Many small businesses use blogging and social media in an ineffective way, posting items that have little to do with advancing the goals of the business. For online marketing to be successful, it must be intentional. There must be a plan or strategy behind it and each blog or social media post must support the goals of that plan.
Being intentional means you are performing these tasks with a purpose behind the action, not doing them haphazardly.
But for some, the idea of being intentional might not come naturally, though. S o we offer some tips on how to make your posts more purposeful.
Know the Target Market
Every business should have a business and marketing plan. From those documents, you can find the mission statement and marketing goals of the company. These items will identify what the company is trying to achieve, how it will reach those objectives and the make up of its target market.
Having that target market information is particularly important, because it tells you the make up of the audience for which you will be creating content.
For example, a lawn mower sales business might identify its target market as males aged 30 to 55 who own homes. Messaging to this group would be very different than messaging to a group of young, single mothers who live with their parents.
Understanding your target is key for identifying the types of content to create and the persona voice to use when creating them.
Create a Content Strategy
As mentioned above, the business and marketing plan should have the company’s goals listed along with the mission statement. From these, you can get the official view of what the company is about and what it wants to be.
Staying with the example of the lawn mower dealer, a possible mission for that business could be, “to provide the best home lawn care equipment and service in the area.”
Once you understand that mission, it is much easier to create a content strategy that supports it. The content strategy should identify various types of content that you will create or share online. Remember, the content should support the mission statement while also appealing to the target market.
Some possible content categories for the lawn mower business might be lawn care tips, lawn mower care tips, landscaping tips, and so on. These are all topics that surround the mission of the business, that of providing the best lawn mowers and service in the area. They are also topics that a homeowner might search for and find helpful. Thus the helpfulness of the content might lead prospects to your website.
Online Marketing Editorial Calendar
Now that you have selected the content categories, identify the source for each one. Some will most likely be curated from websites, while others might be created by someone at your company in the form of a blog article.
Once you’ve identified the sources, create an editorial calendar and place these items in it at regular intervals. For example, maybe you will create a blog every week. Now, looking forward, you will have these articles and your social media posts planned out by the content category for an extended period of time.
The Wrap
By creating a plan and sticking to it, you will force your online marketing to be intentional. Planning your social and blog posts in advance will keep you on track.
On the other hand, not following a plan will lead you to hastily search for something to post. That’s when you will post anything you can find, causing you to stray from being intentional.
If you want more information about how to be intentional in your online marketing, call me at 513-237-5530.
Bob Turner is a Digital Marketing Consultant in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Bob Turner - Digital Marketing Thoughts 
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