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How to Use 5 Types of Content to Grow Your Online Authority (Recap of My Live Talk for #SocialMediaBootcamp in Austin, Texas)

March 24, 2022April 30, 2019 by Adam Oakley

Last week on Friday, I had the honor of speaking at Jessica Campos’ event, a Social Media Bootcamp right here in Austin, Texas. It was exciting for two reasons: for one, it was at The Capital Factory, a dream speaking venue in downtown Austin. For another, I had a fantastic host: Jessica is the founder of Marketing for Greatness and a well-known local marketer here in Austin, Texas. She worked hard at putting together a memorable event, and invited me to come and speak personally. Jessica hosts many networking events locally, and is a great person in real life just as much as she is in marketing. I love being around her. I said yes to Jessica’s invitation, and the rest is history! This amazing lady worked her network marketing magic and sold out the room – we had 50 seats, and more than 50 in attendance! It was my largest live audience yet. I’ve had the idea for a session on how to build authority online using the five foundational types of content for a while, and I decided to explore that for Jessica’s bootcamp. It was the perfect complement session to her opening talk on holistic social media marketing practices. This talk was born: Building Authority Online & Where it Begins: 5 Types of Content You Should Be Publishing to Grow Your Brand. After my talk, it was exciting to hear terrific real-time feedback from attendees. Two senior-level marketing executives that worked in Austin came and found me to tell me how much my talk resonated with them. “Everything you were saying about content made SO MUCH SENSE! Our ads aren’t working, nothing has been working, and we know we’ve needed a new channel for a while.” It was clear they were excited to find a way out from old practices that weren’t working. That was a thrill to me to hear! I loved knowing I’d been able to make a difference for someone. In today’s blog, I’m recapping the talk I gave, including the most important takeaways and lessons. Buckle in! [bctt tweet=”Check out @JuliaEMcCoy’s recap of her talk on building #authority online through #content, live at @capitalfactory in #ATX for @jessicamcampos’ #socialmediabootcamp ” username=”ExpWriters”] Social Media Bootcamp LIVE in Austin, Texas (Hosted by Jessica Campos) Here’s a look at our fun day in Austin at Jessica’s bootcamp, put together by my designer in a collage. Keep scrolling for top takeaways, a recap of Jessica’s and my session, and some special shoutouts! Jessica Campos: Social Media Practices That Bring Real Results in Your Business Jessica Campos started off Friday’s Social Media Bootcamp with a fantastic, action-packed session. She talked about the reality of “marketing” on social media, and how it’s not okay to just “turn to the person next to you, and ask, Would you like to lose ten pounds?” — and she had the whole room nodding and laughing. If it’s not okay to do in a waiting room, why do it on social media? She shared with us the typical journey of one of her warm leads: the person left her website open in their tab for days, closed it, came back through a Facebook ad and then clicked over to the blog, left the site again and came back to the contact page in another few days. And repeat. I relate! We cannot predict our buyer’s journey. Jessica shared how the marketing funnel is dead, and what’s replaced it: the loyalty loop. (As most of you already know by now, I completely agree that the funnel is dead. I’ve written about that here.) Jessica also shared how to discover your audience using tools like Facebook Insights and Google Analytics’ user behavior, two great tools for finding out real information about your audience. Using the whiteboard to write out the frameworks she shared, Jessica covered several areas that made up a “sandwich,” or “burger” to help us remember how to build a solid social media marketing strategy: The importance of data and knowing what your leads and ideal audience is actually doing and thinking of Building avatars to represent and get to know your ideal audience Creating a culture to attract your tribe and people Writing a manifesto to represent who you are with a brand voice to differentiate yourself from the masses Focusing on growing your influence online to attract people to you and your brand Jessica also did a real-life marketing analysis with one of the attendees, Lori Stinson, an agent and owner for logistics and supply chain company DSV. It was awesome! With Lori next to her, Jessica built avatars to represent Lori’s ideal audience, an experienced, established company out in California. One method I loved was when Jessica told Lori that LinkedIn was going to be her best bet to earn social media leads from. Several members of the audience also shared terrific ways Lori could create fun marketing campaigns to pull in the eyes and ears of her ideal people. Around noon, Jessica wrapped up her session, and we all had a lunch break. Then, it was time for my session. Special Shoutout to Jeff at Chubby Diaries & @YoungMommy (Christine Young) on Twitter I want to take a quick moment to give some well-deserved shoutouts. Jessica asked Jeffrey Jenkins, a local entrepreneur, travel influencer, speaker, and the founder of ChubbyDiaries.com, to attend and record media for us (as content creators, Jessica and I are all about maximizing our event presence). He took our photos and the raw video (coming soon to my YouTube channel!). Special shoutout to Jeff, who was a fantastic help! Another shoutout to Christine Young, supermom to 7 and blogger at FromDatestoDiapers.com, for live-tweeting during our event! She captured some fantastic takeaways live during our bootcamp. Great ideas = great content. Take time to brainstorm ideas, research topics, gather data, and formulate topics for posts. #socialmediabootcamp — Christine Young (@YoungMommy) April 26, 2019 Building Authority Online & Where it Begins: 5 Types of Content to Grow Your Brand (Recap of My Live Talk) I started my session with these important facts about today’s buyer: 81% … Read more

#ContentWritingChat Recap: Using Twitter for Book Marketing & Promotion with Rachel Thompson

January 1, 2021July 21, 2017 by Rachel Moffett

Calling all authors! Are you wondering how you can use Twitter to market and promote your brand new book? If so, you’re in luck! That’s exactly the topic we discussed in our latest #ContentWritingChat. Some amazing tips were shared from our guest host and our chat participants. We’ve compiled some of the responses into this helpful recap, so let’s dive in! #ContentWritingChat Recap: Using Twitter for Book Marketing and Promotion with Rachel Thompson Join us for #ContentWritingChat on Tuesday, July 18th at 10 AM Central with @BadRedheadMedia! pic.twitter.com/GqRoItdM4z — Express Writers (@ExpWriters) July 12, 2017 Our guest host this week was Rachel Thompson. She’s an author, a marketer, and the owner of BadRedhead Media. Having used Twitter to market her own books, she really knows her stuff! We were excited to have her join our chat and share her expertise. Q1: What’s the best way to use Twitter to sell books? To kick off this week’s chat, we asked everyone to share how they felt was the best way to use Twitter to sell books. We received some great responses to this question, so here are a few of the answers: A1: Simple. Don’t use Twitter to SELL. Use it to build relationships with readers. Be strategic to CONNECT @writingchat #contentwritingchat — Rachel Thompson (@BadRedheadMedia) July 18, 2017 A1b: Strategically follow READERS in your demo, provide valuable content, listen, be authentic/helpful @ExpWriters #contentwritingchat — Rachel Thompson (@BadRedheadMedia) July 18, 2017 Rachel’s advice is not to use Twitter to sell. Instead, she said to focus on building relationships with your current and potential readers. When you make that connection with people, it’s going to help you in the long run because people will be more inclined to buy from someone they know and trust. She also suggests strategically following readers in your demographic. Provide them with valuable content, listen to what they have to say, and be authentic and helpful. They’ll appreciate you for it! A1: Have never done it; would assume it’s the same as selling ANYTHING: find audience, meet their needs, network, etc.#ContentWritingChat https://t.co/bafyrYkx1P — ThinkSEM (@ThinkSEM) July 18, 2017 Even though it’s not something that Sarah has experience with just yet, she offered some great advice. She says you need to find your audience, meet their needs, and focus on networking. A1) Two thoughts: Sell yourself, and why your words are worth reading. Sell your words, and why they should be read.#ContentWritingChat pic.twitter.com/PZjBmrVDOE — Jeff Reno(e) ? (@Renoe) July 18, 2017 Jenn has a great way of looking at selling! She says you need to sell yourself and why your words are worth reading. You also need to sell your words and why they should be read. If people don’t see the value in what you’ve created, they aren’t going to bother making a purchase. A1: I think, as someone who hasn’t done it (yet), you need to focus on expressing value that relates to audience needs. #ContentWritingChat — Annaliese Henwood? (@MktgInnovator) July 18, 2017 Annaliese agrees. She says it’s all about focusing on the value you can provide. If you want to be successful with book marketing, showcase the value you have to offer. A1: Have your following promote the book.Create a contest & let them use excerpts from the book to create fan art. #contentwritingchat — Netvantage Marketing (@netvantage) July 18, 2017 You can also get creative with how your promote your next book. Have your audience get involved through a contest, which is a great way to get them doing some marketing for you. We love the idea of having them create fan art inspired by the book. Q2: How many Twitter followers do you need to be successful? Do you need to have a specific amount of followers in order to succeed at promoting your book? Or does it not matter? Here’s what some of our chat participants had to say: A2: People ask me this ALL the time. the truth is: it’s about quality not quantity as well as interaction @writingchat #contentwritingchat — Rachel Thompson (@BadRedheadMedia) July 18, 2017 A2: Most importantly, follow strategically: readers, book bloggers, reviewers, publishing influencers @writingchat #contentwritingchat — Rachel Thompson (@BadRedheadMedia) July 18, 2017 Rachel was spot-on with her answer here. As she said, it’s all about quality and not quantity. You want followers who are truly interested in what you have to say and the work you’re creating. That’s key to seeing results with social media. She also said that you should follow readers, book bloggers, reviewers, and publishing influencers. It’s a great idea to keep up with what those people are talking about and taking the time to engage with them. A2: It’s less about the NUMBER of followers and more about QUALITY. Tons of followers who don’t engage won’t matter. #ContentWritingChat — Rachel Moffett (@redheadrachel) July 18, 2017 After all, tons of followers who don’t engage with you won’t matter. You’d be better off with a smaller, engaged group than a larger group who isn’t pay any attention. A2: On @twitter, it’s a matter of quality, not quantity: 100 engaged followers are better than 10K silent ones!#ContentWritingChat pic.twitter.com/Y6iBEGqcCt — @AndreaTorti90 (@andreatorti90) July 18, 2017 Andrea agrees! He said that 100 engaged followers on Twitter is much better than having 10,000 followers who are silent. You need an audience who is actually listening to you and engaging. Those are the people who will be most likely to buy. A2: You need the followers that read your books. That could be 10 or it could be 10,000. Quality over quantity. #contentwritingchat — Netvantage Marketing (@netvantage) July 18, 2017 Focus on building a following of current readers and potential readers if you want to succeed on Twitter. Q3: What’s better: automation or no automation? How do you feel about automation? Is it acceptable when promoting your book on social media or should it be avoided? Here’s some advice: A3: First, let’s clarify what we mean by automation. AutoDMs are the cockroaches of Twitter. So NO on those … Read more

How to Create & Market Powerful Business Ebooks

December 31, 2020September 28, 2016 by Adam Oakley

Today, long-form content rules the roost. But here’s what you didn’t know: could the head honcho in said roost quite possibly be the ebook? Today, the average content length of material that ranks #1 in Google sits at 2,450 words (see more stats on long-form content). While many people put out long-form blog posts, ebooks are a fantastic way to provide long-form content that does what most long-form blogs don’t—or an amazing way to build a “content upgrade” onto an existing post. In addition to the fact that ebooks are ideal for providing relevance and value for consumers, they’re also a highly trusted form of content that has the potential to boost the image and authority of your brand hugely. Let’s discuss how you can improve your brand across the board by creating compelling business ebooks. [bctt tweet=”Learn how to improve your brand across the board by creating compelling business #ebooks. ?” username=”ExpWriters”] Why Business Ebooks, & Why Now Right now, 57% of marketers think that ebooks are a very effective marketing tactic. Even back in 2013, 34% of B2B marketers were using ebooks, and that number has exploded since then. In addition to their widespread use and perceived effectiveness (one study revealed that including a free ebook download on a website could increase conversion rates by 10.8%), there’s also the fact that ebooks are easy to produce, highly interactive, convenient for users, and in-depth enough to offer real value on a particular topic, concern, or problem. Readers love the comprehensive, easily accessible approach to a particular topic that is the ebook. One ebook has the opportunity for far more traction than one long-form content piece. Why? You can create a landing page for your ebook which can be re-shared, and re-linked to in multiple blog pieces, social media posts, and landing pages The best part: you get personal email addresses every single time someone wants to get a copy (time to do some email marketing and start conversion funnels to your readers’ inboxes!) While most people imagine ebooks to be cheap or sales-y, the modern marketing-centric business ebooks of today are highly researched, well thought-out pieces of material that include things like graphics, links, important stats, and truly useful information. Because of all of these things, ebooks claim a unique position that allows them to drive leads to a brand and make it easier than ever before for companies to enjoy the traffic, conversions, and engagement that long-form content so often produces. How to Create Your Own Highly Successful, In-Depth Business Ebooks There’s plenty to be gained from a great business ebook, and marketers who want to produce them successfully need to follow several steps: 1. Develop a plan for your upcoming ebook Because ebooks are often several thousand words long, it doesn’t behoove anyone to go into the project blindly. Instead of assuming that you can just write the ebook as you go, sit down and develop a plan right now. For your plan to function well as a guide throughout the writing process, it will have to cover a few key points. These are as follows: Topic. First of all, you’ll have to decide which issue you’re going to tackle in the ebook and how you’ll approach it. To flesh this out, consider consulting your Q&A section or the comments on your blog or social media pages. More likely than not, readers are already giving you a great glimpse into the type of content they’d like addressed, and paying attention to these sections can provide valuable insight into the direction of your book. Target audience. Once you’ve decided on your topic, you’ll need to determine who your ebook is directed at. If you don’t already have a target audience or a series of target personas drawn up, take some time to do that now. This is a simple step, but it’s one that will ultimately impact the effectiveness and relevance of your ebook. Target keywords. Ebooks are more impactful when they’re optimized for SEO. To ensure that your ebook makes a splash with your readers, research your target keywords before you drop into the writing process. By researching keywords and discovering which ones your readers are searching for, you’ll be much more readily able to deliver highly targeted content that appears in search results and can go a long way toward boosting your conversions. General outline. Aside from the things mentioned above, your ebook plan will also need to include a general outline of the content you’re proposing to cover. Consider drawing up a map of sections; content included, sources, and key points. While this may seem unneeded, it can be an essential foundation when it comes time to write the ebook. 2. Get to writing your content Now that you’ve developed an outline for your ebook and a plan for its execution, it’s time to start writing. Without question, this is the most difficult part of ebook production. Writing a great ebook takes time, and you can’t expect to rush through it and turn out a quality product. Instead, spend as much time as is needed to craft a quality piece of content that displays your expertise, relevance, and authority. If you don’t have time to write the ebook on your own, consider hiring professional copywriters to do it for you. By working with copywriters who are familiar with ebook structure and outline, you can quickly produce a quality piece of content without shouldering the burden of its creation on your own. Once your ebook is written, it’s time to get to work editing it. While you should be sure to read through the ebook several times on your own, you’ll also need to consider hiring a professional editor to check it through for you. This helps cut down on mistakes and ensure that your final product is a streamlined and professional as it needs to be. Once you’ve reached this point, it’s time to begin to promote your ebook. This will make your launch easier and streamline your marketing process … Read more

How To Use 3 Major Content Game Changers: Infographics, eBooks & Brochures

December 31, 2020November 10, 2015 by Josh McCoy

Alecs is the Client Accounts Manager at Express Writers. Content is a little bit like clothing. We all know which types we like best and, after awhile, it’s easy to get stuck in a rut so to speak, recycling the same 4 items time and time again, leaving 90% of the vast closet untouched. While you may not be literally reusing the same pieces of content over and over again, I’m willing to bet you probably reuse the same types of content – blogs, tweets, links, etc. While there’s nothing wrong with this content on its own, it can make your brand feel stale, boring and predictable if you don’t branch out – just like that dingy grey sweatshirt you love so much. But what if you brought in fresh new infographics, ebooks and brochures into your content wardrobe? It might make your brand feel a little like this… 3 Amazing Content Forms & How to Benefit From Them: Infographics, Ebooks, Brochures In order to switch it up and give your brand new life, try experimenting with the following types of content. 1. How To Use Infographics Infographics are the belle of the ball right now in content. Their most obvious winning factor is that they drive insane traffic to your site. Just how insane, you ask? Infographic search volume has increased over 800% in the last 2 years. The brain processes visual information at a rate 60,000 times faster than it does textual information. 65% of people classify themselves as “Visual learners” People who use infographics on their site grow an average of 12% faster than those who don’t. Infographics are shared on social media 3 times as often as all other types of content, which means they have a high potential to go viral. Personally, our brand infographics, like this one, have garnered 3x the average shares one of our blog posts gets. How’s that for content that is in-demand? In addition to being in-demand, though, infographics are also amazingly functional. This owes to the fact that infographics pack a ton of information into a small, easily digestible mechanism and can help your readers better understand your topic. Because of this, they’re shared more often, viewed more often and understood more comprehensively than text-based content. In order to use infographics effectively in your content, there are several things you need to consider. First of all, the infographic should be strictly information-based. Don’t ever use an infographic to pitch your company’s many virtues. These infographics defeat the point (viral information sharing) and use the infographic’s power for evil rather than good. Instead, focus on taking an issue your industry faces, a hot topic that will encourage sharing or an interesting development and breaking it up to provide your audience with further information. If you need help coming up with an in-demand and genuinely interesting topic for your infographic, consider consulting resources like Google Trends or viral Twitter hashtags. Once you’ve chosen a topic, you’ll need to gather information. When citing sources for your infographic, make sure they’re reputable sources comprised of industry experts and high-profile sites. Pulling information from obscure sites increases the likelihood that the information will be incorrect and decreases the likelihood that your infographic will receive a good reception (people don’t like sharing faulty information, after all). When gathering info, think about which statistics will make a good visual. Increase or decrease in revenue, for example, can be illustrated by a bar graph. Stick with great sources and highly visual statistics and you’ll have a great infographic in no time. When it finally comes time to design your infographic, you can either pay a designer (don’t be surprised, though, if prices top out around $1,000) or you can do it yourself. Free web-based platforms like Easel.ly, Piktochart, Infogr.am get the job done with professional results and can help you stand out from the pack in an instant. 2. How to Benefit From Ebooks Ah, eBooks – the quiet princesses overthrowing the palace one step at a time. Ebooks now top paperbacks in sales numbers and are set to completely overtake the paper dynasty any day now. As a marketer, though, it’s possible that you don’t want to sell your eBook and that you only want to use your eBook as an incentive. This is without a doubt how eBooks rose to prominence in marketing and is still one of the primary ways they are used within content strategy. The reason for this is that bundling has long been a market strategy to help consumers make purchasing decisions and to help differentiate a company from its competition. For example, when a consumer purchases a piece of clothing from an online outfitter and finds a $100 voucher for a new online wine club (a sister company of the clothing retailer) enclosed, that consumer is much more likely to buy from that retailer in the future. Similarly, when a customer visits your site and finds that you’re offering samples of your content or (better yet) entire courses for free in eBook form, they’re very likely to stick around to see what else you have to offer. This approach also proves to consumers that a company is so confident in the quality of its product that it is happy to literally give some of it away. Though compiling an eBook may sound complicated, it’s pretty simple. All you need to do is find a topic you want to write about (consider serialized topics you’ve blogged about in the past, consistent questions your customers ask, a problem many of your customers have or a new development you’re excited to debut) and write content (for more information about how to actually write an eBook, check out this HubSpot resource). In order to ensure that your content is as good as it possibly can be, ensure that it compliments your current brand, that it looks professional and that it is executed with precision. Enlist professional help to get your cover image on point … Read more