Lessons

Lesson Info

Kim: Content Strategy

we talked about, You know, choosing picking and choosing what you could dio based on your time in your resource is right. Um, I think if you had to just pick one and I'm not a big proponent necessarily of saying Don't use the others And oh, are you know, say Twitter is not for you or Lincoln's Not for you, but the fact is that Facebook is huge, right? We all know that. It's it's incredibly huge. It's a great platform. So if I had to say pick one, I would definitely say Pick Facebook. Many of you may already be more familiar with Facebook than you are some of the other platforms out there, so definitely, uh, it's important. But how do you do? How do you do it? How do you do it to dominate face? Because that's really what you want to dio you want, provide, build out a strategy. Ah, and a goal set that's going to be phenomenal. So you need a great content strategy plan. Um, who has just just going to a quick poll here in the audience and even online who has a content strategy plan anybody...

? Yes, we have won all right. I love it. Okay. Most people don't They don't have a content strategy plan. I'll even take it a step further as it relates, we're going to talk today about several visual platforms. Facebook is a visual platform. Google Plus is a visual platform. Instagram, obviously, and in Pinterest. But, um, I think there's there's content. And then there's the visual aspects to which are, you know, one could lump together. But I think, honestly, there, you need to have ah, content, strategy plan. You need a growth plan. Um, you know, if you don't have new eyeballs on your business consistently, then you're probably not going to grow your business. So it's important, have a growth plan and then obviously measurement analytics on making the adjustments. So what works and what doesn't is critical. A swell. We talked about these some of these in the last session, but what is the content strategy? It's basically just a plan to make sure that you're posting on Facebook. That what you're posting on Facebook support your social media goals, using an authentic you voice in an engaging manner to drive community growth. Now that's a mouthful, right? But basically it's just too. It's a plan. Um, with your voice in it that, you know, connects with your audience, you know that they'll that drives that community growth. Why do you need a content strategy? I mean, why is it important to make sure that you're posting consistently? Because otherwise, you will be sitting down in front of your computer and you'll say what we talked about earlier. What am I gonna talk about today? I don't know what I'm gonna say. So it's it's great to have so that you post consistently. It's, um It's a great way to make sure that you have a wide variety of content, which is also important. You know, if you post the same stuff for the same type of stuff all the time, you're going to a bore. You're gonna bore your audience, they're gonna get bored with you. They're gonna move on. Um, and it's a great way to provide value to your audience, to to showcase that You know what you're talking about so that ultimately they'll buy when you start, Uh, you presenting your marketing message and to remote your business? You know, a lot of people ask me this question is, will win. Do you promote your business? If you're out there just providing value and shoe showing that you know what you're talking about all the time, then Windy Cell. And that's a great question, actually, and I follow. What I subscribe to is the 80 20 rule, where 80% of the time you're sharing content, value based information, whether it's visual, whether it's Burbage, you know, whatever it is, whether it's a block post, um, and then 20 of the percent of the time you are throwing in your marketing message. What I find lots of times is that people get so wrapped up in the 80% that they forget their marketing message. So don't forget your marketing message. You can't sell anything if you're not selling something. So, you know, make sure you weave in your marketing message. Teoh your overall plan because it's important. Something like a say. So many times we forget that piece and you know, again it's to drive engagement, ultimately, to get more people engaging with you. Ah, in your community and content does drive engagement. Some brands do it very well on Facebook. Starbucks is great. I mean, you know, they have a visual product. Obviously, Um and not only do they do a great job, but their end users the people who buy and use, um, and consume Starbucks coffee do a great job of sharing their brand with others. So it does definitely drive engagement. And remember, a good content strategy supports your goals. You know, you have to have You have to know what your goals are and then build out your content around those things. Doesn't mean those that your content won't change based on the measuring. You know, we keep going back to those three things goals, strategies, and then measuring those to see if you met your goal set. Okay, promote. This is just some of ours. So you guys kind of get a picture in an example of what this would look like as you start building out your own. But basically, our number one goal is to promote our products or services in our events. Then the next thing is to educate and bring value to our community, motivate and inspire our community, develop a personal connection with our community and promoter blogger, our newsletter media opportunities that we have, um, and bottom line growth, that community. So these air big picture goal sets that we have now, once we develop these now what strategies that we're gonna put into place to make sure that we meet these goals. But does this help A little bit to see now that you see somebody's set of goals, how you would develop yours And then then you start with the strategy piece, but mixing it up contents big. We know that we've talked about that. One of the things that we leverage, this is ours. We use motivational quotes, huge connection piece for people. Ah, humor again. The meeting people where they are in the fund piece. We use a lot of humor. Personal social, media info. Um, company news promotions are blawg all of these air a piece of the content strategy that we have, and then we mix it up a Zara's frequency, you know, two times a day, maybe motivational quotes, humor Once a day. We don't overdo that personal once a day. Um, you know, we intermix are blawg. You'll find your own sweet spot. Essentially. But this I gave you this so you could kind of see what it would look like as you start to roll it out and put into place for your business. Kim. So we see from a lot of people in the chat room, just in general, this is a big topic. How often do I post and in one day what times? You know all of these things, but this is I mean, this to me is, if you've got two per day one per day, that's 67 per day. Is that an acceptable amount I recommend at least four times a day? The interesting part about Facebook is that if you do not, um, on a fan page, let's put it this way. Um, let me let me step back one other. One other thing I need to say. I think it's important. It's against Facebook's terms of service to conduct business on your personal profile. If you are doing that, you need to cease and desist because you don't want to build out a great community there and have somebody report you and Facebook shut you down. Um, you need to be doing you need a personal fan page, a business fan page. However you want a word it and ah, and build out your community on your fan page. The problem with that is Facebook has gone to a pay to play model boat model. In other words, they have made it a little bit more difficult for us to engage with our audiences because they're not allowing our audience to see our post unless we're promoting them or, you know, running ads, etcetera. We're gonna talk about that a little bit more in a moment. How you leverage Facebook ads to get in front of your audience. It's kind of sad on one hand that you go to all this trouble to build out a fan base. And then Facebook says, and determines who's going to see your content in their new states. Most people, when they fan your page, never come back like 97%. Never come back to your fan page proper. They only engage with your content when it shows up in your news V Well, if Facebook is not showing your content in their news feeds based on their algorithm, usually it's about 16. You know, percent of your content of your posts are getting into the news feeds of your fans. That's a very low number. So how do you get more people? And if you're only posting once or twice a day, then you're cutting your chances of being seen by your fan base down, even Mawr, right? So it's kind of like Twitter. I use this analogy, and you know, Twitter moves so rapidly it's totally different. But it moves so rapidly that different people see different things at different times. It's the same concept with your fan page, the chances of you know, unless they unless that the end user, your fan base, is engaging with you constantly and consistently. Most of the most of the time, when you post on your fan page, different fans are going to see that post. You know, in other words, that 16% or whatever the number is that Facebook is going Teoh show to your fan base. It's gonna be random people, you know. It's not gonna be the same people unless again. There's no way to know for sure, because Facebook doesn't tell you how their algorithm works. But it is again. You need to be consistently posting more than once a day or once a week um so that your fan base concede eu and engage with you. So I'm a big proponent of at least four times a day now. With that said, social media is not a one size fits all. How do your fans engage with you? How dio you know how often is too much for your fan base? So what I suggest and what we do for all of our clients, even is we start out with usually a six posted a plan and, um, for my fan page, sometimes we get more than that. You know, the my rule of thumb on my fan pages. If I'm getting engagement, seriously, engagement on a post, then that means I'm not posting too much. If if I'm getting no engagement on the other hand, then maybe my audience is not liking what it could be. Twofold. They could be not liking what I'm posting. Or maybe I'm posting to frequently. There's also ways to tell if you're getting, um, you know, in your analytics piece, there's also ways to say, OK, this many people hid me or, you know, unlike me or whatever the negative feedback, essentially so that you can kind of tell what your audience is, you know, not appreciating as it relates to what you're posting. That was a long answer. There's a lot to Facebook, unfortunately. So, um, but I think that kind of gives you a big picture of how it works. And I know there is There is someone Facebook. But I just You said something that I wanted to clarify for people because again, that personal page versus Van paid. Yes, you said don't conduct business on your personal page. What defines conducting business to you? Okay, that means you cannot, um, sell things on your business page. It does not mean that you can't say, you know, I'm speaking at Creative Live today. For example. May I could have done that this morning and there would have been no, Even though that's tied to my business, it's not a something that Facebook would say, Oops, you're going to get can for that so you can be selective and sharing things that are happening in your business so that you have business aspects. You know, you could share a photo or you know of you and your team at lunch or, you know, things like that. But when you're directly trying to sell and solicit business on your personal profile, that's against Facebook's terms of service. Okay, thanks. Yes. Okay. And then there's levels of, um, Facebook engagement, and this is interesting to me. And I don't think a lot of people know this, but shares comments likes ah, click of you. You know what constitutes the most like a share, for example, is is five times more valuable in your, um, you're talking about numbers than alike. So when you can motivate somebody to share your content, then that makes it viral. It's a lot more valuable than just alike. Um, comments are more valuable, obviously than shares. You know, again, any time you get somebody click and engage, it's you haven't a You have somebody moving making taking actual movement on your, um, the Post. Amazing. So this is this all factors in into your talking about numbers, especially the 1st 3 a share, a comment alike. Okay, What type of content works best for driving engagement and this is kind of interesting, especially for those of you. I know. You have video of your business. If you'll notice video is number three it's on, and I've tested this myself. To see photos. Air still Number one Get the most engagement, and this is probably true, like Facebook, and there's a lot of people will say Well, Facebook is giving more preference to text based content. You'll see that your number is higher, usually on views. How many people are seeing it, in other words, but the people that are engaging with it, which is really the number that you're interested in, is much higher is that when it comes to photos than it is with just text based, Facebook may be showing more people your text based post, but the people are not engaging with it as much as they would if it was a photo. So that's that's important. It's a good distinction, I think, to be made, um, text only 12% engagement, 39% on a photo, and the worst is especially on Facebook. Facebook is not the best place to share your content. You know, your blood content doesn't mean you shouldn't because but you In other words, if you're going to share a blawg post on Facebook, you need to tell people why it's important that they pay attention to what? You can't just post it. In other words, um, you know, I'm excited about such and such, because I think this will help you do such and such. In other words, you give them a reason in a value based reason for them to go read your blood content. Um, or you could also do a graphic of your blawg content. You know, just do leverage. The one that you've used on your profile on your I'm sorry on your blogged and posted on Facebook. That's another option. Eso the the graphic pieces is coming into play, but it doesn't get as much traction as it would on Twitter, for example, or even on Google Plus, which we're gonna share it. Talk about content, how you drive traffic using your blood content, but keep it short posts with more than 80 characters. Wreck interactions under 80 characters, 23% higher engagement. Um, this is kind of interesting. Did anybody have any clue that this was true? This is true on Twitter to the shorter your post, the more engagement you usually get. And it's tough on Twitter on Twitter. You only have 100 40 characters. So I think this is really interesting that, um, you know, you could get higher engagement by just simply keeping your met your messages short and sweet goes back to time. People are consuming information very quickly today, and they don't want to spend a lot of time reading it. But three content strategies that work fill in the blanks are great. I do. I have a one that I used on my fan page. I've used it twice, once, a couple of years ago, and I pulled it out of my arsenal and used it again just last week. Peanut butter and and I just left it blank. The interesting part. Now you say, Well, what does that have to do with my business? It has nothing to do with my business, right? But I had, like, 400 comments, the the engagements and the conversations that were that were taking place around peanut butter and bananas or jelly or, um, just all kinds of things. One of the things I learned was, if you can use peanut butter, Teoh, make sure your dog takes their medicine works like a charm. So and I all over that but the engagement pieces what was amazing. So fill in the blanks. It can. It can be random. It could be just something to drive conversation. It could be something around your business. So they work. Caption. This also works. Asking a question. People love to talk, so give them an opportunity to talk to you. Ask them a question. I use this on Twitter all the time. I know we're talking Facebook, but it's the same concept when I respond to people I always asking opened into question, you know, how are you today? How is your Friday? How's things going? Whatever it ISS ask an open ended question so that you won that you expect a response from because now you have a conversation going. Makes sense, Okay. Sources of good content. You I mean, you know, we struggle with this piece. Uh, what we say. Think about what? You What would you say if somebody was standing right in front of you? I mean, we don't struggle with that, do we? When somebody standing right in front of me front of us, we know how does how to talk about our business, right? So don't stress over the fact that it's in an adamant there because there are lots of faces on the other side of those computer screens. So think about it like if you were just standing in front of somebody and you would say it to them personally, eso use you as a great source of great content, your blood poster newsletters, your videos, things you find funny inspiring. We were talking about this. Bring you into the mix, make it yourself. This is another great way like, um, there's a lot of resource is out there today. I'm going to talk about this when we talk about Pennst instagram today. Resource is that you can make your own photos using your IPhone or your smartphone. Eso may make up your own content. Ah, you can find great content on Facebook. Leveraging interest list Who's familiar with interest lists? They're basically a way to again cut the noise and build out list of ah, specific topics or like inspirational quotes or your clients. You can actually make a list of your clients or you're in your prospects on Facebook so that you can you don't have to go Teoh Every individual profile on Facebook to engage and connect with them. You can pull up one stream once you make your interest list of all your clients, and you can engage with them periodically or check in and see what's going on with them periodically. So the interest list are great tools. Um, you confined, you know, again, you could build out list for motivational quotes, humor, all kinds of things. The graph search. Um, I'm not going to go into this in a whole lot of detail because this is honestly a class in and of itself. But graph search is a neat little of its just the search functionality on Twitter. I'm sorry on Facebook, but you can search for a lot of content by hashtag even now that Facebook has hashtags. Um, it's keyword driven, and there's actually a little hashtag search feature on Facebook now. So if you type in hashtag and a key word, it will allow you to choose that and you can pull up conversations that are happening around that specific keyword. So a great way to find content. Um, on Twitter, you can find great content. We're gonna talk about this and the next module, um, keyword research huge on Twitter. We're gonna I'm gonna show you some live examples of how you can leverage Twitter and then the advanced search where you could just pop into conversations again, but again, lots of great ways to find content. Um, obviously, on the Internet, you can share your if you you can build. It'll a connection, um, list where you can if you have people that you think has great content so that you can share their content as well. There's lots of ways to find great content yourself being at the top of the list, though honestly, making sure that you are bringing your own content and building out, um, your value. I think that's really important. Okay, a word about copyright infringement, cause it's, you know, we're talking about sharing other people's content, and it's such a huge problem across the board. But it's not okay. Toe steal or borrow or whatever word you want to use still such a harsh word, but it means the same thing. Other people's content. You will get caught and, uh, purchase so purchased the rights to use. Like a lot of people don't realize that when you go to Google and you click on the images. Those images are not free. They're not yours. They belong in our copyrighted to someone else. So you can't just go to Google and pull up a photo and basically borrow it and put it on your blog's or whatever. You need to make sure that you've purchased the rights to the cunt, the graphics that you are using and or you are making your own, which I'm a big proponent of just making your own. That what you know you own the content and and or asked before using. A lot of people don't mind. They want you to share their content. They have no problems with you sharing their content. But again, if you're going to repost somebody's blawg, for example, it's a great blawg and you want to share it and you'd love to have it on your your site. Then just reach out to that person and ask and see if they mind. It's always better to ask. They may say no, but you know they may not, and then always quote the sources that you find wherever you find your content. It's really, really important content action items identify Ford. Eight different categories of content that you want to share with your Facebook community. You know, I showed you mine. You know where we have a variety of different types of content. Develop your own based on what you think your audience is interested in. Everybody's ideal clients are different in their ideal. Prospects are obviously different, but it goes back to don't just focus in on your product or your service. What is it that your ideal client cares about outside of your product or your service? Because chances are they're not going to buy from you out the gate. They're not. You know they may find you on Google, or they may find you, you know, in some other search engine, and you may have what they want. But everybody's Leary today of just buying from people, so they're probably not going to just land on you, and by there'll be a percentage. Probably that might. But again, you know you have to build out a content strategy plan so that you're sharing value with the people that you attract to you. Um, so it's important, and it may be totally different from mine. It may be very similar to my, um, but again, find out and develop what it iss and decide on a posting frequency for each category. Basically, just like I showed you. Mine is, you know, a little bit more than maybe some of you would want Teoh devote the time and energy to That's perfectly OK. Um, decide posting windows for each day of the week. I think that's important to, um, you know, to say, OK, am I gonna put port post Morning, Noon afternoon. And, you know, an evening post. Whatever it is, decide what those posting windows are going to be and then schedule on track your content, see what's working.