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Between blogs, social media, website updates, e-newsletters and printed content, there is no doubt that content management is hard and getting more difficult with every new medium that pops up. While large businesses have the luxury of a marketing team, many small businesses have a “team” of one person. Sound familiar? If so, know there is hope. It is possible for even the smallest of businesses to succeed at content marketing; you just need to get organized.
Content management tips for small businesses
1. Stop trying to “do it all”
Here is a well-kept content marketing secret: you don’t need to be on every single social media channel or invest in every marketing opportunity. If you take a serious look at your target audience, you will discover there is no need to be on every channel. For example, if your target audience is B2B, your focus may be on LinkedIn rather than Instagram. If you are targeting a younger audience or have a lot of visual elements to share, you may want to focus on Instagram or Vine. Spending time now to find out where you audience prefers to see your message will save you time and money in the long run. It’s better to be great at a few things than mediocre at them all.
2. Use a content calendar
Set aside an hour once a week or several hours once a month to create a content calendar for all your social media channels, your blog and any print pieces of content you may be responsible for. When it comes to your digital content, schedule those posts using a tool such as Buffer or Hootsuite. Planning ahead allows you to be consistent and to be sure you don’t miss important dates, call-outs or pieces of content. However, be sure to make time for real-time interaction as well; don’t rely so heavily on scheduled content that you forget the purposes of content marketing–to have conversations and provide benefits to your audiences.
3. Reuse content
No one expects you to reinvent the wheel with every marketing material you create, including your digital content. We’re not advocating that you reuse content word-for-word, but you can recycle the good stuff to create something new. For example, tweet quotes from your quarterly magazine or combine several popular blog posts to create detailed magazine article. You can also take a series of articles and make them into short videos posts or vice versa. Think about strategic ways to use what you’re doing online and translate it to your offline content; the same goes the other way. There are many things that can be transformed to digital content–from in-person events, service catalogs, magazines or printed newsletters.
4. Build partnerships, share content
The beauty of content marketing is that you’re providing information that is relevant to your audience–and they’re grateful for the information that you share that provides insight or additional information from other companies as well. Sharing, retweeting, tagging and making a point to generally call out other information and content that is published from businesses in your area or organizations that you support is an easy way to fill your monthly content, provide valid information to your audience and build partnerships with those around you. Sharing content demonstrates personality and shows others that it’s not all about you–that you do truly care about their wants and needs.
These are just 4 quick-and-easy tips for managing your small business content marketing. What other strategies have helped you build great content throughout the year?
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