Four ‘Critical’ Considerations for your Digital Channel Approach

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It’s easy to get lost in your brand channel planning process. Pins, Tweets, Vines, and Snapchats, Oh My! So instead of jumping all over the place, let’s think about how they all work together. Focus on one channel that will be where your content stems from to determine your approach across the others. For example: A blog!

Here are four [critical - sounds so extreme, but definitely helpful] things to consider when setting up your blog and distribution channels for success: 

  • A Hub, Not an Island: Your blog shouldn’t be the only place people can consume your content. It shouldn’t be all alone, like a deserted island. It’s part of your content and social ecosystem! For example, some people prefer to consume the majority of their professional content through LinkedIn, while others have a running stream through Lists on Twitter. While others may subscribe to blogs via email. Whatever the case, the blog can be a destination such as a “hub” which allows for inlets and outlets to lead to more interesting content. For example,Mashable Pins all of their infographics  from their site/blog on Pinterest boards, allowing people who prefer to enjoy their content on a fun visual app instead to consume it there.

Pro Tip - While infographics are hard to view on Twitter and Facebook, Pinterest allows for visual content to thrive, even long, complex infographics. Best part – great referral traffic back to their main content, demonstrating a way back to the “hub.”

  • Branding – Look & Feel: While your social channels lend themselves to being more “human” and “relaxed” in voice — the look and feel helps consumers to connect your channels. It can be as simple as having the same logo across channels. Having the same color scheme and background images can’t hurt – but those can alternate due to campaigns of course. For example, your Facebook cover image may change each week or month with your promotions, while your blog layout remains the same.
  • Creation vs. Curation vs. Co-Creation: Creating all your own content is a bear. Seriously. It helps to curate other content to supplement the content you are already kicking butt with. For example if your blog is on tumblr, it is as simple as discovering content in your topic category, finding influencers who write well, and reblogging them onto your blog. Then not only do they get credit, you have great content on your blog, but you have connected yourself with an influencer in the space who appreciates your support. And perhaps over time they’ll reciprocate the gesture and promote your content as well. Another benefit of reblogging and curating  is the increase of eyeballs on the content. Now who doesn’t want that?

Take it a step further: Consider hiring a guest blogger to take some of the work off of you. It benefits both you and the blogger! But what about your brand voice, look and feel when you hire guest bloggers? You’ll want to have a brand guidelines for your bloggers. Something simple for them to follow for tone and voice.

  • Be Consistent Across: It’s totally cool to be more relaxed on Twitter, and perhaps “sassy” on Instagram. However, if you have ten different voices, then people won’t really know what your brand stands for. Pick a direction your brand chooses to take – whether it’s chill and relaxed, the “give it to you straight” facts brands, the passionate advocate, or whatever suits your fancy. A takeaway for your brand team would be to remember that consumers will begin to build a relationship with your brand, and as in real life, you want to be true to who you are. Don’t fool them into thinking you are someone else. They’ll feel cheated and move on the next great thing. So instead, be honest, transparent, human, and and in a bit of entertainment and comedy when the time is right. Or all the time – if that’s your brand!

These directions may be broad, but I and we (our marketing on the rocks team) are happy to answer specific questions on branding, consistency, content creation, and curation, as well as specific channel approaches. Each channel is different, and in turn must be given different consideration. Additionally, what may work for a small startup, may not be what works for a large consumer brand. So let’s chat!

This post was originally written for Marketing on the Rocks and can also be found here.

Image source: pinterest / mashable

Why you Should Supplement your Content Creation with Guest Bloggers

Guest Blogger Benefits

Creating content is a beast. You heard right. A beast. It can take hours to plan, write, edit, and schedule accordingly. And truthfully most brands have a hard time doing it all themselves.

Some brands need to source out, curate, and/or co-create content in order to supplement the content they create themselves. One way to do this is working with guest bloggers. They can be a real asset as you create your content strategy and calendar

Let’s discuss some of the benefits to your brand and to the guest bloggers who choose to contribute…

Benefits to Your Brand:

  • You have more content resources
  • You have more time to focus on the content your brand is creating
  • You have a new viewpoint that you may not have considered before
  • You begin to create a content arsenal
  • Depending on your content strategy, fans of your brand may be more likely to trust and see value when a third party is writing about it
  • You gain a new audience through the guest blogger’s social amplification
  • You become a trusted resource for content and in turn, your fashion line

Benefits to the Blogger:

  • Growth of your expertise through reputable sources
  • Growth of your personal brand
  • Growth of your audience through cross-promotion
  • Extra money to continue building your personal brand/ business

What are the five things you need to consider as you start down this road? Check out my checklist here on my full post on Startup Fashion!

5 Ways to Save Time on Twitter

How much time do you spend on Twitter? I know I sometimes spend more time than I intend to, looking for the latest news, latest updates from friends, and the coolest stuff going on in my city and cool stats and info to link to and blog about. Fortunately, for me…and you – there are plenty of ways to save time on Twitter and not waste time we could be spending on other things like work!

The following are my suggestions on how to save time…

 (1) Trunk.ly – A tool that helps cut through the clutter of finding andkeeping up with social media news that you view awesome and important.  It collects any links that you share on Twitter (and other social networks) in order for you to go back and be able to search them when you have time. It bookmarks them in a way that is easily searchable for you. Why waste time trying to find that link, Trunk.ly has it all stored away for you, ready and waiting.

(2) Tweetdeck -  Too many followers, too little time? I have friends who have over 50,00 followers and I wonder how they do it. Yikes! Platforms likeTweetdeck are super helpful! You can organize your followers in lists in order to differentiate from people you know in real life, those who are folks from certain industries, news sites, local folks, and more. This is especially helpful for community managers who are trying to keep track of their competition, customers, and potential customers. A time saver and possible lead gen tool if used to our advantage!

(3) SocialOomph – Want to Tweet but you won’t be around to do it? On vacation? Away for the weekend? Schedule them to go out while you’re away with SocialOomph. This is great for blog posts you want to get out, but don’t have time to be at your computer to Tweet them.

(4) Tweetbeep – No time to sit and look at Twitter or your platform of choice for Tweeting? Tweetbeep is a great app that allows you to get hourly (or whatever time allotment you choose) summary of searches, mentions, terms, hashtags, etc. For example, are you working on a product campaign, promotional event or just monitoring your brand? Tweetbeep will let you know what’s being said when it’s said, or in a convenient time for you. Great way to keep up and respond accordingly, especially if it’s someone asking a question, and/or commenting on your brand or product. In addition, you can keep up with what’s being said on the competition or just an event you wish you could have attended but missed. Useful and simple to set up.

 (5)  Listorious – Starting out and not sure who to follow? Find an index of lists with Listorious and follow the lists that are interesting and relevant to your personal brand and/or business brand. That way you can see what people in your industry are talking about. Great way to get started and/or increase followers by showing interest and  following them.

Bonus Tip:

Curation! Are you starting out with your content and strategy for it? Or are you struggling with time this week on creating it? Curating content is a great way to share content without taking the time to create it yourself. For example, have a list created of people you follow for relevant news in your industry. Then you can ReTweet a Tweet they shared with a comment. Additionally you can find a blog post they did and comment on it in your Tweet. Great way to show it is not all about you and still share relevant content to you and your industry.

As you can see Twitter is a useful and awesome tool, but it can take time to use effectively. Fortunately for us, the tools above are a great way to cut down on some of that time and still Tweet in a matter that is beneficial and awesome.

Note: this post was originally written for oneforty, which was acquired by Hubspot.