On Wednesday evening Steve Thorne and myself held an Online Marketing Workshop with Creative Bath at the Bath Artists’ Studios for around 25 business owners and creatives.
We covered off some off great points about online marketing – and kept bashing home the importance of good content which is well shared & encourages interaction.
For any of you who didn’t have a chance to attend – I wanted to blog a very quick ‘content recap’:
In the beginning there was content. Lots of it. Sprawling across the interweb. And so, some clever folks invented search engines! The sole purpose of search engines was to connect people, to content.
Fast forward a little and those clever folks have now spend decades tuning their search engines to deliver the very best and latest content to the people who need it – and this, is the cornerstone of online search marketing. Anybody trying to succeed when marketing on the web has to keep this in mind. Search engines WANT to connect people to content and as such you need to make sure you give them what they want.
Without re-doing the entire 2h workshop online, we can cut straight to the point (and you can either take my word on this or not) – The production of GOOD, HELPFUL, TIMELY, TRANSPARENT and REPUTABLE content which is SHARED openly with people (via Social, Emails, RSS etc) and that ENCOURAGES INTERACTION *will* provide your cause with visibility (you can top the search engines!) and will build trust amongst potential clients and peers.
The question that will really bug the majority of you, is HOW you create that content. Unfortunately, the answer is heavily based on your particular context. However, here are some general rules to help you:
- Blog to create content (personal and company)
- Keep your website, or any other resource you have online, up to date!
- Where possible, get your staff or even customers to create helpful content (reviews, tips, tricks, helpful FAQ’s)
- Share the content you’re creating on Twitter, Facebook, by RSS, by Email
Start with a blank word doc, and twite yourself a week by week plan of what content you have time to produce, how you’ll share it and what you can do to encourage others to contribute. Then the hardes bit… follow the plan!
Good luck 