I have been reading a few articles recently on content marketing, including this one: http://socialmediatoday.com/will-davis/278891/why-companies-say-they-want-social-media-really-want-content-marketing?ref=node_other_posts_by. I have to say that I completely agree with the notion that you can carry out content marketing without social media, but you cannot carry out social media marketing without content!
I have blogged previously on the crucial role of content to social media marketing: http://www.juliabramble.co.uk/2011/03/content-is-king/, so I don’t intend to go over that again here!
What I wanted to note was that the developers at Facebook have given us even more reason to look to our content! We are so lucky in that we can now post on other Pages as our business Page. This really has the potential to raise the profile of our Page and to get our brand ‘out there’.
I remember when this change was first made that Mari Smith advised that if we were to use this new freedom we should do so by ‘adding value’ to another Page by posting valuable content. Otherwise, she said, our input could be viewed as being spammy.
It’s only recently that I have started to post on other Pages as a business Page for clients. And I have to say that Mari – and all our beliefs about content are absolutely spot on. Once you start to identify likely Pages to post on and read through the threads of discussion that are already there, unless you can make a valuable contribution, you can imagine that the other parties to the conversation would just be asking what on earth you were doing there. It would be like walking into a party as a newcomer and a stranger and just going arouns all the conversations in the room, interrupting them to tell them about yourself. Yuk!!
However, if you have got your target audience right and if the Pages you propose to post on reflect this accurately, then posting a link to a blog or some info on your website can truly be seen as helpful and adding value rather than just talking about yourself!
If your content is not up to scratch, or if you have not written content according to your target audience, then I think you might struggle. I therefore see this as a golden opportunity to make sure we have our houses in order with respect to content. Then we can go and really take advantage of this massive new opportunity before every other Tom, Dick and Harry does too, therefore really making a name for our Pages.
Have fun!