Content Marketing 101
Our 5-part process to create great content for social media & more!
Content marketing is a huge part of our overall marketing strategy here at Media Shop Collective. It’s an effective way to build brand awareness and positioning, as well as to build trust with potential customers.
What is content marketing?
Content marketing is the creation and distribution of valuable content geared towards the needs of a defined audience. The goal of content marketing is to educate, attract and ultimately convert potential customers. Content can be distributed through a variety of outlets, from blog posts to videos, to social media posts.
Although most businesses know that they should be producing some form of content, it can be overwhelming trying to figure out what to create and share. Without a solid strategy, you could end up wasting a lot of time creating content that isn’t resonating with the right audience or that isn’t converting into sales.
Our strategy
When it comes to content marketing, we always start with strategy first. It’s important to fully understand a business’s goals, as well as the problem they solve and for who, in order to create an effective content marketing strategy. From there, we start to dig into specifics such as, what platforms to distribute content, what type of posts would be most effective and when/how often should a business be posting.
Part 1: Prep Work
Before diving into content creation, answer the following questions:
What are your main business goals?
Who are your ideal clients/customers and what actions do they need to take for you to reach your goals?
How can you create an ideal environment that will encourage your ideal client to take that action?
What content type of content will help to develop that ideal environment?
Where can you reach your ideal clients/customers?
Part 2: Platforms
Next, use the information you’ve gathered to determine which platforms you want to distribute content to and how often. We recommend a maximum of 4 platforms with 4-5 posts per week.
Platforms include:
Blog
Instagram & Instagram Stories
Facebook
Twitter
Linked In
Pinterest
YouTube
Part 3: Yearly Content
Roughly map out your business goals for the year. Use this to help you determine any content that needs to correspond to specific dates.
For example:
Your busiest seasons/dates
Holidays and events
Special promotions
Anything that you offer that is date sensitive
Part 4: Monthly Calendar
Use the monthly calendar to start plotting out your content ideas. Create a list of ideas and what platform it will be posted to.
Some tips:
Pay attention to any holidays so that you can plan around those.
Jot down the type of content you want to create (social media, blog post, video, etc.)
Refer back to your goals and research from Part 1.
Come up with themes or regular post ideas that you can use again and again.
We suggest planning out your monthly calendars three months ahead so that you can revisit your goals each quarter.
Part 5: Weekly Calendar
Here’s where you can get really specific. Use the weekly planner to plan your content with more detail, such as:
Images you need to take or gather
Who will write/create the content
Is there any research that needs to be done
Are there any resources you need to gather or link to
When will you create the content
When will you schedule/post the content
We suggest planning out your content at this level 3-4 weeks in advance.
If you follow this process, you’ll not only end up with a strategic content marketing plan, but you’ll be prepared and ready to implement your plan too.
We’ve put together a Content Marketing Guide PDF that you can print and use to work through this process for your own business! We’ve even included some bonus tips in the guide!
Creating a strategy marketing plan does take some time and energy, but the investment is completely worth it!
If you feel like this strategy would be ideal for your business, but you’re not ready to implement it yourself, we can help! Contact us to schedule a consultation!