Building Relationship Through Content Marketing

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For today’s marketer, digital is more than a collection of channels — it’s a means to connect brands with people by telling powerful stories that draw an audience, convert new customers and increase loyalty. Brands that think first in terms of digital content and amplification – and in terms of providing new ideas in a charismatic way – are making strategic advances over the competition.

It’s easy to tell when a story resonates with people — they start to congregate, first listening and then joining in on the conversation. This concept plays out every day in a variety of settings. When you’re at a party, attentive crowds form around the most interesting, witty person. In social digital rooms such as Facebook, Millennials prefer to connect with their favorite brands over their own family members. In a professional setting, we gravitate toward experts who consistently create polished work based on fresh, new ideas. On LinkedIn Pulse, professionals flock daily to the iconoclastic ideas of LinkedIn Innovators, looking to get an edge in their field.

As a content marketer, nothing is more gratifying than creating something of value that draws these audiences. But to guarantee you’re telling the right stories that build strong relationships, there are crucial things to know ahead of time.

1. Know your audience. Being a friend to everyone online is difficult. Meeting a partner or customer and nurturing that relationship over time is just as tough. Each and every relationship begins and evolves differently, so marketers must carry a roadmap for successfully creating and amplifying digital content that provides value for the people they are trying to reach.

2. Know your publishing cadence. Some relationships are built slowly but surely through regular and trusting communication. Others form overnight through powerful expressions of emotion. You must determine how to time the stories you tell.

3. Know which style of communication best suits your brand. Some relationships can be built through long letters — missives that share insights to a person’s character. Others are built and solidified through touch. Think of it as digital marketing with a personalized experience. You must know which style works best for your brand.

4. Know how to be adaptable. Digital storytelling must be adapted for different modes of communication and stages in the relationship-building process. A content marketing strategy must enable a brand to be great in the eyes of its target audience. And a strategy built with amplification guarantees your great content will reach a wide enough audience to incite a wider conversation

5. Know how to continue the conversation. Once a person is drawn to your brand, they must feel like an equal partner in the relationship. They must be able to communicate their own thoughts, opinions, and philosophies. The days of one-sided communications between brands and consumers are over. Today’s best brands are drawing more people into two-sided conversations through the content they produce and amplify online. These conversations are what let the audience know they matter.

To learn about how brands are using content marketing strategy and amplification to drive conversations, join our live Webinar on January 22nd. Register today because seats are limited. And here’s a sneak peak!

4 Steps to Re-Launching Your Company Blog

There are many effective ways to promote your business, but content marketing has quickly risen to the top of that list. If your company’s blog is not as strong as you know it can be, read on to learn how to re-launch it in just four easy steps

1. Create an editorial calendar

It’s no surprise that the most important component of having a good blog is having high-quality content. However, it can be difficult to deliver that great quality on a regular basis. Maybe this is a problem you had with your blog before – you ran out of topics, or maybe you had a hard time coming up with good ideas regularly. By developing an editorial calendar, you can plan for your blog posts in an organized and well-balanced way. You can vary the types of content you post: company updates along with commentary on industry themes. You may not be able to plan for everything, such as a breaking news item in your industry that you may want to opine on, but having an editorial calendar will help you develop some structure to your posts’ content and schedule.

 

2. Vary your authorship

If you’re in your company’s marketing department, maintaining the company blog may fall under your list of responsibilities. Having to write every blog post yourself can be overwhelming for you, and underwhelming for a reader. Try varying the authors of your blog posts. You can have your CEO opine on an industry trend, or a member of a certain department write on a conference they recently attended. Even invite people from outside your company, such as an industry insider to write a post or two. Varying your authorship will help elevate your company and its executives to thought leaders and give your blog credibility