In Joe Pulizzi’s presentation at Social Media Marketing World entitled “How to Create a Content Marketing Strategy,” he purposely skimmed over the role of social media – not because it doesn’t help brands build audiences, but because too many marketers make it the end goal…and wonder why they don’t see results.
Instead, Pulizzi focused on the importance of building your audience on a platform that your company actually owns – like a blog or an email newsletter – instead of relying on social media metrics. But, as a footnote, he did admit that social media can serve as a means to that end, if used strategically. Here’s how he does it.
Identify Influencers
Start by listing 5-10 influencers, or experts in your field that you admire, whose fans look a lot like your ideal customers.
“The people you want on your site are hanging out on their sites,” Pulizzi says.
Here’s a partial list of influencers the Content Marketing Institute identified:
Share Influencers’ Content
Now that you’ve identified your influencers, activate them. Start engaging with them by sharing their content – in hopes that they’ll one day share yours.
“People are sharing all the time – all kinds of content for all kinds of people,” Pulizzi says. “But that doesn’t get influencers to grow your audience. You need a more programmatic approach to social media.”
Pulizzi uses the 4:1:1 Philosophy as his social media posting schedule to engage influencers. That is, for every 6 tweets or other social media posts:
- 1 can be about you – your award, your product, your widget. “Nobody will care, but you’ll get product marketing off your back,” Pulizzi says.
- 1 should link to your content – a blog post, eBook, podcast or whitepaper that’s published on a platform you own.
- 4 posts should be sharing content from your influencer list; tagging them with mentions, of course, to build the relationship.
“You’re trying to steal their audience to make it your audience,” Pulizzi says. “If you do this every day for 30 days, they will notice. They’ll start to pay attention, and they may start to share your content.”
Draw Influencers into Your Content
Once you get their attention, “bake them into your content,” he says. The Content Marketing Institute Content Marketing Playbook, for example, is a collection of 26 case studies. When Pulizzi pushed out the eBook, 24 of the 26 featured influencers helped push it out to their audiences.
While social media can help you connect with influencers and their audiences, the goal is not to gain likes and follows. The goal is build assets by luring fans over to platforms owned by your company – not a social media network. Pulizzi’s single goal for the Content Marketing Institute website is to get (and keep) subscribers.
So, once readers arrive on Content Marketing Institute’s website, they’re hit with invitations to join the mailing list, with exclusive ebook access to sweeten the deal. Convincing fans to become loyal subscribers is so important that Pulizzi uses popover ads – which he admittedly can’t stand.
“I didn’t believe in popovers. I felt like a used car salesman,” he says. “But we tested it, and I realized that 60 percent of the 140-160 sign-ups we get a day come from the pop-up form, and these become some of our best customers. Focus on subscribers as a key metric. That’s the key engine for driving revenue.”
>> Contact Bantamedia for help creating a content marketing strategy that gets results. >>
Image credit: Joe Pulizzi, Social Media Examiner’s Social Media Marketing World presentation, “How to Create a Content Marketing Strategy”