1. When creating content for your brand or blog or whatever, have fun! If you aren’t having fun, you’re not doing it right. When writing, one of my goals is for the reader to at some point say “Holy $h1#”. Don’t be afraid to be controversial.
2. When doing UI/UX testing on sites, have unique call tracking numbers for your A/B tests. This way you can cover both online and offline conversions. You can have true ROI data and calculations.
3. When writing, see your content as a story; show the reader, don’t just tell them. This comes from my days writing Fantasy/Sci-fi books. If you’re “told” then it feels like you’re being talked down to. “Showing” lets the reader connect on a more personal level.
4. The best content writers have a unique voice. Create a point of view of your brand that’s distinct – definitely NOT corporate-speak. One of the best examples I always think of is the group of writers for WOOT.com products. They’ve literally had me LOL IRL.
5. Don’t post your blog to Twitter directly or a 3rd party client. First post it as a LinkedIn update, and THEN click on the “tweet this update”. This way every single re-tweet will also count as a LinkedIn share, boosting your chances of making it a Trending article on the front page of LinkedIn.
6. Find highly relevant, highly-targeted, and (even better) highly engaged audiences in LinkedIn Groups.
7. Have tons of content? Pull it together and make a book! Generate leads by letting people download it in exchange for their email. Upload to Amazon and sell it on the Kindle.
8. Embed social sharing strategically in your content to make it easy for people to share.
9. Get into a steady habit of writing. If your best time is early morning before everyone else gets into the office or at home after putting the kids to bed, schedule that time JUST for you and stick to it.
10. While writing content, do NOT just talk about yourself. Get to know your customers. Do your customers and prospects match the Personas you should have already created? ? What’s important to them?
11. Invite customers to post on your blogs. Promote their personal blog posts from your site.
12. Be consistent. Good content marketing requires consistency in tone, posting frequency, quality of content, and more.
13. Use link-tagging to put special parameters on the end of your URLs. This way, in analytics like Google’s, you can understand where visits to the content started , how it was delivered, date sent, source of new visits, how many of them convert to leads or customers.
14. Be a giver! Create and share content in your own social media channels that is meaningful to your audience, not just your own needs.
15. Use blog posts in your outbound email marketing.
16. Find companies that offer complementary products or services, then do: joint webinars, joint blogposts, joint email blast that includes offers or free content from both.
17. Trust takes time. To become a trusted individual and influencer in your social circles, don’t +1, retweet, like and follow everything that instantly comes your way. Build REAL connections with trusted individuals.
18. Answer every question you receive from a customer or prospect. Answer them like you would to a friend during lunch. You could even take these questions and make a blog post. Bonus!
19. Love Pinterest? Show it a little more love by backing up your Pins. It would suck losing them after investing all that time and effort.
20. Think big but act small. Make your goals big, but be ready to move fast and be flexible.
21. Learn enough about coding, programming, and databases to be dangerous. If you have to coordinate your efforts with an I.T. team, this will be invaluable.
22. If you use Google analytics, become adept in creating and using Advanced Segments. See cool metrics like Really Engaged Traffic or troubleshoot Site Performance.
