Every week as SmallBizLady, I conduct interviews with experts on my Twitter talk show #SmallBizChat. The show takes place every Wednesday on Twitter from 8-9pm ET. This is excerpted from my recent interview with John Hall, @influenceandco. John is the co-founder and CEO of Influence & Co., a content marketing firm that focuses on strategic alignment across all long-form content marketing efforts including external thought leadership, owned-media publication development, blog content, and whitepaper development, all strategically aligned to authentically grow influence and authority. Recently, the company was recognized as #72 on Forbes’ “Most Promising Companies in America” list. For more information, visit influenceandco.com
SmallBizLady: How do you define content marketing?
John Hall: Content marketing is the idea of producing high quality content around topics and problems that your industry and target market, are talking about. The content small businesses produce should be intended to serve as a resource for the audience they’re targeting to aid the problems they might be having. Not only that, but the content should be further connecting them with their customers. You need to tell a story, offer examples, and build relationships with whoever is reading it. By storytelling through content, you provide a sense of trust to the audience and we all know that people build relationships with people that they trust.
SmallBizLady: Why is a blog strategy important to the success of a blog?
John Hall: For starters, having a blog strategy in place allows you to stay consistent from post to post and lets your readers know that you’re going to provide exclusive, timely content that relates to your industry. Without a strategy, your content won’t fit together and your readers will be reluctant to subscribe because they don’t know what to expect each time they read something new.
Ensuring that your target audience is always kept top-of-mind is important to the long-term success of your company. If you aren’t providing valuable information to your target audience in 99% of your content, you’re really just wasting time. This also goes back to knowing who your customer base is and figuring out how to be the solution to their problems.
SmallBizLady: Why is storytelling key to the success of a blog?
John Hall: Storytelling is a major component to blog strategy. Influencing your readers, and more importantly, your target audience, is vital to the longevity of your business. Plain and simple: people want to do business with people who know what they’re talking about. Which is why trust is such a key element to content marketing. Trust is not something you can just buy, it needs to be earned. And to earn that trust, you, as a business leader, need to show the world why you matter in your niche industry.
SmallBizLady: How can strong blog content and strategy directly affect your relationship with potential clients or your audience?
John Hall:Having a blog that isn’t cohesive with a clear strategy simply lacks credibility and tells your reader that you’re a wild card. By wild card, I mean they never really know what they’re going to get when they come to your blog (i.e they probably won’t be coming back). It’s not just about putting out content that’s “click bait” – Ex: 20 Cat Memes That Describe What Your Monday Morning Feels Like – it’s having an audience and knowing what that audience finds valuable, while still connecting it back to your brand’s ultimate mission statement. Not to say it’s not important to have some fun with your content – having personality is immensely important to your blog – just remember to be consistent and have a purpose for every piece of content you create.
SmallBizLady: How does guest posting fit in with content strategy?
John Hall:Small business owners should seek opportunities to blog on other people’s platforms. Bylined articles on other publications within your niche industry help grow your influence. By offering your expertise, you are building your influence by showing the world that you are an expert in this field. Now, these online publications aren’t just going to take any piece of content that someone throws at them – cheating the system is not an option here. But offering high-quality, original content that’s well-written with real-life examples is what they’re looking for.
SmallBizLady: What are the most common mistakes you see with starting a content strategy?
John Hall:Not having one would probably be the biggest mistake I see with small business owners. Simply taking the time to outline and implement a content strategy will get you ahead of a lot of companies in your industry. Also, not allocating the right resources to certain areas is very common. Having a one-person content team, for example, isn’t going to get you very far and could ultimately hurt your brand versus help. If you hire one person to write, edit, and distribute your content, you’re going to end up with sloppy work. Having a consistent voice and crafting a polished/edited piece every time will take your content to new levels and set up your marketing strategy for success in the long run.
SmallBizLady: Are there any industries that content marketing DOESN’T work for?
John Hall:This is one of the most common misconceptions I hear from clients – “content just doesn’t make sense for me.” But let me phrase it this way, do you want to be an expert in your field or industry? In which case, most small business owners would, of course, respond with “yes.” Well, if you want to be an expert in your field, you need to prove it to your audience. You obviously can’t have a conversation with everyone because you simply can’t reach out to every single customer and grab coffee when you have a new idea or want to help them in some way. If it were that easy, blogs would cease to exist.
If you are seeking credibility, carve out time, sit down with your team, and develop a content strategy and execution plan right away. Trust and credibility can’t be bought – you need to earn it by offering your expertise to your customers.
SmallBizLady: Who should be writing the content?
John Hall:Choosing key individuals (multiple) within your company will grow your brand’s influence and will keep from one person getting burnt out. Everyone has a busy schedule so by dividing up responsibilities, based on what topics would make sense for each person, content creation can be a positive experience for the author. Focus on choosing leaders whose passions align with the content you’re creating.
SmallBizLady: How does a business owner determine when they should begin their content marketing efforts?
John Hall:Map out who you’re talking to before you dive right in. At Influence & Co., we created personas to get a deeper understanding of our target audience and our content team bases every piece of content on these personas. What does your niche market find interesting/useful? What would keep them coming back every time a new article is published? If a topic doesn’t fit into one of those audiences, we either tweak its focus or get rid of it. Consistency is so important when creating your content strategy so be sure you know whom you’re talking to.
SmallBizLady: How to you develop a promotion strategy for your blog content?
John Hall:Leveraging your content is one of the key elements in a successful content strategy. Distributing a piece of content on various social channels, in-group discussions, and even repurposing that content can maximize its exposure. Because if you have an article that is out of this world good but no one sees it, the time and resources spent making it happen were all for nothing.
SmallBizLady: How does thought leadership fit in with content marketing?
John Hall:Thought leadership and content marketing work together as a competitive advantage against competitors in your industry. Your knowledge and expertise in an area can be showcased through content, therefore growing your personal brand. The two go hand-in-hand. Over time, as you become an established thought leader, your content will gain more exposure, which in turn will give you access to relationships, events and conversations that otherwise wouldn’t be available.
SmallBizLady: What are some of the tools your team uses for your content strategy?
John Hall:Maintaining an editorial calendar and having processes in place to keep things moving is what keeps our content strategy up to par. Each department plays a vital role in these processes: from pitch meetings to editing to implanting distribution efforts. We use the software Highrise to keep things organized internally – the program lets you assign tasks to everyone on the team so when your role is complete, you assign it to the next person in charge, whether that be an initial edit, send to client for approval, etc. The team also swears by Google docs.
If you found this interview helpful, join us on Wednesdays 8-9 pm ET; follow @SmallBizChat on Twitter. Here’s how to participate in #SmallBizChat: http://bit.ly/1hZeIlz
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