How To Become An Efficient Content Producer For Your Web Domain

Good Content Makes It Much Easier To Boost Your Web Presence

Finding the time to build good content is essential for inbound marketing. It’s the cornerstone of visitor engagement and long term ROI. Yet, it requires a firm commitment by top management. I’ve been re-reading “Smart Content Marketing Relies On Efficient Production,” a useful post by Derek Gordon from Search Insider on 4/27/11. Here’s a quote:

Who has time to do all this stuff? By stuff, marketing professionals are referring to the production and distribution of the variety of content that flows from strategies that are built to engage audiences, improve search rank, and yield better bottom line business results.

Efficient production techniques can help you become more successful at building good content

Which is all very nice but one must come up with the goods, right? It won’t just grow on a tree all by itself. You have to write it, produce it, make all the edits and write, write, write some more, thereby producing the videos, articles & posts, photos, webinars, eBooks, podcasts and tweets. And, you need to attract inbound links from others.

Who said it was going to be so easy and facile anyway? (Okay, I’m indulging a little.)

Most of the clients I know, the ones who have never jumped into blogging, are a little wary of the commitment they’ll need to make in pursuit of content marketing. We work with small organizations. Mostly we’re into a business blogging approach when the idea of content marketing is under discussion. But one could also be looking at photography, online videos and/or webinars as the driving force for establishing an inbound marketing program. It really doesn’t matter. The continued production of interesting information, is a relatively new mindset for many organizations. Unless they’re used to a regular diet of corporate communications and ‘PR,’ the notion of actually developing an Editoral Calendar scares the devil out of these firms. Tell them the advantages of building a website in a blogging tool like WordPress, and using it as a Content Management System (CMS), the marketing manager or owner may perk up a little, but you can feel some of the air leaving the room at the same time because the benefit comes at a price.

Efficient production is extremely important in this regard. You need to go forward with efficiency right off, or you may not get very far. Derek Gordon talks about an interview done by a Bloomberg reporter who asked if he could record the session on his Flip HD video camera. By doing this the reporter said he could edit a brief ‘newscast’ for the video channel:

• then use the transcript to write up the story;
• then use the audio for a podcast:
• then use a few still photos captured from the video for the Title screens;
• and for online display ads to be used on Bloomberg’s web properties.

The formula would seem easy enough: record the session in a no frills manner using a Flip HD camcorder (on a tripod with external microphone works best), return to your office and start slicing, editing and producing the elements into plug & play system that publishes directly to your website and social network.

There is a very satisfying simplicity to this content strategy. The primary road block to this model may be more psychological than physical or budgetary. But of course there’s a learning curve and a commitment curve as well.

You will need to establish a Web Hub to be constructed from your website and blog, your social framework which may use popular tools such as  FaceBook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google + and varied bookmarking sites, etc. But once you have established your online presence based on these elements, you will have most everything you may need to capture useful streams of compelling information.

I can feel it starting to happen with the customer at this point. A dawn of recognition. The look of awareness and interest starting to grow.

You have likely been there yourself in your meetings. What do you do to help your boss, or colleague, start taking the next few steps toward the most focus set of goals?