Content Marketing’s Magic Beans: 4 Sharing Tips
Share To Create Authority
The tectonic shifts created by our evolving social web of expanding connection means rethinking “Internet marketing”. Today’s web requires an ever expanding tribe of brand advocates, supporters and contributors. Gaining advocates means touching HEARTS and winning Minds.
Today’s Curatti post is about the Content Marketing’s Magic Beans: 4 Sharing Tips. Creating online authority is counter-intuitive. Best way to create authority is GIVE your expertise away and curate what happens next. Here are 4 tips to help you share your way to Internet marketing success.
Share Tip #1:
Give Expertise Away
Don’t read that headline as you must give away 100% of everything all the time. There is a growing backlash to Gary Vaynerchuk’s Thank You Economy. Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) can have a hard time understanding Internet marketing. Online attribution, knowing what generates Return On Investment (ROI), is a bear. Giving away something of real VALUE while trusting in “Karma of the Share” requires BELIEF and COURAGE.
No ante in the game means no significant shares (by you). No shares means no one shares your content. No shares of your content means Google and other gatekeepers don’t view your website as an authority. No authority means no traffic. No traffic means no views and no views means no money.
Art of the Share Tip #1 isn’t debatable. [pullquote]Art of the Share Tip #1 isn’t debatable.[/pullquote] If your website doesn’t share something so valuable others want to share then your website won’t survive.
How can you know what content to give away? Content to be shared varies from ecommerce merchants adding reviews to a B2B website offering a free white paper in exchange for customer contacts. Impossible to say WHAT content you should share. We don’t know your business, but the rule is easy to understand – you must share something so valuable followers will share it.
Share Tip #2:
Following Is Currency SPEND IT
Many Huffington Post writers work for “free”. They work for the link back to their websites. I write for Curatti and Technorati for links and to “give back”. I write posts for the “payment” of the inbound link and because I LOVE to share (and share a tad obsessively FOMs Friends of Martin’s often warn :).
I wrote several “mega-viral” Technorati posts, posts with a potential audience of hundreds of thousands thanks to social shares and Technorati’s scale. Technorati didn’t “follow” enough to earn continued contributions. Technorati was stingy with support.
Following is strange currency – the more you share and follow the more you can share and follow. [pullquote]Following is strange currency – the more you share and follow the more you can share and follow.[/pullquote]
If this sounds like the Beatles you get the love you make you aren’t far off. Online you gain the authority and reputation you create, and sharing creates authority and reputation. Online sharing has an understood if unstated process:
- Share your passion.
- When people follow your passion follow back.
- Curate content from the “commons” you + your growing tribe create.
- Rinse and repeat.
Share Tip #3:
Presence Makes You REAL
You can’t phone sharing in. You can’t share with a bot (an Internet robot). You can’t ask the least experienced person on your team to manage your company’s or brand’s sharing. Sharing is a CSF (Critical Success Factor) that takes many forms:
- Share expertise via content marketing (web pages, white papers, videos).
- Follow Industry Experts.
- Incorporate and curating content from industry experts.
- Follow people who love and follow you.
- Curate content from people who love you into your content.
- Encourage User Generated Content (UGC).
- Say THANKS when someone does something helpful or nice.
- Say THANKS when someone SCREAMS.
- Do Online Reputation Management, know when conversations happen.
- Don’t take online “self” so seriously you can’t laugh & have fun.
That last bullet is a Critical Success Factor. You can’t create great content or social media marketing without a sense of humor. If you pick fights or look for controversy online it finds you, but creating LOVE is difficult. Better to be open, honest and present. Present means you respond to @yourtwittter posts, favorite things you like and find ways to support followers and those whose contributions you admire (even if they are competitors).
Content Marketing & Social media is a CONVERSATION. [pullquote]Content Marketing & Social media is a CONVERSATION.[/pullquote]
Welcome to the new world where conversations matter and you, your brand and company are having conversations whether you know it or not. Own the conversation to own the traffic. Best way to “own the conversation” is have fun. Fun is contagious in life and online.
PS. Why would you THANK someone for screaming at you online? Don’t mistake saying thanks as an admission of guilt. I wrote a 2 part series for Paper.li about creating SAFE Social Media Marketing. Both posts include tips for turning social media screamers into loyal customers.
Share Tip #4:
Trust In Karma of the Share
Perhaps the hardest thing Internet marketers do is earn TRUST. Internet marketers need trust from an expanding army of supporters. Trust is HARD. Trust is only as good as how vulnerable you are willing to be, how honest you are over time and how willing you are to face, share and improve limitations.
No one is perfect.
Why do we think we must be perfect all the time? Biggest concern about social media by those who aren’t involved is people saying bad things. Wouldn’t you prefer people say bad things to you instead of about you? When someone shares TOUGH FEEDBACK on your site you can respond with gratitude (for the share) and specific steps taken to resolve their PAIN.
The “new SEO” requires an army of people who:
- Get to know you.
- Evaluate you against similar offerings.
- Decide your offering is superior.
- Try your offering paying with TIME and then MONEY.
- Advocate your offerings with TIME and REPUTATION.
- Share LOVE (of you, your products, brands and company) with friends and family.
[pullquote]The KARMA of the Share requires courage[/pullquote].
The KARMA of the Share requires courage. Share frequently and well and trust sharing will create a different and better YOU. The “better you” finds new ways to generate Return On Investment (ROI). Good luck and let us know how we can help as your sharing creates content marketing authority.
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