Bill Gates famously wrote in 1996 that content will be king on the Internet one day.
Despite his prophecy, Microsoft today still does not have a juggernaut content department, and is still focused on creating software. Whether his vision for what Internet content would be in 1996 was, we may never know. What we do know, is that marketers around the world, in the for profit and nonprofit world alike, are turning to storytelling, content marketing, and social media to engage and connect with target audiences.
Marketers initially feared alienating the consumer by engaging them on social media, or by masking their advertorial content in the form of native advertising.
Their fears have since been assuaged by studies like the IAB/Edelman Native Advertising study that found 60% of consumers want their content to tell them a story, and 90% of consumers would prefer their advertising to be informative on some level. This combined with the fact that over $100M has been invested in content marketing in 2014 so far, which has helped companies and marketers realize the potential of story telling and content marketing.
But perhaps your nonprofit already knows all this, and has already invested in content marketing, but you are not seeing the engagement you were expecting. Or maybe your efforts have stalled, clicks are down, and visitors are not flocking to your blog like the once did.
This happens. And while the exact reason is difficult to pinpoint, there are some things you can do to help jump start your content marketing campaigns and get it back on the right track.
Social sharing
Yes, 80% of social sharing happens on Facebook and Twitter. But that doesn’t mean you should not be including social sharing options to the other social media networks. Pinterest, tumblr, Google+, and while not a social media network, an email share button can, too, see a lot of interaction.
By only offering one or two social sharing options for your followers to use, you’re severely hampering the viral potential of your content. Our most shared post took us all by surprise. but because we allow social sharing to be monitored on over 92 different websites, we were able to measure and track its proliferation across the internet.
Share volume
According to a recent study by TrackMaven Internet users are more inclined to share a post if there’s already been a lot of engagement surrounding it. Try adding social sharing counter to your posts to instantly broadcast exactly how much engagement a particular post has already seen.
Going viral is like a snowball rolling down a hill. The more snowflakes it gathers, the bigger it gets. If other users are able to see those snowflakes starting to accumulate, they may be more likely to hop on for the ride.
Data, data, data
You didn’t think you were getting out of the blog post without us mentioning the importance of analytics, did you? The truth is, data and analytics is what makes content marketing what it is. Every aspect of content marketing is measurable, down to the amount of page views, clicks, and the tendencies of your website visitors, like what page they’re most likely to go to next or what page they exited your website from.
If you’re not already spending a significant amount of time and energy reporting on your analytics, and making changes to your content based on what you find, the time to start is now.
Landing pages
What’s the first webpage most visitors see first when arriving to your site? Is it a blog post? Your home page? Is it your About Us page?
Not knowing your highest trafficked landing page is like not knowing where the front door to your house is. Make sure you have a good bead on what page Internet visitors are landing on first, and find ways to get those web visitors to the other pages of your sites. Whether it be more links embedded in content or popups that prompt interaction on other sites, converting 1 page view into 2 takes work.
Image courtesy of Web Business Agenda.
