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Content Strategy

4 Steps To Start A Smart Guest Blogger Program

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Blogs are increasingly important to companies for lead generation and nurturing. HubSpot even found that 55% of marketers say blog content creation is their top inbound marketing priority.

With growing content needs, marketers may be inclined to invite guest bloggers to contribute content, thinking it will save time and fill a content gap. Although guest bloggers are a great option that can yield tremendous value for your brand, they are not right for every blog, and they can be more resource-intensive than you think.

If you’ve been considering a guest blogger program, use these four steps as the foundation to assess if your blog is ready for guests, and how to get your guest blogger program off to a good start:

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October 29, 2018 Content Chat Recap—Community Conversation: Keyword Research for Content Marketing Planning and Editorial Calendaring

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Content Chat keyword research

Like the old saying goes, if a tree falls in the woods but nobody is around to hear it, does it make a sound? The same goes for your content. You can spend hours crafting content and publishing it, but if nobody is around to read it or find it, it is almost as though it never existed.

In this #ContentChat Community Conversation recap, we dive into ways to drive traffic to your posts through keyword research and keyword prioritization.

Q1: Ah, keywords. What’s the first step a content marketer should take when it comes to identifying their primary keywords?

All steps should bubble up to audience personas so that you understand who you are targeting and what they need, but there are a multitude of ways to get there.

A safe start is learning the language of your audience and crafting content that meets their needs. It’s important to put your corporate messaging or agenda aside to create what your audience actually wants to see (and how they want to see it).

You can also research what your competition is doing (and saying) to not only ensure you’re on the same playing field but to also identify markets that are untapped by current keywords.

If you already have a piece ready to go, conduct a keyword search on your existing content to gauge if you’re on the right path.

Often times, your search engine can point you to the right keywords, too.

But you can’t rely on the same tactics year over year. Keep up with the latest trends with search engines—like voice search—so you don’t fall behind with the technology.

Don’t ignore the value in your existing content and audience data to help show what is currently working.

By trying out the above options, you may realize you’re not the best voice for all conversations, and that’s OK. Your audience would rather you create content where you’re a relevant voice, versus you trying to be an expert in everything.

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May 21 Content Chat Recap: How to Research and Document Your Editorial Plan

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In our final content strategy deep-dive of the month, I was on the hot seat answering questions about creating a strategic editorial plan. Over the course of the #ContentChat, we covered a wide range of topics around content marketing editorial research and planning. For those of you who hate editorial calendars and aren’t sure you should read on, our special guest host Maureen Jann and I made a short video to share our POV on why everyone hates editorial calendars but should actually be using them.

Q1: What is an editorial plan and why do I need one for my content strategy?

An editorial plan documents and organizes how your planned content rolls up against your content strategy.

An editorial plan gives you needed structure for executing your content strategy.

An editorial plan keeps your content from being reactive while keeping you on track for your goals.

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May 14 Content Chat Recap: How to Research and Document Personas

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Our second content strategy deep-dive #ContentChat conversation was on how to create personas. We got the scoop on how to create killer personas on a budget from marketing agency founder Maureen Jann (@SuperDeluxeMo).

Q1: What is a persona and why do content marketers need personas to define and document their #contentstrategy?

There are a few different ways to define personas.

It’s also helpful to understand what a persona is not (and what’s not a persona).

Personas put a name and a face to your customer attributes.

You’ll want to craft personas for both your ideal buyers and the influencers in their purchasing process.

Personas help you understand the right messages that will resonate with your audience.

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Taking a Library Collection Development Approach to Building Your Content Library

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Taking a Library Collection Development Approach to Building Your Content Library

Editor’s note: While many content marketers take a somewhat haphazard approach to content development, the most successful have a content plan that helps them meet their audience needs. This is something many content marketers struggle with, so we brought in a library professional to give you a different perspective on the process.

Collection development is the purchasing and maintenance of library materials. It chiefly concerns ordering new and replacement materials as well as repairing or discarding items that have become damaged or no longer have a place in the collection.

This can be physical materials such as books, DVDs, magazines etc., but can also refer to the library’s digital collection of e-books, databases or other subscription services the library provides. Multiple factors are considered when developing a library collection and include:

  • Budget.
  • Available space for physical materials.
  • The informational needs of the community.

Community Definition and Research

Now that we’ve identified what collection development is, and the factors you need to consider, you’re ready to tackle the most difficult part—how do you know what your audience needs?

Communities are diverse and constantly changing, so it is vital to research those needs instead of assuming you have a clear picture of what your customers want. Conducting a community assessment is how to gather information about your customers and thereby better understand gaps in the service you are providing. A community assessment includes both direct surveys of your customers and external data sources that describe the community demographics.

The primary way librarians identify community information needs are in the form of surveys, either online, at the library location, or both. In this way, we get the expressed interest of customers on the types of materials and services they are most interested in. While this can be illuminating, it is important not to stop there as surveys have the disadvantage of only reaching your most avid or vocal members. Surveys of this type give little to no information about infrequent or non-users of the library, which is needed if you are to grow your patron base.

To better understand the needs of these disengaged community members, you’ll have to turn to research. This can be done with readily available sources, such as the US census data. Also look at local government sources such as the health department for your city or county to give you an insight into the makeup of the community and needs that may not be expressed directly.

Collection Development Basics

Once you have a clear picture of the community’s needs, and a budget in place so you know how much you can spend, it is time to start evaluating materials for purchase. For libraries, this is done primarily through trade publications that contain reviews such as Publishers Weekly, Booklist, and Video Librarian.

Vendors such as Ingram also aggregate reviews for you for simpler browsing of new materials for purchase. There are also a plethora of online consumer review sources such as Goodreads, Rotten Tomatoes, and IMDB, that can help you decide which items and how many to purchase. In the case of movies, for example, the box office proceeds listed on IMDB can be helpful in deciding how popular a movie will be and so can give you guidance on how many to purchase.

Collection development isn’t a static process. It also helps to be flexible and re-evaluate an item’s popularity over time. The Integrated Library System (ILS) that each library uses to run all circulation functions will track the number of checkouts for a title, as well as holds requested. This data can help you decide if and when you will need to order more copies. Later on in the lifetime of an item, it can be used to determine which items are being used frequently and which are not, so they may be removed to make space for the continuing supply of new materials.

It’s a similar approach for online materials and services. Though they may not take up physical space, ongoing licensing fees can be better spent on other materials or services if they are underperforming. Your digital collection, like your physical materials, needs to be constantly updated to provide the best resources for library users.

Giving Your Community Access to the Right Information at the Right Time

Content development is a constant process that begins before any materials or services are purchased and is continued throughout the lifecycle of a collection. Though many of the examples I’ve given are specific to the library, the concepts remain the same across many disciplines including content marketing.

As with collection development, in content marketing, it is important to:

  • Document your content strategy ahead of time
  • Evaluate its performance over time
  • Understand your audience needs—both spoken and unspoken
  • Research to understand what content is out there and how it is performing
  • Identify gaps between what your audience needs and the content you have to offer

Following these steps is crucial to the success of any enterprise where your primary product is serving your customers with information. Anticipating customer needs beforehand and reacting to their expressed needs after will give you a much better chance of gaining new users and retaining those you already have.

May 7 Content Chat Recap: How to Conduct a Content Audit

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Deep Dive How to Conduct a Content Audit #ContentChat

All this month #ContentChat is doing deep-dives into the elements that go into creating an effective content strategy. For our first session, Carmen Hill (@carmenhill) walks us through how to conduct a content audit.

A1: What is a content audit, and where does it fit into the process of defining and documenting a #contentstrategy?

A content audit can be a simple inventory or can assess the quality of your content.

To be most effective, a content audit needs to take place AFTER you’ve decided on your content marketing goals.

You can go into your content audit seeking the answer to a specific question, or to acquire data to identify the right content next steps.

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