Joan Selby
March 27, 2017

4 Effective Tricks that Will Boost Your Content Marketing

Boost your Content Marketing

According to research done by Content Marketing Institute, as many as 80 percent of marketing professionals across all sectors (including B2B, B2C, and the nonprofit sector) rely on quality content in order to fuel their marketing efforts.

And that trend isn’t going to stop any time soon. Those same marketers are set to create even more content in the coming year. Their audiences are demanding for it! However, coming up with brilliant content week after week, or even faster, is becoming a huge problem, according Jim Hudson, who is a content manager for Superior Papers:

The rate at which marketers need to produce content is incredibly challenging, and there is no room for compromising on the quality, not just because of the readers, but also because Google prioritizes quality content.”

But, the reason why there is such a demand for content isn’t just because the audience is asking for it. Google considers it one of the key factors when ranking your website. We have put together a short list containing four effective tricks you can use to boost your content marketing efforts.

1. Repurpose the Content and Tailor It to Your Liking

There are several different things you can do here. There is always the option of repurposing your old content. For example, you can

  • Transform an old how-to user guide into a video tutorial
  • Gather a bunch of articles and turn them into an ebook
  • Convert some of your blog posts into podcasts

You can also do the same with the content you find online – especially if your business is small and you can’t afford to produce new content week after week.

But, be careful not to plagiarize the work of other people. You can cherry pick the best sections from several different authority articles, rewrite them, and combine into pillar posts. These will serve as the best sources of useful content for your readers.

Also, you can take useful data you have gathered from studies and research and turn them into infographics. Infographics are really popular these days, and it’s easy to see why. They are a great way of presenting large amounts of (often boring) data in way that is eye-catching and easy to consume.

2. Make Use of Historical Content

This one is even easier. All you have to do is repost some of your older content, but which is still effective. You have probably seen this a lot on Twitter or Instagram under hashtags #tbt, or #ThrowbackThursday, or something like that. This is a huge time saver, because you don’t even have to alter the old content, as long as it’s still relevant.

In some instances, that content can even grow more effective over time. For example, there is an episode of The Simpsons which involves Trump being elected President. It was just a silly joke back then, but now that it’s real. Since it became an accurate prediction, and went viral all over again.

3. Curate Your Own Content

While there are plenty of online tools like Feedly, which can help you dig up great content from all over the web for the purpose of content curation, it’s easy to overstep the fine line between curation and plagiarism. But, if you have a lot of content you have created in the past, and you think some of it didn’t receive the attention it deserved, you can use those same tools to curate your own content.

It’s quite similar to musicians putting out their “Greatest Hits” album, or TV shows producing a clip show episode of their best moments. You can also put together something like a timeline, which displays how you content has evolved over time. Or you can use it to show how certain trends in content marketing have come and gone.

For example, you can group together your best articles on SEO or marketing, write a one-paragraph summary for each one, and then create a listicle using those same paragraphs, which will work as a compilation of the best tips on the subject. On top of that, you can link to each of the larger articles, and get your audience to check them out in case they haven’t done so the first time around.

4. Rely on User-Generated Content

While it may seem like user-generated content is the answer to many of your problems as a content marketer, especially when it comes to social media, it’s not actually as simple as that. The problem is that a lot of user-generated relies on the content created by other authors – and much of this is branded.

For example, you will find a lot captioned images made from photos which aren’t necessarily free for commercial or non-commercial use. This also applies to GIFs which are created from video clips, movies, and TV shows.

This doesn’t mean you stay away from this practice – especially if you are struggling to produce content – but try to be more selective about what sort of user-generated content you will allow.

Since we are on the subject, a lively comment section on your website/blog or a forum where your readers gather can also be a great source of user-generated content and provide ideas for future content.

Also, if you want to target long-tail keywords, user-generated content is where you would find them. It’s up to you to shape this content, so that it’s up to your standards. But at least you don’t have to start from scratch.

Conclusion

These four practices will not only provide you with some breathing room, but they will also help you discover new ways of generating content. You don’t always have to create something from scratch and spend 40 hours a week doing it.

Creating an effective content strategy is about creating a balance between your own content, and that which you audience might find interesting. That way, you will have more time to focus on other aspects of the job, such as developing your product, or reaching out to influencers.

Over To You

Do you have any content creation tips or tricks you’d like to share? Please do so in the comments section, below.

 

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Joan Selby

Joan Selby is a former ESL teacher and a content marketer. She also runs her own blog about social media and writing tips. Joan is a Creative Writing graduate and fancy shoelover. A writer by day and reader by night, giving creative touch to everything. Connect with her on Twitter and Facebook