For years, marketers, publishers, and writers have been bemoaning the density and saturation of the content sea.
In a world where everything has been content-focused for as long as we can remember, it’s understandable that many people believe we’ve reached a point of content saturation. Blogs, social media, articles, podcasts, videos – it’s all too much, right?
The naysayers out there believe that as the shorelines of the content sea rise, and marketers around the globe continue to pump out material at alarming rates, getting content noticed is impossible. And, we’d probably all be better off just giving up on content altogether.
Right?
Wrong.
Contrary to what so many people believe, a recent study is making waves in suggesting that the future of content marketing lies in more content, not less.
Read on to learn more.
The September BuzzSumo Content Marketing Volume Study: Major Findings
In response to people who claim that we’ve hit a saturation point and that the only direct content production can go is down, BuzzSumo recently conducted a major study this September that explores the present and future states of online content – and blows apart a big myth.
More content isn’t a bad thing; in fact, quantity of content could just be where the future is headed.
*Gasp!*
Here are a few of the study’s key findings:
High-volume content strategies produce real results.In the BuzzSumo study, Steve Rayson (the study’s author) found that several of the companies currently performing the best in the marketing industry could attribute a fair amount of their success to high-volume content strategies. HubSpot, for example, published 4,000 posts in the last year and received 2.8 million shares as a result, while Social Media Examiner has published 400 posts, which raked in more than 1.8 million social shares. The moral is this: when you have an audience that relies on you for quality content, you can drastically improve your leads and engagement by adopting a high-volume content strategy and publishing more content, more often.
Short-form content may be ideal for social shares.When Rayson evaluated the 50 most shared posts in the marketing and IT sector, he found something shocking: 45 of them were under 1,000 words. While long-form content is still the winner in value and information, it turns out that short-form may be ideal for encouraging social shares and going viral.
Video content may be more efficient than written content.By 2017, an estimated 54% of all web traffic will be dedicated to video. Because video is more cost-effective and efficient than textual content production, it stands to take over as the content method of choice for many marketers.
Why More Content is the Future of the Digital Marketing Industry
According to Buzzsumo’s study, The Washington Post publishes 1,200 posts each day.
Does that seem excessive?
For many people, the answer is “of course!”
When you look at the publication’s stats, though, it all begins to make sense. In the last year alone, the Post’s readership has grown 28%, and its traffic numbers even surpassed The New York Times for a few months at the end of last year.
While it’s fair to assume that this rate of success owes to several things, the foundation of it all is simple: more content.
Although the drastic rise in content publication and distribution might seem like the natural consequence of increased readership, it’s a tactical, long-term strategy put in place by The Post’s owner, Jeff Bezos.
By increasing the output of content, Bezos and his publication also enhance the value they can offer readers, and thus set themselves apart from other publications in the industry.
The Washington Post isn’t the only place standers-by can see such a drastic increase in content, either. For another example, consider Google’s bank of indexed pages. In 2010, the search engine had indexed just over 5 trillion pages. By 2016, however, that number had soared to 30 trillion.
Talk about a content increase!
The truth is that content is everywhere, and while many marketers believe we have to reach a point of critical mass eventually, the current trend is leaning toward more content rather than less.
Here’s why: as life becomes increasingly digital and consumers become increasingly value-focused, content is the answer to dozens of problems, ranging from relevance to the search for information.
As such, companies and organizations that produce the highest amount of quality content in the least amount of time are currently the ones positioned to win the race for attention.
Quality vs. Quantity: Can the Two Exist?
For years, the call in the world of content marketing has been, “quality first, then quantity!” Thanks to the current stampede of content, however, it’s become necessary for marketers to learn to do both at once.
In addition to turning out a lot of content, today’s marketers also need to turn out relevant and high-quality content. Without the latter component, the content that’s being produced isn’t worth anything, and has the potential to hurt a brand more than it helps it.
With this in mind, it’s clear that not only can quality and quantity exist together in the current climate of content marketing, but that they must.
5 Factors Contributing to the Increase in Content
While there are dozens of things contributing to the rising levels of content on the web, the following are some of the most prominent:
1. More global internet users are interested in content
As the reach of the web extends around the globe, people are becoming more and more interested in content.
From informative blogs to in-depth articles and funny social content, people are searching for content to fill a wide variety of needs and interests. Because of this, the concentration of content on the web must increase accordingly.
Currently, the boom in content is happening across virtually all distribution channels and platforms.
In addition to the fact that Google is indexing trillions of pages each year, peer-reviewed scientific journals are publishing upwards of 2.5 million new articles each year and social media is virtually exploding with new content.
What’s more, this trend shows no sign of slowing down anytime soon. As more internet users come online, the demand for diverse, relevant, quality content will only increase, and content teams and marketers will be forced to deliver to stay afloat.
2. Decreasing costs of content production and distribution
In the days when content was limited to newspapers, radio ads, and print publications, producing it was expensive, and content volume was constrained by necessity.
Today, however, there are dozens of free content creation and distribution platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, and with a few clicks of a mouse, anyone can build a website and become a publisher in his or her own right.
As the costs of and effort associated with content production have nosedived, people around the world have begun to turn to content creation with increased vigor. Today, it’s easier than it’s ever been before to produce content and share it online, and, as such, everyone’s doing it.
3. There’s a dramatic increase in content formats
Today, “content” refers to everything from a blog post to a video, and everything in between. This diversity has allowed people from all backgrounds and walks of life to migrate to content creation, even if they’re not interested in every facet of it.
Previously, someone who wasn’t a good writer might shy away from online content because it was limited to blogs and web articles. Today, however, that same person has the option to create and distribute videos, podcasts, visuals, and memes. The possibilities are virtually endless.
As a result, online content has begun to draw in people from all backgrounds and interest groups, and it’s made the web a much more interesting place as a result.
4. Fact: high volume content strategies perform better
Anyone doubting the value of high-volume content production need only look at the statistics for companies that blog more often than others.
According to HubSpot, companies that write 16 or more blogs each month earn 3.5x as much traffic as competitors who blog less often.
When you consider The Washington Post’s dramatic success, it becomes clear that producing more content is typically linked with more readership, and for good reason: more content provides more value, and more value appeals to readers.
5. More expert content specialists are now available
As the demand for content has grown, so, too, has the availability of people who specialize in the creation and distribution of content.
This has meant that even people who don’t know the first thing about content creation can work with people who do, which translates to better and easier content for everyone.
Today, social media managers, copywriters, and inbound marketers are everywhere, and it’s easy to partner with a content specialist who can help enhance and build any content strategy in preparation for the coming years of online marketing.
More is Better: How to Apply the “More Content” Approach to Your Business
So, it’s true: the future of content lies in more rather than less.
With that said, though, it’s still not a good idea to simply run out and start pumping out thousands of posts each day.
Instead, brands everywhere will need to continue focusing on building a community by way of relevant, high-quality content.
While it’s true that high-volume content strategies are necessary for engagement and ROI, content quality, promotion, and topic mining are still key, and the marketers who master these things are the ones who will succeed in the coming days of content marketing.
Do you need quality writers to help boost your content strategy? Contact Express Writers or visit our Content Shop today!
For large brands that publish a great deal of content to maintain a hefty enterprise content strategy, figuring out how to develop a consistent voice can be difficult.
It’s easy to think of how to direct content creation if you have a blog or two to write, but creating great content gets much harder as your blogs or articles start numbering over 100 each month if you’re doing enterprise level content productive.
Luckily, just because consistency may be difficult, that doesn’t mean it’s impossible.
Massive brands with lots of content can develop a consistent, productive content strategy that returns in huge ROI, fans, readers, and interactions.
Here’s a few that write a lot, and have a great presence:
The Huffington Post–back in 2013–was reported to be creating over 1,200 articles per day.
BuzzFeed published over 6,100 posts this April 2016.
Let’s explore how enterprise level brands can win at great online content production.
Why A Lot of Content Works For The Enterprise Content Brand
If you’re a major brand not creating a great deal of solid online content, you could be significantly missing out.
In 2013, Hubspot found out that 82% of marketers who blog daily won a new customer solely from their blog; as opposed to 57% of marketers who blog per month.
With an average of 54% more leads generated by inbound rather than outbound, and $20,000 saved per year by investing in content marketing instead of outbound, there’s big reasons why brands should favor investing big-time in content creation rather than other marketing methods today.
And Here’s Why Quality Still Matters More Than Quantity
While modern brands understand that posting often is critical to online visibility and success in the search engines, it’s imperative to keep in mind that quality is still more important than quantity.
All too often, the big brands of today get in a hurry to pump out content, and then they get sloppy.
While it’s happened to virtually every company at some point or another, it’s bad form that can ultimately harm the company’s reputation and even cost an enormous amount of money.
While it’s all well and good to pump out a lot of content, the content you publish is only worth as much as its quality, and little things like proofreading and hiring an editor truly make all the difference.
Because of this, enterprise brands that want to excel in the world of online marketing and advertising must take a pointer from their smaller counterparts: quality over quantity.
Rule of thumb, even for the massive brands: you can’t afford to publish sloppy content. A big body of bad content never helped anyone, and a small collection of great content is worth its weight in gold.
5 Tips for Developing a Consistent Enterprise Content Strategy
As the process of living life and running a business gets crazier, creating a consistent content strategy can get even harder.
Luckily, there are several tools enterprise-level companies can use to streamline their content creation and help things run more smoothly from the get-go.
1. Develop an editorial calendar & rely on a content crew to organize efforts
Editorial calendars are some of the most valuable and under-appreciated tools in all of online marketing.
Designed to help companies organize their content efforts and plan content well in advance, editorial calendars are a great way for a company to see, at a glance, what it has going on with various distribution platforms at any given point.
What’s more, a well-planned editorial calendar can also take a significant amount of the daily planning out of a good content strategy.
Good tools for editorial calendar management:
Google Docs (don’t underestimate the power of a live, shared Google doc – it’s what I use to keep our consistent content scheduled and topics created)
Scheduling & management from CoSchedule can help big content brands efficiently plan, develop, and post their content
Here’s an example of what the Minnesota Business Magazine’s editorial calendar looks like. I love how cleanly everything is divided into months, with a focus, industry watch topics, and it even includes events to cover for the month:
Hand-in-hand with a great tool is a great content crew.
Let’s face it: you can’t create massive amounts of content without massive amounts of content writers!
At our company, we’ve written as many as 300 pages all in a week – if you can count press releases, social media posts, a bio or two, blogs for dozens of companies, web pages, a resume… as “pages.” We write a lot of content that’s consistently varied–and we’ve built a massive, proven team over the past five years who handle every single project with creative care. Our team is relied on by many brands who need a variety of content amounts. If you’re looking for a content backup crew, ours is the one–we’ll prove it! See more about us.
In the long-term, having a great process and a solid crew to rely on helps nail down a consistent, predictable content schedule upon which readers can rely.
2. Conduct relevant keyword research for your brand
Keyword research is not a tool often associated with brand consistency, but it’s a critical piece of the puzzle.
By conducting quality keyword research, brands can target (a lot of) long-tail keywords that are most relevant to their company and their message.
This, in turn, helps the company create consistency by ensuring it’s always on the cutting edge of the industry and that the keywords posts and other content focus on are relevant and interesting to readers.
And, the ranking results are huge when you create lots of consistent long-form keyword focused content (we’re living proof).
For best results, use a powerful keyword research tool like KWFinder or BuzzSumo.
3. Build unique, custom graphics for your content
Custom graphics are essential for any brand that’s serious about creating a consistent content strategy. In addition to doing simple things like perpetuating your company’s branding, design, and color scheme, custom graphics also help you create a predictable online presence across all of your various social and web platforms.
What’s more, custom graphics can help you provide value to readers and make it easier to disseminate information in a useful and digestible way.
For best results, create a unique mix of infographics, social graphics, and headers for blogs and other content.
While this may seem like a simple thing, it’s one step that many small enterprise-level businesses forget about.
By taking the time to develop custom graphics, it’s easy to set your content apart from the rest and ensure that all content creation is as consistent and relevant as possible.
4. Make the customer the center of your mission
While it may sound odd that making the customer the center of your content strategy could serve to make it more consistent, it’s true.
This doesn’t matter if you’re small potatoes or if you’re a huge brand like Buzzfeed serving up thousands of articles a day–you can do this.
(If you follow Buzzfeed, they really nail their audience type… check out these topics: “22 God-Awful Freshman Roommates,” “Someone’s Heart was Found in a Ziplock Bag in a Field,” and “23 Tumblr Posts That Make Perfect Sense To Food Network Addicts.”)
When the customer is a company’s primary concern, it has the immediate and widespread effect of making the distribution channels and content creation methods more streamlined.
This, in turn, helps brands create content that resonates with a target audience and fulfills a specific set of purposes or objectives.
What’s more, developing a content strategy in which customers feature prominently is a wonderful way to boost the effectiveness and relevance of online content.
5. Use a management tool to streamline creation and distribution
Without the help of an excellent content management tool, it’s easy for all of your various channels and creation efforts to get away from you.
Luckily, a content management tool can help mitigate this in a big way. By allowing you to keep track of, schedule, and post content across various platforms from a single dashboard, a great content management tool is the one thing that can truly overhaul and streamline your content strategy.
While optimized content is something many big brands dream of, few understand how to create it.
Luckily, these simple tips can help facilitate more efficient enterprise-level content that serves not only a company’s customers but the brand as a whole.
By streamlining content as much as possible, companies can easily provide more value to their readers, and offer a more cohesive and individualized continue strategy from beginning to end.
Do you need help creating great content for enterprise needs? Contact our writing team for professional assistance today!
As I twiddled my thumbs, I decided to randomly email the blog to my list. I’d already shared it in all the social groups I’m in, and our online profiles (my promotions done at 10 am that morning).
So, at 2 PM on a Tuesday afternoon, I sat down and scheduled a very simple campaign in ConvertKit. It took me <10 minutes. The email content was dead simple, just a few lines about why I liked this blog post I wrote (straight from the heart, because I put my heart into writing it):
2 PM rolled around. Sent.
I hit refresh in ConvertKit’s broadcast section. 25 people read the email in the first 5 minutes of sending. 5 people clicked through. Refresh. 55 people. Refresh. 60.
I checked back in an hour. 200 reads. Over the next twelve hours, 557 people on my list opened that email. In total, 12.5% of my 4,444 email subscribers read it. 60 clicks. 12 unsubscribers.
On average, I’ve been getting a 10-11% open rate on the same list, and a 1% click rate, so those stats were good for my list. (This list is five years old and needs some serious cleaning).
P.S.: It since climbed up to 13% open rate as of September 16.
That evening, an email and a comment on the piece landed in my inbox from a marketer I revere—the CEO of Scoop.it, Guillaume Decugis. The comment he left was very well thought-out and added a lot to my blog. That same hour, I received another reply asking about our writing services.
The next morning, a chat message came in thanking me for the article and asking me to explain a step I’d detailed near the end. Another comment came in the article discussing how the tool I’d mentioned, Commun.it, looked like it should be avoided. Buffer even came in and left a comment on the blog post, thanking me for mentioning them. On LinkedIn, I had several more messages from readers and group comments.
The comments I was reading told me these people had read my article—to the very last word. I was ecstatic. This piece I painstakingly put together had actually helped several people.
I looked at my social shares again after the whirlwind of messages from readers.
25.
Really, though?
And then it hit me…
Why am I looking at the number of social shares?
Why am I sitting here, counting numbers?
Isn’t it nothing more than…a figure?
What does it represent? What does it mean?
Relationships and conversations is what I really want to happen around my content.
And wait, didn’t some of that already start around this very content piece already?
Why Shares Don’t Matter a Fragment as Much As Real Conversation Does
Another content piece on my site has had over 1,000 shares since it was posted live last December.
But not one comment. Or a real inquiry dropped in my email. Or a chat message left from a reader on what they learned from it (or what they didn’t learn–I welcome both).
Not anything like what I’d received in less than a day on yesterday’s piece.
24 measly shares on my about carefully written and planned blog on automation in content marketing, and yet there was real conversation and even some ROI happening from it.
So, which content piece returned in more value for me?
The one with 24 shares, or the one with 1k? You can guess my answer.
What if we have it all wrong—it doesn’t matter how many social shares you have at all, what really matters is are you reaching real people, are they reading the whole thing, and are they gaining something from it?
Shocking Fact: What If A Lot of People Sharing Aren’t Actually Reading What They Share?
I write content for several highly sought-after guest blogs. On one site, each piece gets on average 800-1,000 shares. The minute the new pieces go live, I get incoming Twitter notifications like nobody’s business: “@JuliaEMcCoy wrote a new piece on XYZ at Acme.” Times that by 200-300 people in the first hour it was published.
I’ve asked myself, have any of those people read my piece?
It’s especially suspicious when the tweet goes out literally moments after my piece went live. Wait, you can’t read THAT fast, can you? A 1,500-word piece read in 30-60 seconds?
Hey, I’ll admit it. I’ve shared content I haven’t read in full—but, I can tell you truthfully, I’ve never shared a content piece I haven’t read at least a part of. And I mean more than just the headline. I’ll even share a content piece if a major statistic stands out from it in the body.
But, what if the majority of the shares going out are from people that haven’t even consumed a part of your article?
This scary theory has already been put to the test…and here’s what was found.
In 2014, NPR ran an experiment. They wrote and published an article entitled “Why Doesn’t Anybody Read Anymore?” to Facebook.
The results were overwhelming, in the comments and shares. People pointed fingers, debated the topic, accused the rise of cell phones and the use of ebook devices as the reasons why reading was on the downtrend. Society had fallen. Everybody confirmed and summarized the worst about the new generation.
The content of the article, if people had actually clicked through and read before commenting or sharing, was:
Congratulations, genuine readers, and happy April Fools’ Day!
We sometimes get the sense that some people are commenting on NPR stories that they haven’t actually read. If you are reading this, please like this post and do not comment on it. Then let’s see what people have to say about this ‘story.’
Hah!
Another study, a global survey by SurveyMonkey and Social@Ogilvy, found that people share for two reasons: to promote an issue or a cause, and secondly, to keep in touch. Another big reason (13%) was “because it defines my personality.” Wait—not because of the content itself?
To back that up, a study by Adweek shows that 68% of people share to get a “better sense of who they are and what they care about.”
Now check out this. The CEO of Chartbeat, a major measurement tool for content creators, said this a couple years ago:
If attention spans are on the downtrend—from 12 seconds to 8, how much more true are Tony’s findings today?
How To Know For Sure Your Content Has Been Read, Not Just Shared
So, how do you know if you’re creating content that’s being read, not just shared?
Two reasons. Simple.
One, if your content sucks, it won’t be read. Sorry to break it to you. Jon Morrow has a fantastic list of 20 warning signs of sucky content so you know if you’re in the red (or not). Not breaking up your content enough, a high bounce rate, focusing on SEO not great content, not capitalizing on your best ideas, are a few of those signs.
The biggest sign your content is being read is if you are actually hearing from readers. You’re on the right path, if so. And I don’t care if it’s one comment or fifty. One real comment from a real reader tells you that someone out there thought your content was good enough to not only click through, but read the whole thing and then leave a comment. You’re on the right path. Aim for more of that every time.
Real reader feedback, in the form of comments, emails, and messages means that your content is worth being read. And that’s worth more than just the figures on your social share bar.
A Few Ways to Create Content That Actually Gets Read
1. Create your best content, consistently
Once you find real readers, they’re going to want to have a reason to read.
And you have to be creating darn good content to keep them coming back. Your best, in fact. Nothing less.
It’s been said once…
A6a Take the TIME to make sure it’s your best. There’s no other way. You CAN’T cut corners with great content marketing #ContentWritingChat
(Yes, the tweets shown may in fact be a blatant promotion of our amazing #ContentWritingChat that happens Tuesdays at 10 AM CST on @ExpWriters. You’re welcome. 😉 )
And, you can’t just create your best content one time — you have to repeat that over and over, to provide consistency that readers will come back for.
Would you share it with every last person in your lists, and say proudly, this is what I wrote!
Being immensely proud of what you create often means it really is your best.
2. Create useful content
Right next to asking yourself if it’s your best, you need to ask yourself, how useful is this content piece to my audience?
You can be really proud of something that isn’t fully audience-relevant and useful, so make sure whatever you put together in the form of a guide is long-form, addresses every question, and goes in-depth enough.
Satisfy curiosity and offer complete answers.
Did you tell us about a tool? You better show us what that tool does, how it worked for you, and any ROI or real results you got from it. And include screenshots along the way. Oh, and if the tool costs money, it would help us to know what constitutes a free trial and what the paid subscription looks like.
If we were in the ‘90s, you could probably get away with just a well-chosen stock image per content piece. But today, you better have a king and a queen in the game with visuals if you want to win at content marketing chess.
One thing I’ve noticed in the blogs I love, as well as those that rank the most in reads, are the amount of graphics they add. We’re talking screenshots of every single detail they talk about. And where it applies, embed codes for even more interaction: embedded tweets, like I’ve done in this piece, not just screenshots of a tweet. Embedded Facebook, Instagram posts. Custom graphs to represent the numbers written down.
In this post by my friend Joanna Wiebe at Copyhackers (shared almost 4.9k times–and featuring 139 comments), there’s even a visualized, linked table of contents so you can get around the massive content quickly. And check out the images. Man. You’d almost think it’s full of ads till you realize she’s talking about how copywriting formulas happen real-time in common ads, and she’s visualizing every ad she’s talking about. Killer!
Here’s some unique ideas for visuals, besides the requirements of visualizing (screenshots, charts, etc) everything you talk about.
Never say never, because the opportunities for visuals in your content are endless. Truly.
Stop Counting the Numbers On Your Social Shares Bar
What if that detracted you from things that really matter?
As in going and getting more readers?
I could have stopped at the dismal 20-share count. But instead, I sent a random email at 2 PM to my list. We’re also emailing the piece again to our list in a newsletter roundup going out soon. And emailing it in a couple weeks to another separate list. (Email is where it’s at. I have a guide on email copywriting here.)
With every comment, email, and chat message that came in, I took the time to reply and thank every single person.
And that’s what made the difference.
Focus on actions that result in real traffic, reads, and more ROI–and don’t just think about a number that increases or decreases, but doesn’t mean squat in the end goals your content should be focused on.
If writing copy was a super power, the content writer is certainly the superhero of the online realm. They use their creativity and killer communication skills to earn a fruitful living. They’re highly motivational and they can literally convince consumers to buy products… right from their computer screens.
What goes on in their day? What motivates the content writer, and how hard do they work? Check out the infographic we wrote and put together below for the answer!
Feel free to share! Have something you’d add to a “day in the life?” Let us know in the comments!
Infographic: A Day in the Life of a Content Writer: Masters of the Written Online Word
The day in the life of a content writer is dynamic, fast-paced, filled with research, and honing their natural writing talents. Here’s an inside glimpse into their lives!
3 Facts About Content Writers
FACT: 24% of full-time freelancer writers work at least 25 hours per week. Content writers work morning, noon, and night. They have very flexible schedules as long as they meet deadlines.
FACT: A content writer practically lives in their email inbox. 205 billion emails are sent per day, and some days it feels like 203 billion emails hit your inbox. Then you’ll have days where you receive no emails at all.
The Content Writer’s Workload: An Inside Look
What is their workload like?
The most skilled content writers are booked months in advance—and some even have a waiting list.
Content writers can be assigned specific topics by clients, or they’re left to strategize topic ideas on their own. A savvy content writer will use many resources to discover useful and interesting topic ideas. A content calendar helps keep many professional content writers on track. The content calendar includes client names, blog topics, due dates, publishing dates, and more.
When it’s time to write, a content writer can write very high or very low word counts per day. An ad copywriter may only write 100 words for a commercial, while a blogger can write 2,000 words to whip up a blog post.
Productivity tip #1: Content writing assignments should be tackled by order of due date. The highest priority items are worked on first.
Productivity tip #2: If due dates aren’t looming, a content writer may choose to tackle the toughest task first. This will help easier tasks fly by the rest of the day.
Different content writing styles will activate different parts of the writer’s brain.
Bill Gates was certainly right when he noted that content is king, back in 1996.
Today, it’s easy for anyone to be an online publisher.
But it’s a pretty daunting prospect.
Thanks to an entire tool lineup of smart new tools, it’s also never been easier to create, promote, share, and market your stuff.
However, there’s a trade-off between ease and effectiveness.
For the true content marketer, who really wants to make a difference with their content, it comes to this balance: easy does not always equal effective.
Yet, we live in a time when it is essential for brands to be communicating 24/7. Those that have a powerful online presence and engage their audience are the ones that aren’t afraid to experiment with the tools of content automation – but know how to strike the right balance and stay engaged, relevant, and consistent in original creation.
What tools can you use to automate your content marketing… and where do you draw that line in creation vs. automation?
I’m here with an intensive step-by-step list, based on what’s worked for me after a lot of trial and error. Keep reading!
4 Key Tools to Use In Automating Your Content Marketing, & What to Avoid
How can you successfully balance time-saving automation with the necessities of creative, original creation? Here are the top four tools I recommend.
Some come with a warning label, so tread carefully.
Tool #1: Buffer
I love Buffer. For all-around social media post scheduling, it can’t be beat. Their dashboard is easy, customizable, and so clean. I’ve tried Hootsuite and Buffer, and like this tool the most. There’s just more features, cleanliness, and organization here.
Buffer, of course, requires manual work, unlike tools like Edgar that do the repurposing for you: but I honestly don’t like letting go of scheduling out my tweets myself.
I share my login with our social media manager, Rachel, who helps schedule out our blogs as well. In Buffer, you can upload visuals and videos to your posts as well as schedule them out. As you can see on the left in the screenshot, we have a ton of accounts hooked up to our one Buffer Pro account.
I also love that Buffer removed their “automation” feature–better known as the Suggestions area. They took away a huge crutch for the automation-happy users, and I applaud them for it.
There is no “bad,” or “don’t use,” in Buffer’s features.
Good work, @Buffer!
Tool #2: Commun.it
Approach this tool cautiously.
Do not, do NOT utilize this tool to it’s fullest.
This tool offers some serious social automation. It has good and bad points.
If you’re considering this tool, here’s something you need to know about Commun.it right now. Don’t even go to their site and check them out: read this first.
If you sign up for this tool, you’ll need to immediately go to the Schedule tab (this used to be called Campaigns)…
and turn OFF all the scariness of automated tweets, DMs, etc., that are “ON,” in this list (click Edit > Pause OR Delete):
I don’t have a screenshot of when I turned on my account, but I wish I did. There were 20+ automated things on.
All the auto “tweets” you’ll find turned on I do not suggest even trying. (More on that in the do’s vs. don’ts list below.)
@commun_it – if you’re listening, turn OFF these automation features for all new users! The automation ON is very, very dangerous… a new user could spam the heck out of everyone they know without even realizing.
Now that we’ve clarified the bad and how to avoid it…
There are some good features to this tool.
I’ve hooked up about 6 accounts to my Commun.it and paid for a year of Business Pro, starting in January 2016.
Here’s what my main dashboard looks like when logging in:
After four months of using the program (only a few hours a week if that), the biggest benefits I’ve noticed are in the suggested “consider to follow,” and “consider to unfollow” lists.
I’ve never been able to build such a targeted amount of Twitter followers before—with any tool. I can also “retweet” top tweets straight from here, to get the eye of an influencer, see all my notifications across the board (who interacted with me and said what), and more. My favorite area to go to every time I open the tool is the Community section:
It’s very easy to just click through the tabs here and start engaging–real engagement, with some real users that align with your interests.
Commun.it’s algorithm on who to follow is decently, but not always, helpful. Be sure to keep an eye on it, don’t just click-click-click and repeat: sometimes you’ll see an occasional follower not suited to your interests or audience type. Or, a 100% spam account will sneak in.
DO use these features of Commun.it:
Community-building feature
Follow the “consider to follow” list, unfollow the suggested to unfollow, while keeping an eye on it as you do it
“Leads” section to find strangers related to your interest and start building new connections
Use the “monitoring” for brand mentions, hashtag mentions for reputation management/engagement building
Set up your own well-written, reoccurring customized tweets or DMs to publicize your stuff – for example, a podcast you have, or a blog (no auto tweeting of their automated tweets – see below)
DO NOT use these main two features:
#1. Too much or non-personalized auto-DM’ing.
Confession: I do have a few auto-DMs going.
Here’s what I think about auto-DMs:
Never do them with a free software. “Automated” or “by X tool,” inserted by the tool as the last line in the message, turns people off more than anything
With my paid version, I can insert their name and a day of the week – this is ideal for personalization
I check back and write replies, etc, when people answer them
DM’s done in that way can be done well.
I’ve been redoing them every month, but haven’t achieved any “clicks” – although I’ve seen replies from real people thanking me for the DM they received, and no negative feedback. Here’s what the most recent one I created for Express Writers looks like:
#2. Absolutely NEVER auto-enable Commun.it’s auto-tweets in any form (all of which are accessible in Schedule).
The formulas are way off for who is your “top engaged user,” etc. One person might tweet you one time in an entire month, and you might engage with someone else 20x in one tweet hour – and Commun.it will pick up the person you talked to once in a month as a “top engager.” Yeah, don’t try it. You’ll be laughed at. (Case study talking here.)
I’ve turned off all automated “tweets.”
Also, Commun.it seems to let spam through their algorithm, so if you enabled something like “thank top followers,” you’ll enable very spammy-looking tweets with people you really haven’t engaged. I wouldn’t touch this with a ten-foot pole.
No. No. No. And you have to be very very careful, because as soon as you opt into Commun.it and set up your Twitter, a lot of these are automatically turned on.
You can set up manual auto-tweets, like a #FollowFriday to consistently showcase your favorite people, but don’t touch any of the others.
Tool #3: IFTTT
If This, Then That will change your life if you haven’t discovered it already. It’s a little like the playground of automation.
With IFTTT, you can actually do things like:
Have an email sent to you when the president passes a new law
Have your phone volume turned up by texting it when you lose it
Wish your friends happy birthday on Facebook without lifting a finger—ever
Cross post social media posts to other accounts, set for life
Sync up your profile picture EVERYWHERE if you change it on just one account
This tool basically works on “recipes” that you can enable, or turn on, that then start working. How? Peter Pan fairy dust, if you ask me! These are codes that people have built accessible to anyone who signs up to IFTTT.
Yes—it’s free!
Now, once again, remember the balance of automation and creation we spoke of. You’ll really have to avoid temptation here—because you can basically schedule out your social life and have it running without doing anything. But you don’t want to do that. You’re not a robot. Your fans deserve better. Still, there are many things you can use on IFTTT that will improve your life.
Here’s how I use it to my benefit:
#1. A few (not too many) ongoing weekly tweets, scheduled eternally, audited consistently
I have daily tweets going out to promote my blog and podcast that I could choose to never type again—set for life. (It’s a bit scary to think about too much. :P)
However, I still login and change the wording 1x/month. Just because you don’t want to automate and set for life like that. What’s relevant today could not be as fresh tomorrow, especially in our industry.
They’re simple stuff, like “Following the Write Podcast? Grow your presence as a marketer, learn new content strategies, and much more. Hosted by yours truly: expresswriters.com/write-podcast.” That type of promotional tweet is scheduled to go out 3x weekly, every week. (I do login and change the wording of it once a month—I just don’t like to be automated for life like that.)
I recently started hooking up @ExpWriters to a few weekly tweets in IFTTT.
First, my staff and I collaborated and wrote 7-8 unique tweet versions in Google Docs:
I chose the Weekly/Daily Tweet (you can pick as many/little days of the week you want, and at one time), and recreated that recipe x 7.
Here’s what one of the automated tweets looks like on Twitter:
Here’s what the recipe log looks like in the backend of my IFTTT:
Another automated tweet, see below, is a Saturday tweet promoting our ABC Content Strategy freebie (which I dearly love, so not hard to create an automated tweet for).So far, we’ve had people from our Twitter chat (#ContentWritingChat) and other real members of our Twitter community favorite and retweet a few of the IFTTT scheduled tweets, just like they have our normal tweets.
So far, so good! A tweet a day to promote our business, scheduled out for infinity (and don’t worry, I plan to audit them once a month).
#2. Auto-syncing of my Twitter chat community, #ContentWritingChat, to a Twitter list
The Twitter list is called #ContentWritingChat Club. People have already thanked me for adding them to “the club.” (Of course, I don’t tell them it was IFTTT. Unless they’re reading this. I’m sorry. I still love you.)
This is a great way to build up your Twitter chat community without all the automated work on your end. Anytime someone tweets using my hashtag for the first time, they’re added to the club.
Tool #4: Buzzsumo
Buzzsumo is an incredible tool for finding the content that is socially trending in your space. It’s brilliant for content idea generation, research and even finding your best-fit influencers to reach out to.
First, you can find content that is being shared the most on social media on your own site.
Just enter your domain in the Content Research tab:
Here are some practical ways I use BuzzSumo effectively.
1. Find Content Ideas (Instantly)
Trying to come up with great content ideas can be pretty hard, frustrating and time consuming. And once you do sit down to write it, it can be hit and miss. What if there was a way to be inspired by instantly searching up the hottest topics on the web in your niche?
There is–it’s called Buzzsumo. 😉
Using Buzzsumo’s “Most Shared,” and typing in my favorite keywords (copywriting, content marketing, etc), generates amazing finds I can take inspiration from:
Look at this particularly amazing piece with 8.3k shares:
If I want to find something interesting to share with my followers on, say, Facebook or Twitter, and particularly popular content, I play around with my topics, typing in what’s relatable to my audience; then sort the list based on which topics have had the most Facebook shares, and pull that piece to share in my own accounts.
(Buffer for the win!)
It’s as easy as that!
2. Building Influencers You Can Reach Out To
Buzzsumo is ideal for finding the people who are sharing your content and then following them, too. Once you have created original, high quality content, you need to start promoting it. While social media is obviously a great way to do this, you need to reach out to the right people.
If you discover content that’s fairly similar to what you have created, the tool will show you the most influential people on Twitter who shared that content.
So the premise is that if they shared similar content, it’s absolutely worth reaching out to tell them about your own content.
3 Reminders About Great Content Creation (& Content Automation)
Now that you have a great tool list and a knowledge of what to turn on (or off), let’s discuss a few reminders about creation itself.
Fact 1: Content Creation Requires Humans, Not Robots
Content creation is a highly powerful blend of technique and technology. Marketers are beginning to realize that the days of being the loudest and the first are over. Shortcuts that will harm the quality of the content.
But, all in all, you must remember that content creation is a craft.
The more creative and engaging the content, the better the piece, and the more you’ll receive from it. In a nutshell, that is why we cannot allow robots to replace writers: no matter how much a brand wants to find a shortcut.
Fact 2: Automation Can Kill the Craft
That’s a strong statement, but I believe in it. You can’t rip out the human component to content and then automate the core – the art of telling stories.
There is another side to the argument, though: can technology and good processes help us to scale content beyond what we are doing today? Absolutely! We’re seeing more companies and resources emerge that are successfully helping with the physical side of content creation. (I’m about to discuss which ones I use, and how I use them, below.)
However, without the right mentality, content marketers tend to think that scaling their content marketing means more volume and more shortcuts. This is where quality can and will suffer.
Fact 3: Dangers Lie in Content Automation
Remember that you cannot forget that your target audience is comprised of human beings, and as humans we’ll never automate our own behavior. Even the most expertly timed and brilliantly crafted automated messages cannot replace the comfort of real human interaction.
After all, it’s that personal touch that will lead to the buying process and in turn loyal and repeat customers. Marketing automation exists to make the obligatory hard work and day-to-day interactions with your audiences a little easier to fulfill.
Don’t, ever, sell your soul to full automation; staying original and creating high quality content that personally targets to your audience just cannot be beat.
Conclusion: The Growth of Content Automation
A word of advice.
Focus on great content creation, and use the process of automation to build on that.
See how I automated original tweets that my staff and I wrote?
And how I found inspiration to create new content of my own, from BuzzSumo?
And…most importantly…I turned off the ugly automation features in Commun.it immediately after getting the app.
While automation has its place and can make content marketing and social media growth so much easier, there is no substitute for fresh, original, high quality content.
What are your thoughts on automation? Have YOU come across any dangers, or like other tools I haven’t mentioned? Share in the comments!
Need great copywriting? We can help! We don’t automate this part–100% human. 😉
Hand-in-hand with a great tool is a great content crew.
So far, we’ve had people from our Twitter chat (#ContentWritingChat) and other real members of our Twitter community favorite and retweet a few of the IFTTT scheduled tweets, just like they have our normal tweets.
This is a great way to build up your Twitter chat community without all the automated work on your end. Anytime someone tweets using my hashtag for the first time, they’re added to the club.
