In the latest episode of Future of Engagement, Murray Newlands interviews branding expert David Spark (@dspark on Twitter), founder of the custom publishing company Spark Media Solutions which provides custom content marketing services.
David and Murray discuss how content including video content creation works for business. They go beyond creating videos to how to use them to share your content and build relationships through blog outreach, guest blogging, and relationship building using social media.
“To be shared, your content must be valued by your audience
and only then it is truly useful to build your brand.” ~ David Spark ~
CONTENT CREATION
Use your content as the valuable asset it is. Videos, white papers, or any form of articles, posts, ebooks or PDFs becomes highly useful sharing. Once created, you can instantly send optimized content to:
- Answer commonly asked questions
- Provide support
- Teach or train people in the use of your products or services
- Transfer skills
- Prospects by your sales team to overcome commonly expressed objections
“Content is the currency for social media and search…
being traded via social media and visible in search”
David shares that it is “extraordinarily common” for companies to NOT have this valuable content – even when they KNOW what the top reasons are that are losing them sales.
“Whatever your top ten reasons are for losing sales make sure
you have content that supports it as assets for your sales staff.”
Social currency
David also touches on:
- Identifying and connecting with influencers
- How to establish relationships with larger sites
- Guest blogging – and what you can and can’t write about
To learn more about Spark Media Solutions or to contact David Sparks go to sparkmediasolutions.com.
What businesses really need to understand is that if they can afford to do it they should hire someone who already has the connections that will most benefit them and access on major blogs where they can mention and link to you.
Everyone is busy and responding to cold requests from people
you don’t know are such a low priority that you will
rarely get a response no matter how well
you can write or great your video content.
When someone known to the site to product only high quality content contacts them on your behalf the answer is often an immediate yes because the site trusts that person.
Among bloggers in my collaborations, we often have standing agreements regarding guest posts that benefit clients and grant author, editor or even admin access to each other so there is no delay in publishing when something is trending that could benefit someone we support.
If you can not afford to hire expert assistance – or you are providing content marketing services – use these posts to guide you:
- What Content to Create and How to Share it Consistently When Your Target Audience is Most Receptive
- Why QUALITY Content and RELEVANCY are MORE Important than Quantity
- Hubspot: Content Quantity Diminishes Quality
Keep in mind that it will take you much more time to get results than it would if you could leverage the relationships, talent and experience of others – but you CAN get results. Don’t expect them overnight.
