Google.
Facebook.
Apple.
Amazon.
If you’re not in line with the way that they present content to people in their ecosystem, you’re invisible.
Make Sure Your Content Is SEO Optimized
I’m Michael Boezi and let me explain what I mean by that.
As I always say, you want to write for humans first, robot seconds, but both are important. Google is constantly scouring the web with little bots trying to make assessments about your content.
You don’t need to be an expert at SEO, you just need to know some basics like how to set up your content so that it is searchable and discoverable. Some other things, like formatting a post, or setting up the metadata on a podcast, you just need to know some basic things to make sure that you’re set up and in Google’s world.
Related: 4 Tips for Writing Effective SEO Content
Facebook Is a Paid Advertising Platform
Facebook: most of us tend to think of it as a social media platform, and certainly most people use it like that, but in a business context, I tend to think a little bit differently.
To me it’s a paid advertising platform. It’s a little bit better than TV and radio because it’s more targeted, and if you have the right strategy built around it you should be able to activate that and get boosts on your content.
If you just hope to put a business page up to serve as your website, I strongly recommend against that. The term for that is called ‘digital sharecropping’, and you want no part of this.
Related: Facebook Ad Campaigns: Cheap and Effective Marketing
You want to build your own audience, on your own property. You want to have a page, it’s got to be there so that people can find you when they are searching. But you don’t want that to be your only property.
Customers Want Engagement, Not Noise
Now customers have spoken: they don’t want ads, they don’t want to be interrupted, they want to be on the web and they don’t want you to to be running pre-rolls or pop-ups.
These are aggressive tactics that we have learned to tune out as consumers. This is your opportunity to rise above. You and I are going to create really good content that’s really valuable to your customers and your prospective customers. We’re going to connect with them, form relationships, form trust, and you won’t need to shout at them.
Related: How to Unlock the Power of Content Marketing
When you’ll show up, they’ll listen. Think of how much better off you are than trying to shout about the noise.
Build Your Content Strategy With Google, Amazon, Apple & Facebook In Mind.
You’re going to build your content strategy around your business goals, come up with this strategy, and then execute a set of tactics to go out and get that. If you’ll forgive me for underscoring this point again, with these four entities, with Google, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, you really have to get your content in line with them. If you are setting up that strategy which you’ve been so careful to construct, under yesterday’s rules with yesterday’s players, it’s going to fail.
You don’t want that – your customers are depending on you, your employees are depending on you, your shareholders are depending on you. Now is not the time to sort of wait it out and see what happens. It’s their world, and if you are not the one who’s going to show up and provide value to your audience, trust me, someone else will.
Why is Content Marketing Important for Your Business?
About Michael Boezi
Michael Boezi is the owner and managing director of Control Mouse Media, LLC. He works with clients to devise, develop, and deploy a cohesive content strategy to build an online audience. He does whatever it takes to help people create genuine, bi-directional connections with their customers.
He is the creator and host of Marketing Without the Marketing, a podcast that helps people learn the basics of using a content strategy to build an audience. Michael is currently building an online course called CreateBiz, focused on helping writers, musicians, and visual artists use their creative content to build an audience. He is also an instructor at Emerson College, teaching a grad-level course that he designed, called “Fundamentals of Content Strategy.”
Michael is a 17-year publishing veteran who has helped hundreds of writers become authors. Today, many of his clients are non-fiction authors, or at least using a book as a “business card.” He has also helped build two early-stage startups from the ground up, and still mentors young startups in the LearnLaunch accelerator program.