Most marketers and business owners who are interested in content marketing are familiar with the idea of organic search traffic. As the name suggests, organic search traffic is the kind that arrives at your website as a result of people typing in a query to a search engine or a social media platform.
But while organic traffic is fantastic, and a great validation of the quality of your content, there is another big element to achieving the engagement you want. If you don’t know about it, are not thinking about it, or too time-poor to explore it, chances are you are missing out on traffic to your site, and, as a consequence potential customers and clients.
What Are You Missing?
Quite simply it is the amplification or leveraging of your content. If you take organic search traffic as one part of an analogy, let’s call it “the seedling” then content amplification can be thought of as the “fertiliser” for that seedling. When properly undertaken content amplification, like fertiliser, will increase the growth, quality, and productive effects of your original content.
Content amplification can be viewed as a simple way to make the most of the time and effort you have invested in your initial original content. Getting that content to the biggest possible audience means that you will get the best return on your original investment (and that includes your time and/or money).
How Content is Amplified – Free Methods
Content can be amplified from its organic base in a number of ways, ranging from the free to the paid. The simplest way to leverage your content, and one that many businesses already utilise, is to co-publish across multiple locations.
That means that when a blog goes live on the company website, it might also be shared to Facebook and promoted with an infographic on Instagram with a link back to the website. The goal is to get more people reading, liking, and sharing the post and ultimately, directing more eyeballs to your website.
Using an email list of your current and potential clients is also a costless, quick way to amplify your content by sending it directly to the inbox of people who have already volunteered their email address.
For many of my clients we write content for publication on their websites, but then as well do a complete rewrite of that content for publication elsewhere, notably to LinkedIn for B2B marketers, and perhaps Facebook or Instagram for B2C marketers.
Paid Amplification
If you are in a clearly defined geographic or business area that has influential people serving it, then paid referral marketing is also a good option for you. There is no need to break a year’s worth of advertising budget getting a single post from a celebrity anymore. There are plenty of local thought leaders and influencers in almost every niche who have a dedicated following on their own social media pages. Follow them, and when an opportunity arises, post a thoughtful comment to a post with an appropriate link to your article – if it adds value to their readership.
Paid search engine optimisation services are also a way to amplify your content but for many small businesses these are best used when you have a solid base of existing content on your website and a website you are happy to promote heavily. You do not want your customer traffic and acquisition cost to be wasted by a below-par “on page” experience once that traffic actually makes its way to your website.
Paid advertising is a specialised area, and one that could cost you big dollars if you don’t really know what you are doing.
Getting in touch with industry associations, aggregator sites for your product or service (e.g., wedding directory sites for photographers) and arranging to have your content featured as a guest post or included in their regular newsletter is also a brilliant way to put your content and business in front of people who might not find you any other way. The other benefit of this approach is that you are getting in front of people who already have an interest in a product or service like yours.
Here to help
Bottom line is that you don’t need to pay a fortune for an agency to leverage your content for you. At least initially, you can do this easily yourself. And when the time comes to engage a marketing specialist, let me know and I’ll point you in the right direction.
In the meantime, if you need help creating your content, I invite you to get in touch – by phone, email, by completing a quote request – details are HERE.
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