Content Marketing is all the rage right now. If you spend any amount of time on CMO.com or AdAge or any other web marketing site, you will see titles such as “Why Content Marketing is King in 2015” or “Why You MUST Be Marketing Content”. We agree that content marketing is a critical piece of the advertising and marketing puzzle, but we also know that, for the small business owner or the medium sized business Director of Marketing, the pressure to produce volumes of content to please our clients can leave us in a serious state of overwhelm. So what are we to do? Here are three quick and simple tips to help you avoid the paralysis that is overwhelm.
1) Play to your strengths:
John is a good writer, but freezes in front of a camera. Jane hates writing, but comes alive in front of a camera. Both feel the need to produce content for their small business websites. This is easy: John needs to focus on blog writing, and Jane needs to make short info videos. Boom. Done. No brainer, right? One would think so, but we see all the time where the good writer feels pressure to produce videos, and the woman who is a natural in front of the camera feels pressure to produce good writing. If you’re feeling pressure to produce beyond your comfort level, chill out, take a deep breath, and tell yourself it is ok to do what you are good at. If you like writing, write! If you like making videos, then make videos!
2) Hang out where you are comfortable:
This is along the same lines as our first tip, but in regards to social media. “But I don’t like Facebook”. I hear this a lot. Can I share something with you? I don’t like Facebook either. I don’t like the pressure of saying the right thing or posting the perfect picture, lest I face the ridicule of my “friends”. Or, even worse, if I’m not cool enough, then they might completely ignore me. Sigh. It’s like high school all over again. Ok, so I don’t like Facebook, so what am I to do? Well, I’ve found that I like Twitter. I like tweeting. I like reading tweets. It works for me. So, methinks I should hang out on Twitter. Say it with me, “It is ok for me to hang out where I am comfortable.” Try different social media sites, and see what you like best, and
stick with it.
3) Leverage automation:
This is a fancy pants way of saying “be lazy.” This is how it works: If you are like me, and you like Twitter but don’t love Facebook, then use an app that will simultaneously post to Twitter and Facebook. Better yet, have it post to Twitter and Facebook and LinkedIn and Google+. That’s called getting it done. Automation also works with blogging. Whether you are in a custom site solution or in a WordPress platform, you can automate publishing to social
media. Write the blog or post the video (whichever you are most comfortable with, of course) and auto-publish to your various social media hangouts. Boom. Done. Awesome.
Hey, content marketing is here to stay, so we need to embrace it, but don’t get overwhelmed with it. Find your strengths, do what you are good at, and use the power of automation to share it with your adoring customers.
