools that bless businesses with detailed information about influencers online. Apps like FolowerWonk by Moz and Twello uses analytics to find the who’s who of online influence and interest.
The most important point is that your small business develops the right content amplification strategy. There’s a ton of resources out there, but your first step to better content is checking out our amplified content infographic.
