 Your new post is loading...
Your new post is loading...
In a world where everyone seems to be constantly churning out content, you may be feel like you’re not doing enough. However, there’s an upside and a downside to what I’m about to tell you. The upside is: There is no universal “right amount” of content to publish. There’s no magic publishing cadence for achieving content marketing success. Rather, the key is to figure out how much high-quality content you can produce on a regular basis – and then maximize it through your distribution channels to reach your goals. And that’s the downside: You have to find your own best publishing cadence – based upon your goals – through testing, trial, error, and optimization....
When it comes to writing text for your blog and social media posts, many marketers wonder, "But what's the character limit?" It's never a simple question -- sometimes, it's answered by parameters established by certain channels. And on other occasions, it's more a question of what's ideal. For example, you probably know the character limit for a tweet is 140, but did you know that the ideal length is actually less than that? (Hold tight -- we'll explain why.) While we've written before about optimizing your actual content, we thought it would be helpful to gather the numbers of character limits -- both enforced and ideal -- for different online channels, all in one place.  Below, you'll find a more detailed guide to character limits and ideal character counts for posts on your blog, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, SnapChat, and YouTube....
Although there are more than 100 types of content that one can actually create, we dilute most of our energy and resources in producing what most others do, news and light article content, without ever considering that there exist a ton of other content alternatives that could be utilized.
This is why I have decided to create this catalogue of content types. To remind writers and editors, that there are a tens of alternative opportunities for creating valuable content and that it is only up to me and you to pick them up and use them.
While there have been other attempts at listing and cataloging formats and types of content that can be published online (which I have listed and referenced at the end of this article), I have tried to improve upon them, not just by extending the number of formats covered (over 100), but also by identifying relevant examples, and where possible, appropriate tools, that can be useful to create that specific type of content....
The Furrow, John Deere’s magazine for farmers, has been in print since 1895. A few years ago, we published an article about the esteemed magazine, looking at how it’s managed to stay relevant in print even as digital outlets started to dominate. In marketing circles, The Furrow is a legendary entity, the Adam of brand publishing. In 1912, it had a peak circulation of more than 4 million readers. To take this origin metaphor to an absurd extreme, we’re excited to give you a glance at Eden. Recently, as I searched through old emails, I realized there were a lot of insanely cool editions that we never published in the original piece. It’s the first week of January, and I don’t really feel like doing real work yet, so I thought I’d share them....
Creating high-quality content is critical to content marketing success. With more than 2 millions blog posts published every day, you need a way to make your content stand out. But you’re probably wondering, “How do I create high-quality content that drives traffic and engagement?” Today, I will make things easy for you. I am going to show you 17 techniques you can use to improve the quality of your content in no time....
An expert roundup is a collection of quotes or interviews by influential people in your niche. Each participant should be someone with some authority in your field and that has something to contribute to your readers. The most effective roundups pose a very specific question that the experts can easily respond to. It should be a question that people care about the answer to.Here are a few great example roundups....
What’s the first thing a company should do before getting into content marketing? While opinions may vary, I’d say that analyzing other successful content marketers and their approach is a good start. Before Twitter shut off the API that allowed people to easily display tweet counts, I went on a data gathering spree… During the month of October 2015, I downloaded social share counts from top blogs. Here are a few things I learned when analyzing their most shared posts....
During a recent marketing conference, I had some great conversations about the state of blogging.
Everyone was talking about how comments are dead, no one shares anything anymore and readership continues to decline. We all need to reach new audiences, but there isn't a great way to do it.
Facebook sponsored posts work to some degree, as do other types of advertising, but what are we to do?
As it turns out, there is content you can create that will get lots of shares and comments.
Following is a list of 10 types of blog posts that still spark engagement...
So let’s go back to my question: why do I keep blogging? Why are you blogging? Should you quit? Should I quit? Are there better ways to do marketing, gain traffic, and grow conversions?
Is blogging truly all it’s cracked up to be? More specifically, just how big of an impact does it have on SEO?
In this article, I’m going to do away with niceties, guesses, and “best practice” advice. Instead, I’m going to dish up the data so you can get the cold, hard facts on what happens if you decide to stop blogging.
Do you want more exposure for your content?
Have you considered publishing your content on Apple News?
Apple News lets you deliver both visual and text-based content directly to a growing number of iOS mobile devices.
In this article, you’ll discover how to become an Apple News publisher....
There are definite advantages of using your name and definite advantages of blogging anonymously. I am going to talk about some of the different options that are open to you that may be in between each choice.
This is one of the decisions that bloggers face when starting a blog. Most at least ponder the question. Many use their real names straight away, but others really grapple with this decision.
Note: this episode can be listened to in the player above or on iTunes or Stitcher....
Name one brand that isn’t in social media.
Give up?
That’s because today, when something is not in social media, it probably doesn’t exist. People, events, brands, even government institutions are engaging their followers through social media.
Brands invest in social media marketing because it doesn’t just guarantee awareness or increase profit. Social media gives you a platform to be closer to your followers and ultimately earn their loyalty.
As a blogger, you may not have thought about it, but you need to see what you do as a business. You have to build your brand – if you want to succeed, that is.
A survey by The Social Habit showed that 53% of Americans who follow brands in social media channels are more loyal to those brands.
If your topic seems boring to you, take heart. One of the reasons why B2B content marketers struggle to produce a variety of engaging content is because they see the topic as boring. But there’s good news: Since most people in your industry aren’t creating useful content solely because they don’t know how to, boring topics can be a great opportunity for you to dominate your niche. Let’s discuss the 4-point approach to writing an interest blog post in a boring industry. Are you ready?...
|
One of the best ways to demonstrate your relevance and expertise is by publishing thoughtful and valuable content to educate, inspire, and entertain your target audience. The problem is, it’s a lot of work! So, how do you avoid CMF? The answer: Get smarter with content creation. Yes, there are fantabulous ways, like working with guest bloggers, to keep the original ideas and perspectives flowin’. But even so, when it comes to content creation, you need to get the most bang for your buck (time is money, right?). Try upcycling: The simple process of repurposing old content into something new and improved.
When it comes to content strategy, a lot has been said about the importance of keeping a steady stream of fresh content flowing through your distribution channels. Marketers have listened. According to the Content Marketing Institute (CMI), 76 percent of content marketers produced more content in 2016 than they did in 2015. That content stream will only increase in 2017. This trend has been with us for years. According to an October 2016 TrackMaven blogging report: Over the last five years, the average number of blog posts published per brand per month increased by 800 percent. However, over the same time the average number of social shares per post (from Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest) decreased by 89 percent....
If you’ve seen any of CMI’s 2017 Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends research, you may have noticed that the content marketing industry is growing up. In fact, 28% of B2B marketers, and 30% of B2C marketers now say their program has reached the sophisticated or mature stage of progress – the point where their efforts are able to provide measurable value to the business. Increasing sophistication with content doesn’t mean practitioners have outgrown the tools and techniques that helped them reach greater success. And, despite all the channels, formats, and digital innovations emerging in our industry over the last few years, one tried-and-true tactic, in particular, continues to lead the pack when it comes to reliably driving returns on the content investment: blogging....
Throughout my career, long-form content has always been an important part of my marketing strategy. And most of the radically successful entrepreneurs I know also use long-form content. Coincidence? I don’t think so. I know what you’re thinking: “But how can I write these humongous articles? I don’t even know where to start.” If you have an idea for an article in mind, that’s enough to get started. All you need is an idea, some time, and good Googling skills. Over the years, I’ve honed the process of writing long-form content that works for any topic. It’s so easy to learn, I bet you’ll finish your first 3,000+ word article within a few days....
Blogging may be an elder statesman when it comes to the formats content marketers have at their disposal, but that doesn’t mean the technique is ready to go the way of the dinosaur. In fact, CMI’s 2016 B2B Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends report found that 81% of content marketers include blogging among their techniques. But, as with any tactic, blogging has been impacted by many shifts in marketing best practices, consumer behaviors, and technological advances. What are the latest trends in blog creation and usage, and how do these shifts impact blogging’s role in your content marketing strategy? Orbit Media’s second annual survey of 1,000 bloggers aimed to answer these questions. While Orbit Media co-founder Andy Crestodina’s own summary focuses on changes over the past year, the results also reveal some trends that gradually have been gaining momentum over a longer time. Below are some of the findings that we at CMI found to be particularly intriguing, along with some actions that we suggest to help you take full advantage of this powerful content marketing format....
Content creation is one of the most vital aspects of digital marketing – posting content that will inform, interest and amuse your online audience so that you’re one of the first places they turn to when they go online. This means creating content of a consistently good quality on a continual basis. That's a pretty tall order, even for the most imaginative of digital marketers. The biggest challenge faced by B2B content marketers is producing enough content, closely followed by producing the type of content that engages the target audience.
I listed 25 content creation ideas that business bloggers can use when they run out of ideas for attention-grabbing new content. But besides ideas you need more to create content better.
Most professionals use a toolkit of some type or another and that’s just as true for content creators. Today we’re looking at some of the most useful content creation tools that you could add to your content creation toolkit, including some tools that will help you to post some great visual content – we all know that images, GIFs and videos pack a powerful punch when it comes to getting the marketing message across....
Some content pieces had what it took to become viral way before the internet era. We called that phenomenon “word of mouth” and it helped products and ideas to spread around with the speed of light. In today’s world, with so many communication means available, it should be easy enough for anyone to create a viral piece and unleash it into the world. Unfortunately, not everything online goes viral. Some pieces attract millions of eyeballs while others get their fair number of shares without entering the VIP club. Why?...
Via massimo facchinetti
About a year ago, I came up with an idea. I wanted to show you how to generate $100,000 a month from a new blog.
I picked a topic and have been making progress toward that goal.
But what if you haven’t picked a topic yet?
That’s why I wrote this article. A great blog has to start with a topic.
These are the types of articles, topics, and approaches that have demonstrated massive success in the past and will continue to do so in the future....
As a content marketer for Bizzabo, a growing SaaS company, it’s often challenging to know if what I spend my day doing is working. I worry about generating more visits and more leads while serving the best interests of our readers. A year ago, the challenges were even steeper. I knew that inbound marketing was effective. I knew that blogging was a good thing and that it was generating some great leads for us. But I wasn’t sure if blogging more frequently would have a tangible positive impact on our key metrics. After talking with my team, we decided to give blogging more frequently a shot. We committed to publishing 3 posts a week for one year, and we got pretty darn close to that ambitious goal (averaging 2.5 posts per week). We were able to grow our readership by 190% in that time. We also increased the number of people who subscribed to our blog by 980%. By publishing quality content so frequently, we learned a thing or two about what makes a B2B blog successful, and what doesn’t. Here’s what I wish I knew when Bizzabo started this initiative a year ago....
A surge of traffic may look great in your stats – but it won’t necessarily result in many new long-term readers.
Instead of thinking just about traffic, you want to focus on getting subscribers: people who keep reading your posts day after day, week after week, and month after month.
A great first goal is to get 1000 subscribers to your blog, either through email or RSS subscriptions. (Unless you’re writing about techy things, you’ll probably find most readers prefer to subscribe through email.)
When you’re just starting out, though, with just a handful of subscribers, or none at all, 1000 can look a long way off. Here’s how to get there, step by step....
Bryan Kramer once wrote, “Communication shouldn’t be complicated. It should just be genuine and simple, with the humility and understanding that we’re all multi-dimensional humans, everyone of which has spent time in both the dark and delightful parts of life.”
Content is the key to this kind of communication and your company’s fuel for building connections with these multi-dimensional humans in your network — and that stems far from a marketing-only initiative.
One of the biggest mistakes I see companies continue to make is believing that quality content should be created, distributed, and used only by the marketing team. This belief is not only false, but it’s also a dangerous mentality that dramatically limits your long-term growth.
Content Marketing Institute reported this year that almost three in four B2B marketers still don’t believe their organizations are effective at content marketing. As I’ve discussed in a previous piece on content marketing trends, we’re starting to see new strategies emerge for utilizing content and improving its effectiveness. A trending strategy that brands need to take advantage of now is the use of content by teams outside the marketing department to accomplish more goals....
Employ someone and you have to consider salary, workspace, and equipment; not to mention benefits like medical care and paid vacation time.
Conversely, freelancers are only paid for the work they do.
This is generally (though not always) more cost-effective than taking on someone in-house, and allows you to increase or decrease their workload as needed.
This makes outsourcing extremely flexible, which is a huge win for small businesses.
But don’t get too excited just yet… there’s a hard part: actually finding great freelancers and managing them effectively.
Thankfully there’s plenty of tools designed to help you do just that (and many more being released all the time).
Let’s take a look at some of the more recent additions to the market that can help you to outsource and manage your content creation in 2016...
|
"How much content should I publish?" That's one of the most common questions customers ask us, and something every content marketer wonders, at some point. Here's Newscred's answer.