Our 10 Days To A Better Blog Challenge is happening now! (Have you signed up to join us? It’s early enough you can still catch up!) In light of this push we’re making to encourage more folks to get their blog on, I thought it would be a good time to talk about how blogging and social media work can together in your content marketing efforts.

If you’re like many of the people we work with on a regular basis, there’s a good chance you don’t have a section in your marketing plan dedicated to content. We all know content is important, but, let’s be honest with ourselves. It’s time-consuming to create. It’s costly. And it’s not as easy to roll out as some of the other forms of marketing (like social media). But, content is tremendously important, and should be working closely with your social media activities as part of your greater, overall marketing plan.

If you’re already using social media and content marketing to some degree of success, I hope you’ll leave a comment and share some of the things that have worked for you!

For the rest of you, let me take a step back and explain exactly what content marketing is.

Content Marketing is when a business educates the public about its products, services, and values, using the written word and a call to action. This could be via blog posts, website content, newsletters, info products, eBooks, press releases, brochures … etcetera. The goal of content marketing is to invite potential customers and clients into your business realm and motivate them to act. “To act” could mean anything … to sign up for a newsletter, make a purchase, or sign up for services.

Social Media is made up of a variety of different platforms (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest … and a few others), and is used by business owners to communicate with their target market, ideal clients, peers and associates, and others with whom they want to get to know better, build relationships (personal or business), offer support and information, you name it. It’s also a place where customers and clients talk among themselves. The goal of social media for a speaker or coach is generally to increase visibility, share content and, ultimately, grow a following. 

You’re probably already doing all sorts of content marketing and social media without giving either a whole lot of space in your promotional strategy. But they both definitely deserve separate strategies within your marketing plan, and a chance to work together.

Here are some examples of how you can use social media to help with your content marketing, and vice versa:

1. Share blog posts. This seems like a pretty obvious way to share your content, but I’m taking nothing for granted here! We should all be blogging as part of our content marketing strategy. And, when you blog, you should be sharing those posts via your social media channels. Keep in mind that you should NOT have a Twitter or Facebook feed that is 100% you sharing your own blog post links. This is a big turn off. Space your own links out between articles you share from others! And be sure to engage with your community by responding to the posts and Tweets of others. Social media is a conversation, so make sure you make the space to have conversations. Just don’t make them one-sided. Stagger out your blog posts, but do link to them. And remember to link to some of the great stuff you’ve written and shared months/weeks/years ago because believe it or not, all of our followers aren’t reading every single post you put out there!
2. Leverage apps. Facebook gives you a few options to actively promote your content on your Facebook page. Your page now has the option to add a button with a call to action … it might be a link back to your website, a request to call you to schedule a free consultation, or direct people to your opt-in page. You can also add a button in your navigation to integrate your opt-in with mail marketing programs like MailChimp, and a variety of other tools that can help you get people signing up to receive the content you’re producing. If you’ve got them. Use them!
3. Use bio space. When people first follow you on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc., they’re likely to do some snooping around your profiles. Make sure you make good use of all those “spaces” by filling in every piece of information about yourself and your business you can! If you haven’t updated your bios lately, go to all of your social media profiles and make sure they are updated and complete. These are ideal spots to link to your website, your newsletter, free report, blog, podcast, and so on and so forth. Lead the people to your content the minute they hear your name! But please, no Twitter DM autoresponder welcomes. (Yuck.)

I’ve only touched the surface here with some of the things you can do to Hopefully you see now, how content marketing and social media should be working together, yet separately as part of your marketing plan.

How are you using social media in your content marketing? Let me know in your comments below.