Creating Content (That Works)

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I'm always updating my popular deck on creating content that works for social media. There are a lot of things to take into consideration in your content marketing efforts. These tips will give you a leg up.

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Creating Content

(That Works)

Amy Vernon

Amy Vernon LLC

#cre8content

Finding Your Subjects

Look Who’s Talking

Mention, Talkwalker, Google Alerts.• Set up alerts for your main keywords

• Subscribe to daily email of mentions or view in app

Love ’em and read ’emDon’t listen to the haters. Whether through

Flipboard, Feedly, Digg Reader, or wherever else, RSS lives on.

Before It’s NewsForums - people still use 'em. And love 'em.

Something Awful forums have launched many memes and have something like154MM threads. No, really.

They’ll Stumble For Ya

StumbleUpon - the easiest way to get content to come to you

Targeted

Any piece of news that relates to your niche/genre. They can be quickly recapped and take little effort. Industry happenings News releases Personnel changes and moves

Writing/Creation Time: LOWSocial Potential: LOWValue: Helps share important news, caters to your core audience, boosts SEO and helps keep the blog filled.

Funny

A play off the news or something topical, but with an

eye toward the absurd.

Start from the topic, but focus on the funny

Writing/Creation Time: MEDIUM to HIGH

Social Potential: HIGH

Value: Shows a light-hearted side; brings in traffic, boosts

SEO and exposes you to new audiences.

How-to

Teach your readers

something they don’t know.

Better yet, teach your readers

something they didn’t know

they needed to know.

Can take many forms

Writing/Creation Time: LOW to HIGH

Social Potential: HIGH

Value: High shareability; establishes your

thought leadership; provides value to

reader (which makes them think better of

you); boosts SEO.

Commentary

Covering popular news stories

or timely topics, but making it

your own by expressing opinion.

Covers the news from a

specific angle.

On a news release – is this a

departure from the norm?

Has this worked in the past?

Writing Time: HIGH

Social Potential: MEDIUM

Value: Establishes your thought

leadership, boosts SEO.

Content Types

Infographics Timelines

Video Photos

Infographics

DON’T: just throw up a

bunch of stylized text

DON’T: Change color

schemes for no apparent

reason

DON’T: Mix and match fonts

just because you feel like it.

Infographics DO: Share interesting

information in an engaging,

informative way

DO: Have some

information that people

want to know and share

DO: Visualize data and

make numbers tangible

Timelines

“Evolution” (of a logo, a singer, etc.)

Design is important

Memes are still good

Yes, this is a type of infographic

What happens if you

Google “LEGO timeline”?

Video

YouTube is the biggest by far, but it’s not the only game in town.

Dailymotion is 2nd-largest in the world.

Vimeo has reputation for quality video.

Telly, Viddler – more players every day.

Video is getting

bigger every day

It doesn’t have to

be expensive

When it goes viral,

it goes HUGE

Photos

#smx #24A

Use large, high-res, attractive

photos

Slideshows need to be short, or

very fast-moving (i.e., no

reloading the page every scroll)

Encourage users to send in pics

Then & Now

“Separated at birth?”

This had 102K views on StumbleUpon

A few words about lists

People love lists.

They really do.

They complain about them being linkbait, but they read

them.

And share them.

This had 469K views on Stumbleupon and 147K shares on Facebook.

A few (more) words about lists

This had 166K views on Stumbleupon

If you’re going to do a

list, cover the subject.

BE

COMPREHENSIVE.

Why do top 10 if you

can do top 34?

People like learning

things they didn’t

know.

Did I mention that

people love lists?

These didn’t really fit into any of the

other categories

A COUPLE

MORE THINGS

Also do these

Illustrate whenever possible.

K.I.S.S.: Keep it simple, stupid.

Emulate content you like.

Review before you post — would you read it if you happened upon it?

Cartoon by Ape Lad via Flickr Creative Commons

Thanks and Keep in Touch

amy@amyvernon.net

www.amyvernon.net

www.Facebook.com/AmyVernon

www.Twitter.com/AmyVernon

plus.google.com/+AmyVernon

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