Making Time for Social Media Marketing

Finding your voice on social media and content marketing outlets takes a bit of work. You need to know what you will be blogging/tweeting/talking about on your topic. You also need to pick which outlets you will use (Google+, LinkedIn, Tumblr, etc.). The timing is the most important thing to consider, though, since we are all busy all the time.

The demands for each outlet you choose are different. They each have different audiences and they each have different times of day, days of the week, and months of the year that are appropriate for your product or service. Which ones you pick depend on your:

1. Product or service
2. Time you can devote to the other members of your community
3. What they are interested in now
4. How they like to get that information
5. Why they like to get that information on the particular outlet.

Time Management

How much time you can devote depends on what you are selling or promoting. If the product you sell (or service you provide) is complex, then the time investment will be greater than for a simpler item.
How do you time your content campaign?

Plan a few micro posts or tweets and note how much time it took to prepare each. One thing I like to use for this is Google’s Alert service. The alerts turn up interesting items that have been talked about in the past few days or hours (or week) and can be prompts for your own contributions on the subject.

Use the time data you noted and make an estimate for a schedule. You’ll see from the data how long you need to get to the point when you actually tweet or post. The sum product of this exercise is that you’ll have an idea of how long you will need to devote to your marketing campaign.

Set aside an hour or so at the beginning of every day or two to work out your schedule and stick to it. Scheduling time like this makes the process easier in the future as you get into the habits of effective social marketing.

What is your audience reading right now?

The Google Alert’s also show you what others have already written/tweeted or posted elsewhere so you’ll have an idea of what’s been done. Working from those ideas, you can create your own contributions to the global conversation; chipping in with your two pence, in other words.

How does your audience prefer their content?

The sites that generate the content from the alerts also give you an idea of where your audience is and, how they like it. Is it visual? Go to Tumblr or YouTube. Is it text? Go mobile.

Tools to use

One tool I like is HootSuite. It can connect you to FaceBook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and other outlets easily and all at the same time. Using HootSuite, or TweetDeck, you only need to use one interface to post to multiple sites instead of visiting each one individually.

The time savings with HootSuite don’t end with its interface to different outlets. You can schedule your content for different times of day, and even days in advance, if you want.

My strategy

My own strategy is to take a few hours every few days to write blog posts and schedule them for posting over several days. On the days the posts don’t appear, I spend the same time working through the recent alerts and gleaning interesting ones to comment on or expand on with my own voice. I broadcast the most interesting posts through Twitter and use the rest as ideas for posts and longer comments on GooglePlus or FaceBook.

It’s a simple way to manage a social media and content marketing editorial calendar. By using your collected postings on various sites, you can get an idea of how and when the most popular of your content is being used by others.

Editing, Copy Editing, & Proofreading

The primary differences between editing and copy editing are that editing is more of a macro activity and copyediting is a micro activity. An editor makes changes to the overall look and feel of the product. A copyeditor is responsible for the details of the product and making sure that the changes made by the editor conform to the overall style. A proofreader is responsible for making the editorial changes conform to the overall style of the product.

To most people, editing means making changes to a product to make it conform to a specific style. For instance, an editor often uses a specific style guide in their work on a project. In the editorial process, the editor takes the author's work and shapes it to conform to a clear, concise, and cogent whole. When she is done with the editing, the copyediting process can begin. Sometimes an editor is responsible for both stages of the editorial process, but there is a distinct difference between the processes.

A copyeditor takes the work done by or in the editing process and corrects any differences and sometimes adds material to make a whole product. Copyediting is a detail-oriented process, more akin to proofreading than editing, on the whole. The difference between copyediting and proofreading is important, however, since the copyeditor is more responsible for change management than is the proofreader.

Proofreading is checking up on the changes made by the macro/micro activities. The proofreader is responsible for making sure the changes made by the editors are consistent and all typos, bad line breaks, and so on are fixed. Compared to copyediting, the proofreader does not make changes to the product. She may, however, suggest changes to be made to the copyeditor and/or editor.

At Zen Content & Social Marketing Management, I am responsible and accountable for the project, I am the proofreader, copyeditor, and editor. The customer is always consulted and informed of any necessary changes during the project. The customer always has the ultimate yea or nay power over the final, deliverable product.

NPM

© 2012 N. P. Maling — Zen Content & Social Marketing Management

6 Tips for Reusing Your Own Writing

These six ideas for re-using your own writing in a different forum are some that I’ve developed over the years. They can be applied to others’ writing, too, as long as they are applied sensibly and responsibly.

1. Read the article. It makes sense to start with an article that has a knowledgeable person's background for inspiration. If the article doesn't appeal to you in the first place, why read it? You will also get an idea of how to start rephrasing and re-organizing the material.

2. Rephrase and use different words. When you have an idea of what the article is about, you can start shifting words around to suit yourself and apply your own style.

3. Change your grammar use. Changing the grammar of the article will sometimes improve it; especially if you have your own grammar checkers turned on. I always check for existing mistakes and differences from your chosen level of formality. I use two different checkers, each using different standards.

4. Change tenses. By making a section of an article take on a different tense, you change the focus of the reader's attention. When you fix this mistake, the article becomes more cohesive and flows better.

5. Re-organize. Try shifting the article's paragraphs around. This changes the structure to make it more logical or understandable. A writer communicates the overall story better by placing historical events in their proper time lines.

6. Check the article's uniqueness. Run the piece through articlechecker.com which passes it through Google and Yahoo. This process should, but not always, find similar articles and perhaps more ideas for the article if you need to bulk it up some more.

The important thing to remember is that there is no copyright on ideas or facts. Check the facts before you check anything else. It is important for a well-written, responsible, and accounted-for article writer to be accurate. Just make sure you present the main idea in a different manner than it was in the original article.

NPM

© 2012 N. P. Maling — Zen Content & Social Marketing Management

Extreme Programming Adapted to Content Marketing

Image via Wikipedia

Extreme Programming (XP) is a software development methodology that defines a set of values and principles that make the development process more responsive to the needs of the customers by involving them in the development process. The XP methodology assumes that the requirements of the customers are not constant and may change during the project life cycle. The idea is to follow a development process that can easily adapt to changing customer requirements. The XP methodology states just that.

The rules and practices, defined by the XP methodology, if followed by content marketers and their customers, will ensure that the project can easily adapt to changing requirements, at any time during the project life cycle. This results in a more cost effective and efficient project, creating a quality product.

Objectives

The main objectives behind the XP Methodology are:

¶ Greater customer satisfaction, promoting teamwork among project members, i.e., content marketers and customers.

¶ Delivery of high quality products, reducing costs and efforts required to handle change requests.

Principles

The XP methodology builds on four principles that ensure adaptability in the development process:

¶ Communication: The XP principle of communication states that all individuals involved in the project should communicate and discuss the project requirements thereby ensuring that the views of the marketers, regarding requirements match those of the customers.

¶ Simplicity: The principle of simplicity states that design and development of the project should be kept simple. The design should be such that it meets only present needs.

¶ Feedback: The feedback principle states that constant feedback in terms of tests and customer responses make for better development.

¶ Courage: The principles of communication, simplicity and feedback provide content marketers with the courage to work in such a manner to respond to changing requirements.

In XP, extensive tests are written, ensuring that no flaws/bugs are present in the product. The project is released to customers in small iterations (according to current requirements), enabling the customer to test the work product against present requirements. Customer feedback and changes are easily implemented into the work product.

Practices

The rules and practices propounded in the XP Methodology are:

Planning — The planning process involves the following:

¶ Creating user stories, i.e., broad descriptions of each feature required by the customers;

¶ Estimating time required by the content writers to develop each story;

¶ Creating a release plan that defines the project schedule; and

¶ Dividing the project into small iterations.

At the start of every iteration there is a planning meeting. The customer selects user stories that are to be developed in the iteration. The user tests are then broken down into working tasks. The marketers and writers estimate the time required for each task. Each iteration last up to 3 weeks.

Designing — The practice of designing involves the following steps:

¶ The design should be as simple as possible. The design should be such that it only caters to current requirements.

¶ Consistent naming conventions are followed to enable content re-use and for better understanding.

¶ Constant changes to the content to remove redundant and unused functionality thereby improving content quality.

¶ The content should be uncluttered, i.e., it will not contain content not required in the current release.

Marketing — The following rules are followed under the marketing process:

¶ Before beginning, content marketers are required to create tests that help them understand the requirements and enable them to get immediate feedback on the content written;

¶ Writing and editing should be done according to standards thereby making it easier to understand and adapt;

¶ All content needs to be reviewed sequentially and at regular intervals; and

¶ All development is to be done within the time-lines defined, no overtime is allowed.

Testing — The testing practice must follow the rules mentioned below:

¶ All content must have associated tests that ensure its functionality;

¶ Content can be released only after it clears all the associated tests; and

¶ Acceptance tests should be created to test the content against the user story for flaws.

Acceptance tests verify that the user story being developed is being correctly implemented. After the content has passed the acceptance tests, the user story is considered complete and is released to the customer.

Applications

The XP methodology is ideally suited for the following types of projects:

¶ Projects where the requirements and functionality are expected to change frequently such as with research projects and new technologies.

¶ Projects where the number of marketers is fewer.

Following these practices and principles on a day-to-day basis ensures a development process that successfully meets the objectives of XP.

These practices make for a greater availability for projects and higher quality work products. At Zen Content & Social Marketing Management, I offer XP benefits by adopting the agile practices outlined above.

Content Marketing – The Forgotten Link

“Content is King,” say the leaders. Yes, it is. What they do not mention is that your content reflects back on you. Your outbound links are important, and so are your inbound links.

Are you linking to sites or other content providers related to yours? Are the sites you send your readers to reflections of your standard of quality? Are they in a neighborhood to which you would not send your sister?

The Internet is like a great big family tree. Like a family tree, it has branches, some good, and some bad. Unlike a real family, you can choose your family members on the Internet. Your links make you part of a family, and part of a group of friends.

Are your outbound links reflections of your family group, or are they different? Do they reflect you? Do they reflect your business?

Inbound links come from other, hopefully, family group, members. If they are of the same quality that you reflect, great. If not, they might hurt your online reputation in the family.

Emphasize clear, cogent, and concise content and you will draw interested readers to your site. If what you have to say, or sell, has like content elsewhere, refer you readers there, too. But,

Be careful where you send your readers

• Are you sending them to sites relevant to yours?
• Are you sending them to spammy, ad-riddled sites? 

Keep a careful eye on where you send your readers, as this is where your readers come from. If you send readers to see clearly presented content, they will appreciate you more for it. Are the sites relevant to your site, your business? If you send readers to see junky sites, then you will get readers from there, too. Do you really want that? 

Emphasize quality, not quantity

• Write for the entire family, otherwise, do not write it.
• Have well written content, not just ephemeral notes relevant to only you. 

These are two key points. If it is a secret you do not want your competitors to know (or your sister), do you really want it on the Internet? If it is relevant to only one time, or to only one event, that has no lasting value, is it important that the whole Internet family know?

Like water finds its level, so do websites. Quality finds quality. If your site has quality outbound and inbound links yours will also likely be seen as a quality site. Sites emphasizing the best qualities of other like sites and linking to them are more likely to get quality inbound links in return.

My advice: 

1. Ignore the junky sites that want to link to yours. Their content is likely just as junky and spammy as their advertising. Break that link, too, if you can. 
2. Accept links only from sites that have quality content and relevant advertising. This is where you want to send your readers, and this is where you want your readers to come from. 

NPM

© 2012 N. P. Maling – Zen C&S MM