3 Actionable Content Marketing Secrets

This is Episode 19! Join Visceral Concepts Founder Michael McNew as he clues you in on the 3 biggest secrets to content marketing.

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Content marketing is a big deal.

You’ve been hearing about it for years now.

It’s what every company is striving to be successful at it.

Content marketing is about building a digital presence and developing your or your company’s brand online.

However, you might not be sure how to make it happen.

After all, most of the information online is vague and unhelpful.

That’s why I’m going to give you some real secrets that will help you build your content marketing expertise.

First, I’m going to cover the basics of content marketing.

From there, I’ll give you 3 specific, actionable strategies to achieve 3 major aspects of content marketing.

I hope you’re ready to learn because this stuff is going to change your business.

Content Marketing Is Foundationally About Engagement.

I want to start on the basic premise of content marketing.

It’s common for companies to want to focus their marketing on sales.

However, you need to remember that marketing and sales are not the same things.

Marketing is about making the public aware of your brand. Sales is the one-on-one art of closing a deal. You cannot interchange the two. Click To Tweet

However, so many companies try to.

Then they cut their marketing budget because they think it’s not working.

You can’t go into content marketing expecting sales to start happening as an immediate result.

With marketing, sales don’t come immediately.

There is a whole lot to marketing before you get to the sale.

1. Make the public aware of your brand.
   1. Marketing has always started with a message to the public.
   2. First, it identifies the need your product solves.
   3. Then it moves to a product introduction.
   4. Finally, it describes what it’s like when the product solves the problem.
2. Communicate through each stage of the pre-buying process.
   1. Problem recognition
   2. Research
   3. Evaluation
   4. Decision
3. Create a connection to your brand.
   1. Build trust
   2. Keep communication open
   3. Establish credibility

If you’ve done your marketing correctly through these ideas, you can then hand-off a lead to the sales team.

This is what marketing has done for years.

The difference in content marketing is that we’re no longer doing it on a generic, mass-scale effort. Click To Tweet

Every piece of content is designed to speak directly to the ideal customer, feeling as if it was written just for them.

As a part of a complete inbound marketing effort, components within the content truly are customized to the individual viewer, using automation techniques to alternate images and calls-to-action to fit the specific lead.

Content has become more personal.

That’s left marketers in an interesting situation.

Because content does a better job at speaking to the ideal customer, the customers are looking for our content themselves.

No more intrusions into their evening television.

Now, when they come to find us, they’re more open to hearing what we have to say.

We now have a real opportunity to earn their trust and their business.

These Three Secret Strategies Will Help You Maximize Your Content Marketing

That’s what we’re doing today.

I want to help you make your content marketing go further.

So, let’s start by being clear about this information.

I’m not going to teach you how to make content.

If you need that, you’re going to want to check out some of our past content.

Here, I’m going to assume you already know the content basics.

• You can write long-form blog content.
• You make original social media content.
• You’ve dabbled in video and podcasting.
• You’ve established the content channels that work well for your business.
• You’ve developed a content schedule.
• You’ve planned out your content for the next few months or longer

With those foundations established, you should be ready to expand your content’s effectiveness.

This information is going to pick up where the basics leave off.

They’re the next steps in expanding your efforts to capture as much attention as possible.

These secrets are used by some of the biggest influencers in content marketing.

I’ve personally tested all of them to be sure they work, and they do.

The best part is that your industry doesn’t matter.

These strategies are designed to be equally effective no matter your particular business, expertise, or audience. Click To Tweet

The specifics in them are designed to be flexible and adjustable based on your content and marketing experience and feedback.

They’re specific enough to act on but open-ended enough to target any industry.

Yeah, I know. That sounds like magic bullet mumbo jumbo.

I promise it isn’t. There is a catch.

They require work on your part.

Not just in implementing the strategies, but also in finding out how to fill in the gaps for your industry.

But, really, when you think about it, that’s not a huge trade.

I mean, you’ll be getting more efficient content creation, better content engagement, and find out exactly what your audience wants.

Think it’s worth it?

How To Get More Content For Your Effort

I want to start with what’s probably the most valuable piece of advice.

It’s not valuable because it will bring you more traffic or leads.

The value comes from how much time it will save you.

After all, most small business owners have more than just marketing to worry about.

On average, a great, optimized piece of content takes between 3 and 6 hours to create.

That effort is normally only going to get you one new opportunity to capture and convert leads.

Unless that content gets massive traffic, it’s not worth it by itself.

But if it got you 10 or more new opportunities, that would be a different story, wouldn’t it?

You see, that’s the real gold to this strategy.

In most cases, it can bring you way more than 10 new opportunities. In some cases, it can bring you over 100. Click To Tweet

It starts with one of the long-form blog posts you should already know how to create.

Think about it.

If you’re writing over 3,000 words of content.

There’s a ton of knowledge there.

Most of it can stand on its own, despite having a larger effect when put in the context of the information surrounding it.

It’s these content nuggets that are going to provide you with additional opportunities.

You’re going to break them down to appropriate content for your distribution channels.

But what does that mean?

It means that these little bits of content are going to filter into other formats to fill up your social media, podcast, vlog, and other areas.

Let me explain it fully on a per-channel basis.

Facebook

Everyone’s favorite social network is the single most important content channel you can have, besides your own website.

It boasts more users than any other social network out there.

Seriously. Over 2 billion users.

If you don’t have a business Facebook page, you’re missing a huge section of the internet.

Even if all you do is link your other stuff through there, you’ll get results that make the minimal effort worth it.

The great part about Facebook is that any type of content works.

• You can share videos up to 60 minutes in length.
• Images get great attention, especially the 360-degree
• Instant articles boost your blog content.
• Shared links are beautifully presented to catch attention.
• Live content can give you instant connection and feedback.

Really, Facebook is the Swiss Army knife of social media.

It has all the tools for great distribution, as well as the capacity for all the media types.

That gives you a ton of flexibility in your content creation.

However, there are 3 types of content you absolutely must do to make your Facebook page successful.

Text, images, and video.

Don’t be tempted to share links and move on.

As I can attest, that method doesn’t work.

You need your 3 staples of Facebook content. Click To Tweet

Let’s begin with text posts, which are super flexible on Facebook.

Facebook allows an incredibly high character limit. 63,206 characters, to be exact.

In case you can’t visualize that, that’s the same length as the scripts for the last 3 episodes of Friends.

Seriously.

With that kind of flexibility, you could probably write your entire long-form blog post as a status update, though I don’t recommend it.

However, you could use the text space to break down a summary of one of the content nuggets you pull from the post.

You could also use it to ask questions of your audience related to the topic your last post was about.

Quick musings about your latest post, either as you produce it or in retrospect, are engaging as well.

Regardless of what you choose to write, leave it open-ended.

Make it easy to engage with.

For images, Facebook users prefer funny or “amazing” images.

You know, the kind of stuff that stops them in their tracks.

Memes are a great way to use humor in your feed.

They generally see shares on Facebook, too.

The hard part, sometimes, is finding the right balance of humor and relevance.

But know that there are always memes for your topic.

Even if you have a small niche.

(In fact, memes are also a good indicator of whether your niche has an audience.)

There are also tons of options to make your own memes.

The obvious choice for the technically challenged is ImgFlip’s meme generator.

Or, for the more artistic or adventurous, try out Canva or Photoshop.

I really suggest you avoid making your own memes if your sense of humor is like mine.

I’m not the greatest joke teller.

I get a laugh from my jokes about half the time at best.

I stick with what’s available. It’s safer for me.

Then there’s the type of image you’d call “amazing”.

There are tons of things that can fall under this header.

• Breathtaking views
• Luxury objects
• Attractive models
• Action-packed feats
• The rare and unusual

Just about anything that, for a moment, takes people away from their reality.

Like memes, make sure the image is directly related to the content you’re sharing.

In fact, that’s true no matter what image type you use.

Videos are the third thing you must be doing on Facebook. Click To Tweet

There are 3.8 billion daily video views on Facebook, plus tons of evidence that video is growing on the platform.

You can bet that Facebook will be making even bigger bids on video in the near future, especially considering their recently debuted Watch streaming service.

With up to an hour available per video, there is so much you can do with the medium on Facebook.

One of the best things you can do is to cut a 2-3 minute section from a vlog.

Include a valuable piece of information in it.

You can then link to the full video in the description.

This works especially well with an informational vlog, but some people use it effectively by taking a defining moment from a documenting video.

Facebook live is another source of great video content for Facebook.

Hold a live discussion about the topic of the blog you’re about to share.

Then drop the link to the content towards the end of the broadcast.

Just make sure you’ve mastered Facebook live before you start your first broadcast.

Don’t limit yourself to one content format per content nugget.

You can create each of these formats for every nugget you pull, giving you tremendous amounts of microcontent for each long-form post you create.

Instagram

The social network made famous by artistic pictures of food and fitness celebrities.

It’s also a great place for businesses with a fashion or pop-culture focus.

However, if that’s not you, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be there.

Instagram is hugely popular with the 18-35 age group.

If that’s your target, you need to find a way to make it work for you.

Visually stimulating content works best here, so that’s the kind of content you’re going to create.

Pull information from your long-form blogs and feed it into images as captions. Click To Tweet

You can take an example from our Instagram page.

Captioned posts that include helpful information tend to work really well in all industries.

Here’s the process.

1. Grab a quotable from your long-form blog.
   This can be a statement you made, a headline or subheader, or a brief section of content.
2. Find a picture that fits the content.
   You can use free stock photo sites like Pixabay or Rawpixel [that’s an affiliate link], but we recommend something original.
3. Rewrite the content snippet so it fits the picture.
   Sometimes a rewrite isn’t necessary, but you’re looking to both freshen the idea and fit the space you’re using.
4. Add your branding to the image.
   Usually, a well-placed logo either off to a corner or right below the text work best.
5. Create your Instagram description.
   This doesn’t have to be complicated. Just briefly elaborate on what the text in the image says.
6. Include a call-to-action.
   Ask your audience to like, comment, tag someone, or follow based on what makes the most sense.
7. Find related hashtags.
   There need to be 30 hashtags that relate to your content. Use Display Purposes or Leetags to get help finding relevant tags.

That’s the whole process.

When you start with the content you’ve already created, it’s really simple.

But you might have noticed by now that Instagram is great for video, too.

Don’t worry, we’re about to get to that.

If you have a great podcast or video content, you can do exactly the same thing.

However, you don’t need to be quite creative.

Instead of rewriting the content like you did for an image, you’re going to trim it.

Now, if you’re making podcasts or videos, you probably know what that is.

For those of you who haven’t started with either format yet, it’s simply the act of selecting a snip of content out of the overall podcast or video.

Instagram has a 1-minute cap on videos, so try to pick out something that will catch interest in that timeframe.

It’s ok if it doesn’t get to the end of the point.

In fact, that can work to your advantage, giving people a reason to click the link back to the content.

For podcasts, you’re going to need to find visuals that work.

I’ve tried using a static image, and I’ve tried using video clips that fit (specifically of me recording the podcast).

Both work well.

You can also use waveform visualization.

If you’re familiar with Adobe After Effects, those visualizations can be created within it.

If you’re not, you can check out Wavve.co (If you do, send me your feedback as I haven’t tried it yet).

Those 30-second to 1-minute videos are going to get the same treatment an image will.

Create your description that elaborates, choose a call-to-action, and select your hashtags.

Something that’s important to note about the hashtags is placement.

If you don’t have at least 3 lines of description, include a few line breaks before your tags.

Symbols like the plus, minus, asterisk, or period work great.

Just remember that Instagram doesn’t like blank line breaks and will collapse them.

(That’s a line break with no text.)

This is going to hide the hashtags below the comment preview.

It stops you from looking like a spammer and lets people see that you have content to read.

Depending on the length and quality of your original content and how often you post to Instagram, this strategy can provide you 10-30 days of posts.

Twitter

280 characters isn’t a lot of space to make your microcontent happen.

However, it’s twice as much as the previous 140-character limit.

This is a great spot to do 2 things differently with your content than any other platform.

One of the neat things about social sharing is that it works really well for Twitter users.

In fact, visitors from Twitter are 314% more likely to interact with your blog.

Visitors from Twitter are 314% more likely to interact with your blog. Click To Tweet

That translates to comments, shares, and potential backlinks.

Those interactions are inevitably going to lead to more traffic.

That’s a huge benefit.

But you have to consider how to get those Twitter users to visit your blog post.

That’s where tactic number 1 comes in.

Vague, provocative tweets get attention.

You may have 280 characters, but if you can keep your Tweet under 100 characters, including the shortened link, you’ll see 21% more engagement.

A great way to do this is to rewrite your article title in 10 words or less.

But increase the ambiguity at the same time.

That kind of tweet is going to captivate your potential audience.

Try not to overdo the hashtags. Click To Tweet

You can tweet your article in this way more than once.

Just don’t do it too many times per week.

The other tactic that’s unique to Twitter involves less work from you.

When you’re writing that long-form content, make some of your pull-quotes tweetable.

That means you include a button that says “Click to tweet” with that quote.

There are a few technicalities to it, but most blogging platforms have software to make that easier.

Now, you’re going to give those Twitter users that are likely to engage an easier way to tweet out your blog content.

They hit that button, and you gain UGC.

Depending on your traffic from Twitter, that could be hundreds of opportunities per month.

Plus, because it’s back out to Twitter, that’s going to improve your odds of another one going out.

SlideShare

You know how to make a PowerPoint presentation, right?

SlideShare is the internet’s version of your projector or big screen.

People share “decks” full of great content for others to quickly learn from.

You can share your own.

The process is literally as simple as making a PowerPoint presentation, which is why I mentioned it.

Crack open that long-form content and turn it into a slideshow.

There are some key principles to a great slide deck you need to know.

1. Keep it simple. Stick with one idea per slide.
2. Keep the number of words on a slide to a minimum.
3. Use visuals that add to the presentation. Don’t add distractions.
4. Like anything else, include a call-to-action at the end of your slide.

SlideShare offers only a single additional opportunity for the same content.

However, with over 80 million users, that single opportunity is a big one for B2B marketers.

To expand on that, decks get shared on LinkedIn often, giving you even greater B2B exposure.

LinkedIn

Speaking of LinkedIn, you’re creating your professional brand there, right?

LinkedIn is the place every professional needs to be.

However, unlike other social networks, LinkedIn isn’t about your company.

You need to focus on building your personal credibility.

Your content is a great way to do that.

The best kind of content you can create there is through their article platform.

LinkedIn articles work the same as a blog. Click To Tweet

To publish a LinkedIn article, click the “Write an article” button under your status update.

You have more than enough space to write a complete article here, with a maximum limit of 110,000 characters.

Depending on the length of your pillar content, you can get 3-5 LinkedIn articles by rewriting your sections.

A recent article I wrote can provide up to 9 LinkedIn articles.

Expanding on the individual sections of your long-form post allows you to share great content without having to get overly creative.

You also don’t need to remember the super-long-form rule that you should be following on your own blog.

LinkedIn’s SEO doesn’t help you get traffic to your site the same way.

Expanding those sections to around 1,000 words each, along with great imagery and a link back to your original content, will boost your credibility and traffic.

To further increase the amount of content you can create for LinkedIn, convert your content to an infographic.

Infographics make your content easy to digest.

They have a great impact on your social shares.

Also, remember those SlideShare decks?

Share those on LinkedIn too.

That’s an easy way to get another 5-10 pieces of content shared on social media.

What To Do To Maximize Content Engagement

You’ve created a fantastic piece of content and all the microcontent to go with it.

But all of that would be a total waste if nobody interacted with it.

Lack of interaction basically means that nobody was paying enough attention for it to matter. Click To Tweet

To be fair, that’s going to happen quite a lot in the early days of your content.

Until you’ve built up enough of a successful following that’s looking for content like yours, it’s going to be pretty quiet.

But if there’s no interaction, you’re also not building an audience.

It’s a bit of a self-feeding cycle.

That means you have to take action to get the engagement you need.

Depending on the platform you’re trying to get engagement on, there are many different ways to do that.

Let me go over each platform on a general scope.

Basically, I’m going to lump together the platforms that have similar methods just to make things a little simpler.

The best way to improve engagement is to improve exposure.

These ideas are going to help you do that.

Group Platforms

Facebook and LinkedIn are great places to join a group.

Groups are a sort-of forum where people with like-interests share their content.

They can be related to:

• Hobbies
• Neighborhoods
• Careers
• Mutual benefits
• Entertainment tastes
• Food

There can be a group for just about anything you can think of.

There are probably more varieties on Facebook than on LinkedIn, as the latter is more career-focused.

But the variety still exists.

Your newly created microcontent needs to find its way into these groups.

The level of exposure available from these platforms is incredible.

To start, find a group that might be interested in the topics your content covers.

As you create your content and microcontent, share some of it with these groups.

Bonus points if you create microcontent specifically for the group.

Because the members all share an interest that your content is related to, they’re more likely to look.

That exposure increases your odds of interaction.

If your content is exceptional, they’ll share it, comment on it, and maybe even become a lead.

But there are some rules for making a group work.

1. Never overshare.
   Sharing your content more often won’t increase engagement.
   It will increase disengagement due to overload.
2. Try not to duplicate your share.
   If you share the same thing with 50 groups at once, people will notice.
   Try to give each group something different in a way that’s tailored to them.
3. Follow the group’s posting rules.
   Many groups don’t like businesses getting in to advertise.
   Be careful how you share things.
   Try to come across as being helpful instead of salesy.

Successfully mastering social media groups will place your content in front of a whole new audience and opportunity.

Answering Questions

If you haven’t been blogging for long, it’s likely you’re not seeing a lot of traffic from the SERPs.

You probably don’t have enough indexed to begin ranking on Google.

That’s ok. You’re going to bring traffic to your latest post yourself.

It’s time to reach out to your local communities.

See, there are people out there who want to know the things you share in your content. Click To Tweet

You have the answers to the questions they want to ask.

That’s where sites like Alignable and Quora step in.

These are sites that put a focus on the community answers to pressing questions.

Quora embodies all the questions and topics on the internet.

The up-side is that you aren’t limited to a specific topic.

The downside is that anyone with an account can answer, so the information might not always be great.

Your goal is to provide great answers.

How do you do that, though?

From the perspective of gathering engagement for your content, you’re going to start with your content topic.

Search Quora for the main topic your content discusses.

If I were promoting last week’s vlog, I’d search “website lead generation”.

Tons of questions will show up.

Find one you’re comfortable with and answer it.

But make sure you go into detail as you do.

The more information you can provide in your answer, the better. Click To Tweet

At the end of your answer, provide a link to your related content, explaining there is more information on the topic.

Make sure your answers aren’t generic or spammy.

You need to provide relevant, helpful information if you want people to pay attention.

If you are lazy about it or provide sub-par information, people will ignore your backlink.

That’s not going to help at all.

Treat Alignable the same way.

It’s a much more focused audience, though.

Their question forum is designed for business owners to answer questions about the business.

It’s a great place for B2B marketing to take place.

Great answers to questions are sure to get shared.

They’ll also prove some credibility.

That’s going to encourage the people who found your answer helpful to visit your site.

By tapping into audiences who may otherwise never notice you, you’ll boost engagement.

Hashtag Networks

If you’re not sure what a hashtag is, it’s time to modernize.

They used to be known as a pound symbol.

They’re Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr’s primary way of notating search terms.

In recent years, users have gotten more clever with the hashtags they use.

That leaves you with a decent opportunity to inject your content into a conversation.

When you notice a trending hashtag, release your content into that stream.

Twitter posts are the best. Click To Tweet

You don’t even have to use the hashtag to get in on the conversation.

Keep an eye on topics related to your blog, vlog, or podcast.

When you notice one is trending, reply to some of the conversations.

When and if it’s appropriate, link back to your content directly.

The people paying attention to the thread will take notice.

However, if it looks like you’re trying to sell, they’ll ignore you.

Focus on sharing content that adds to the conversation.

Use it to expand your comments beyond Twitter’s character limit.

If you’ve been involved in the conversation at an effective level, people will inevitably visit to read what you had to say.

Tumblr is similar in nature.

Conversations happen around hashtags.

Your ability to inject your content into those conversations will determine how much success you have there.

Instagram, on the other hand, is going to require a slightly different approach.

However, the same approach can work on Twitter and Tumblr.

Get your content into the hashtag’s results.

That simple.

When you have content relevant to a trending hashtag, use the hashtag in conjunction with the content. Click To Tweet

Instagram is going to require any links to be in your profile, but that’s still going to work.

As people explore this trending tag to see what the conversation is all about (before they jump in), they’ll see your content.

As long as you’re producing quality, they’ll stop to take a look.

Remember, the key to early engagement is increasing exposure.

Yes, you should be asking your audience to engage somehow, but you need to have an audience for that to work.

The Best Ways To Get Feedback From Your Audience

All this content and engagement are sure to help boost the number of leads you get.

It’s inevitable that, if you have the right lead capture tools in place and you aren’t making huge mistakes, you’ll grow the number of leads you get.

But what if your content isn’t as effective as it could be?

I mean, how would you even know?

It’s not like people are out there volunteering to tell you exactly how to market to them.

However, if you ask for their input, they’ll likely give it.

People love to share their opinion, after all. Click To Tweet

It’s important that you make the effort to get feedback, too.

You’d otherwise never know if you could be providing more value.

So how do you go about getting feedback on your content?

Ask For It On Social

The first place you should be looking for feedback is on social media – provided you have an active audience.

Thankfully, if you do have an active audience, it’s a really simple thing to get.

Just ask for it.

The obvious use of a status update is a great way to find out what others think of your content.

It can be something really simple, like a pull-quote image from the article with the question, “What did you think of our most recent post? Link here. – >” in the image description.

You could post something a little more engaged, like the opinion of another reader, asking if they agree or disagree.

The important part is that you make the effort to reach out.

When you ask your social community, you get instant feedback, discovering exactly what your content may have been missing.

It’s also a great way to find out what people think about your product or service.

If you take your audience’s feedback seriously, implementing the changes that make sense, they’ll keep helping you get better.

Create A Survey

In some cases, people don’t love the idea of sharing their opinion publicly.

There are some who prefer anonymity.

Others just don’t want their opinions to see a public spotlight.

If you don’t offer a solution that’s a little more private, you’re going to miss out on feedback that’s especially valuable.

One way to do that is through a survey.

The great part about surveys is that they don’t have to attach a name to an opinion, and thoughts are shared privately. Click To Tweet

That means the shy members of your audience don’t have to be afraid.

There are tons of services out there that help you to survey your audience.

You’ve probably heard of SurveyMonkey, which is a popular service.

Their free version is a quick way to get started.

The plus sides of SurveyMonkey:

• They are a trusted name. People recognize them for surveys.
• Surveys can be as long as you like (if you pay for their service).
• Data can be filtered and exported for review.

The downsides:

• The survey is hosted on their site, which can break the customer experience.
• Survey data isn’t usually tied directly to a piece of content.

Another great option is getfeedback.

Getfeedback offers a service built on a simple rating system.

This allows you to collect data very quickly by asking a pointed question.

Focused on customer experience, it’s a great way to find out what your audience thinks about a particular interaction with your company.

Getfeedback pros include:

• Simple surveys.
• Directly embedded on your site.
• Directly related to the content or interaction you want feedback on.
• Full data tool suite.

The cons:

• Might offer too little information.
• No free version.
• Pricing can be difficult for companies who are just starting out.

There are tons of other survey options, too.

There are even some plugins for your favorite blog platforms.

Find what works for you and start finding out what your audience thinks of your content.

Check Out The Comments

Comments sections are golden for feedback.

Typically, your audience won’t volunteer to leave it there.

I’ve said that already.

However, they’ll give you another opportunity to ask for some.

It all depends on your level of interaction.

You can use this on social media, your blog, vlog, and podcast too.

Read through your comments. What are people saying?

Pay attention to

• Customer tone. How have they framed their comment within their thoughts and personality?
• Key issues. What sorts of things come up repeatedly?
• Comment sentiment. Did they pay you a compliment, file a complaint, or do something in-between?

The more you read the comment sections, the more you will understand what your audience thinks of your content.

When you receive something, it’s a great opportunity to jump into the conversation with the commenter.

For positive comments, respond directly with a question.

“That was an awesome article!”

“Glad you liked it! What was your favorite part?”

By taking the opportunity to engage your audience when they praise you, you can develop loyalty and community.

You also get a good look at what’s working.

When there is a negative comment, you have an opportunity to get a great lesson. Click To Tweet

We learn more from failures than from successes.

Find out exactly what didn’t meet their expectations.

In some cases, send a direct message or email so they feel safer.

Always approach negativity with empathy.

Hostility will kill your chances of learning anything.

Empathy not only helps you learn but gives you a better shot at earning that individual’s trust and loyalty.

It’s important you learn how to deal with blog comments, too.

You can’t go into the comments section blind.

The key is to be proactive.

Take advantage of the opportunities your audience gives you to get better.

Check With Your Most Loyal Fans

If you want unabashed feedback, these are the folks you need to talk to.

Your hardcore fans have gained the most from your content so far, and they have the most to gain if it improves.

They also have a good idea of what you’re trying to do with your content.

Being that they probably fit into one of your buyer personas, they know exactly what your target market wants to know about your industry.

The feedback they’re going to give will usually be detailed, complete, and incredibly helpful.

They’re the masters of helping you build your customer experience. Click To Tweet

These conversations are definitely best held in private.

Emails and direct messages are the best way to handle it.

This is going to allow them to get specific.

It also makes sure they know you’re not looking for free publicity.

If you want to up the ante, reward them with discounts, special offers, or even free stuff.

Filter The Feedback

It’s important to realize that not all feedback needs to create a change.

Sometimes it’s a single suggestion that doesn’t make a ton of sense.

As you receive feedback, try to identify key trends that demonstrate where real changes need to be made.

Don’t just make the changes on a whim.

Take Your Content Marketing To The Next Level

Like I said earlier, this advice is going to take a lot of work.

But look at everything you can gain from it.

These content marketing strategies can be applied as soon as you have the basics in place.

They’ll boost your content and help you get more out of it.