Most books and articles on content marketing skillfully omit the part about what makes great “content.” Instead they preach ideas – “Thou shalt tweet…Thou shalt friend…Thou shalt blog.” The preaching is usually followed by an explanation of what these social media tools are and how to use them. Seriously, it’s almost 2012 – how many marketing professionals are out there who do not know how to use YouTube, WordPress or Twitter?
There are always newcomers to the world of marketing which need a primer on the available social media tools, but there is real shortage of advanced materials for who have mastered the basics of inbound marketing. Success is not just about the tools. You can tweet 10 times a day, publish 100 videos to YouTube, write 1000 blog posts, but you will not have success with inbound marketing unless the content is interesting, educational or provocative.
Last week I came across a phenomenal e-book from Hubspot that provides the best set of recommendations for content ideas that I have seen yet. The e-book is full of great topic suggestions for blog posts, videos and podcasts. These are exactly the types of approaches that I see consistently getting loads of traffic. A few examples include:
- Write a list of some things to avoid
- Relate your content to current event
- Create a list of trends to watch
- Write a review of a non-competitive product
- Publish a first take on news in your industry
The e-Book (100 Inbound Marketing Content Ideas) also offers lots of great suggestions for how to repurpose existing content in alternative formats. These are great techniques to get more ROI from content you (or others) have already developed. Examples include:
- Publish a weekly or daily links roundup
- Share an excerpt from e-book, webinar
- Create a summary of podcast or video interview
- Share slides from recent presentation
- Create a roundup of last year’s most popular posts
