Have you ever thought of the 3 pillars of content marketing as you plan out your content?

— Lord Vincent Van Mendoza (@digitallourd) March 17, 2021

Content marketing is a garden that makes any business beautiful and inviting. With it, you are more likely to attract your desired market organically. Without it, you are likely to lose your charm over the years compared to those who do content marketing.

Content marketing should not be treated as a want for your business; rather, it is a must. To drop a few, Mendoza (2021) wrote about the 3 reasons why your business needs content marketing. This marketing discipline lets you get your audience’ attention; generate, engage, and nurture lead; and, retain customer loyalty and promote evangelism. Hence, this is far more effective than traditional forms of marketing — which, in turn, results to much higher Return of Investment (ROI).

In getting onboard for your content marketing initiative, it’s not just thinking like “Hey! I want this to be the content today.” and that’s it. Sure, there are things to consider in creating content; however, there are also pillars you should bear in mind so that you can make the most of your content marketing plan.

What’s a pillar, anyway?

pillar (noun)

a large post that supports something

– Merriam-Webster Dictionary

Right. We got it. But how do we translate this to content marketing? Simple. It isn’t enough that you have content in mind. These things should be well taken care as you go along in your content marketing journey.

1) Content creation

Well, this is very obvious. There’s no content marketing without creating content. Let’s do an inventory. What do you have now? Blog? Podcast? Webinars? Great! But wait — you have to realize that even your competitor also creates content. Your goal, then, is to make your content stand out.

First, it needs to be something interesting to your target audience. It goes without saying that if the content serves their interest, they sure would want to consume it. Don’t just make post after post on why your company is so great and why your products are the best available. Please slow down. You could do this by providing important information: how to do something related to your field, the latest news and upcoming events they’ll want to know about. This is what will draw potential customers to your content.

Another thing you need to keep in mind is content quality. This is often neglected. Make sure your blogs are well-written and engaging. Have well-produced videos or dynamic podcasts with worthwhile guests. Try to connect with other professionals who know what they’re doing, instead of trying to create all your content in-house. It will make a world of difference to your audience. Remember, variety is the spice of life.

2) Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Once you’ve created your content, you need to make sure that your target audience can easily find it. This is where SEO becomes your best friend. SEO is a BIG deal. You should work well in it. Some tips? Use the words and phrases that people are searching for in your content. In other words, you need to think the way your audience thinks. In the cae of a blog, use keywords well in the text itself. If it’s a podcast, a video, an infographic or anything visual, audio, or video content, use keyword tags to associate your post with those terms, so that your content will come up next time someone searches for those keywords.

Make sure it fits with the natural flow of the post, though. Avoid content saturation (when a particular niche is overly crowded with content pieces) in your content with SEO and don’t tag it with keywords that don’t directly apply to it. Wanna know why? You have to be very careful not to make your content seem clunky and badly written, because if you do so, Google will penalize you for abusing the SEO process, making your content appear lower, rather than higher, in search engine results. That’s only Google. For sure, you also don’t wanna get penalized in other search engines such as Bing, Yahoo!, and AOL.

Have a look at this example below.If you could comprehensively provide content for a specific subject matter, it will be highly prioritized by search engines like Bing (in this example).

3) Social Media

SEO is never enough. You have to believe it. Once your content is posted, you vannot just simply sit back and wait for your audience to come to you. You need to be actively promoting your content and drawing people in. Social media platforms are the avenue for that. Building your social media presence means having a built-in audience of people who not only are willing to hear what you have to say, but have actively asked you to do so. In fact, I often receive content request from my Facebook friends. I’m saying social media is the first place to post your content. Then if your followers like what you’ve posted, they’ll share it with their own social media circles. In effect, their friends will share it with their circles, and so on. You don’t know where your brand will be taken through your content. This is viral marketing that means free publicity and an opportunity to expand the audience for your content. TMDirect (n.d.) describes this as the beauty of content marketing. Your focus is localized, but your potential reach is virtually limitless. Imagine you can write from the Philippines and your content may get to the end part of the world.

TL; DR: Any content marketing initiative needs some support so that it doesn’t only get published, but it’s also amplified and distributed to an even wider audience. Don’t forget these 3 pillars of content marketing: (1) content creation; (2) Search Engine Optimization (SEO); and social media.

If you need a content strategist for your brand, I can be the guy for the job! You may reach me through +639760030342 or send me an email at [email protected] .