Content Strategy: Takeaways from Social Media Marketing World 2016

April 25, 2016 by

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Content Strategy: Takeaways From Social Media Marketing World 2016

Content Strategy is Episode 70 of This Old New Business weekly business podcast with Jeff Korhan.

Frank Kenny has twice been a guest on the show. This week he graciously interviews me to discover and share the top takeaways from Social Media Marketing World 2016 hosted in San Diego, CA last week.

The key was having a strategy and following it, and that is also my top takeaway from the event.

Content strategy isn’t sexy, but it is indeed what everyone was talking about.

Here are a couple of examples from sessions presenters.

Stephanie Sammons talked about tilting your LinkedIn profile to the audience you are trying to reach today. In her own profile, she uses phrases like Texas gal and yogi to show some personality that makes her stand out on what many consider the least interesting social media channel.

And she gave examples of business she has landed with this strategy to back it up. So, don’t be afraid to test new profile strategies.

Shaun McBride (Shonduras on SnapChat) is exactly what you would expect from a SnapChat expert. He’s a snowboarding, surfer dude kind of guy that knows how to tell stories with short videos that will make you laugh out loud. His simple video strategy follows a theme: Will This Work?

He has built a massive SnapChat audience that wants to find out if his next crazy project will work.

If you are curious, the hot social channels nowadays are SnapChat, LinkedIn, Facebook, email, podcasting, and live video such as Blab and Facebook Live. A valid strategy with any of these channels should ideally provide a shift (or tilt) that gets you noticed when others are playing it safe.

And that brings us to a proven strategy that anyone can use.

Take The 3% Challenge

Mark Schaefer, the author of The Tao of Twitter and The Content Code, gave the closing keynote at Social Media Marketing World. He delivered an entertaining and informative presentation that challenged the audience to take the 3% content strategy challenge.

Most of us have a core group that loves us. They are the ones that engage with and share our content because we’ve earned their trust. Our challenge is to focus on this segment that is probably 2% of our subscribers and followers and grow it to 3%.

If you get there, refocus and go for 4%. That’s been my commitment with my weekly newsletter from day one, and it’s why I consider it my primary channel. Feel free to steal my strategy. Here it is.

Choose one channel to be your proving ground, the place where you push the limits to make new discoveries for that small segment of your audience that truly loves and appreciates your work.

In addition to being a source of valuable content, this is the channel that always gets 100% of your heart and soul, regardless of other commitments, and fuels the larger body of work that defines your brand.

Good luck with yours.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on content strategy. Meet me over on Twitter to take the conversation further.

Key Take-Aways

  • Thanks to Frank Kenny for helping to put this podcast together. You can learn more about his work with local Chambers of Commerce at FrankJKenny.com
  • While SnapChat was the darling of the event, you may be surprised to learn that all four of the LinkedIn sessions I attended with Stephanie Sammons, Viveka von Rosen, Melonie Dodaro, Jason Miller and Alex Rynne were completely full. This is a reminder that for many businesses LinkedIn is considered an essential social media channel.
  • Peg Fitzpatrick offered a couple of resources for upgrading your images. They are DesignFeed.io for resizing images for the social media channels and RelayThat.com for quickly and easily creating cool graphics.
  • Syed Balkhi shared AnswerThePublic.com for learning what people want to learn more about so that you can create content that addresses relevant issues. Note: When using it you’ll want to change the country from UK to US, or whatever is most relevant for your search.
  • You can still buy a virtual pass to access to 140+ Social Media Marketing World session recordings and slides by going here.

How to subscribe to This Old New Business podcast

Click here to subscribe via iTunes.
You can also subscribe via Stitcher.

Help us Spread the Word

If you enjoyed this episode, please head over to iTunes or Stitcher to leave a rating, write a review, or subscribe.

About the Author:  Jeff Korhan, MBA, is the author of Built-In Social: Essential Social Marketing Practices for Every Small Business and host of This Old New Business podcast.

He helps organizations use media to create exceptional customer experiences that drive business growth in a digital, social and global world. Connect with Jeff on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Google+

Content Strategy: Get Ready for The Next Generation of Social Media

November 7, 2014 by

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This Old New Business Podcast with Jeff Korhan

This is Episode 16 of This Old New Business weekly business podcast with Jeff Korhan.

In this episode we chat with Rich Brooks. He is the owner of Flyte New Media, a digital marketing agency that he has owned for over 17 years.

Rich not only demystifies social media and content marketing, he offers practical tips for budgeting your investment of time and money to its accomplishment, whether you do the work in-house or hire an outside agency.

Rich shares a wealth of practical experience and delivers it with his wonderful sense of humor. So, get ready to laugh and learn.

Our Featured Guest: Rich Brooks

Content Strategy: Get Ready for The Next Generation of Social Media Rich Brooks is the founder and president of Flyte New Media, a web design and marketing firm in Portland, Maine.

He is also the founder of The Agents of Change Digital Marketing Conference and host of The Marketing Agents Podcast, where he interviews marketing experts from around the world on search, social & mobile marketing.

Rich is an expert blogger, frequent television guest, and a web marketing and social media teacher for entrepreneurs.

Social Media Follows Content Strategy

Rich likes to think of social media as an accelerant that speeds up or amplifies your marketing message. For it to work in your favor, your business needs to clear on two points:

#1 – What does your business do?

#2 – Who are you trying to reach?

The responses to these questions have to not only be definitive, but so obvious as to not be subject to interpretation. To achieve greater clarity, it is helpful to define what your business will not do, as well as who it prefers not to reach.

As social media advances to the next generation, every business needs to be clear about its purpose and who it can help. More important, this needs to be represented well in its content.

Your content strategy drives your social media strategy, and of course the tactics that follow. It all has to be aligned.

Focus on the Right Conversations

Most businesses are aware of the fact that conversations that affect their business are happening online. Naturally, they want to get into it!

Slow down. Instead of simply jumping into social media like every other business, consider taking a narrow approach to get started right. Consider choosing just one social media channel and master it.

It’s one thing to be on the periphery of online conversations on multiple channels. Yet, that is not going to significantly impact your business. Rich suggests carefully building your strategy for accurate and timely deliverly of valuable content.

Deliver the right content, to the right people, at the right time. Tweet this

Invest in The Future of Your Business

When a business creates valuable content, and owns it, it is investing in its future. Those words from Rich nicely handle the myriad questions businesses ask about content, including what type of content to create, how frequently, and why.

Creating content for the platforms you own should be priority. These owned media platforms include your website, blog, and email newsletter. What happens after that with the respective social media channels ideally amplifies and accelerates your message.

Is your business ready for the next generation of social media? 

Lighting Round Tips and Advice

Rich’s Top Sales or Marketing Advice – Consistently provide incredibly valuable content for your audience.

His Favorite Productivity Tip – Delegate. There is always someone that is better at doing what you need to get done so that you can focus on what you do best.

A Quote that has Inspired Rich’s Success – “Luck favors the prepared” (and) “No capes!” – both from Edna ‘E’ Mode in the animated film The Incredibles. Work hard to be prepared for life’s opportunities, and avoid adding anything to the mix that may compromise the accomplishment of your goals.

Key Take-Aways

How to subscribe to This Old New Business podcast

Click here to subscribe via iTunes.
You can also subscribe via Stitcher.

Help us Spread the Word

Let your Twitter followers know about this podcast with this ready-made tweet.

If you enjoyed this episode of This Old New Marketing podcast, please head over to iTunes or Stitcher to leave a rating, write a review, or subscribe.

About the Author:  Jeff Korhan, MBA, is the author of Built-In Social: Essential Social Marketing Practices for Every Small Business and host of This Old New Business podcast.

He helps mainstream businesses adapt their traditional growth practices to a digital world. Connect with Jeff on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Google+

Single Serve Content for Mobile Consumers

August 18, 2014 by

We have previously discussed the importance of planning both the construction and deconstruction of your content. The idea is that creating great content takes time, so while you are doing that put in a little extra effort to also plan which pieces of it will be shared on, let’s say, Instagram. Content often brings to […]

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