We all know that the way we network and share ideas is changing. With so much of our interactions moving online, many industries have had to adapt or risk becoming irrelevant. This has had a strong impact on publishers of all kinds, whether publishing blogs or other online content, or traditional print publishing. The instantaneous response allowed for by online forums has led to social publishing, which in turn has changed consumers’ expectations of how publishers share content.
Social publishing is the art of publishing content in ways that allow people to respond and give feedback (think of the comments section of a blog). Implied is the social aspect involved in this type of sharing–the potential to build relationships based on responsiveness. With the advent of social publishing, publishers have a veritable goldmine at their fingertips of instant information, feedback, and the necessary ingredients to build strong client relationships.
The real question, however, is: how well are we taking advantage of the way they are changing? Read on for the five best practices for social publishing.
1. Optimize your Social Media Profile
All this really boils down to is improving your social media profiles to make them more streamlined, attractive, and useful. This is more than just making them aesthetically appealing, however. An important consideration is to figure out the best times of day to post content to encourage responses. Make sure to also incorporate social sharing on all your social media profiles to let your audience know where they can engage with you.
2. Create a Social Media Style Guide
When it comes to social media, having a style guide to keep all your content consistent is key. This is because inconsistent messaging is a very real problem; with most organizations having more than one contributor to their online content or managing social media platforms, and with each contributor writing in their own style, there is a very good chance that important information will be lost. By creating a style guide, you can guarantee that readers understand the key takeaways–and when they respond, it will be to the ideas you clearly present.
3. Customize your Content
Customizing the content for all the social publishing you do is an important aspect of your inbound marketing strategy. You need to make strategic decisions about what platform you’re publishing what content on, and what options you’re giving your readers to respond. For example, if you want people to engage in long-form or in detail, it makes little sense to publish your content on Twitter. Instead, try putting it on Facebook, where the character limit is much greater and contributors have more freedom to fully express themselves.
4. Share Relevant Industry Content
Along with customizing your content, it’s important to socially publish content that is relevant to your industry so readers benefit from reading and contributing to the conversation. Another benefit is that, often, your readers will even share relevant information which you weren’t aware of, which will help you learn more and expand the subjects you may choose to publish content about later.
5. Publish on a Consistent Basis
This cannot be emphasized enough. Publish, publish, publish–regularly! From a marketing perspective, there’s nothing worse than seeing a blog section (or something similar) on a company’s website and then seeing that it hasn’t been updated since 2013. Your audience will certainly be confused about why you started social publishing if you had no plans to continue; it bespeaks a lack of strategy and purpose when you started out. On the other hand, a regularly updated blog lets your clients and industry members know that you are relevant and engaged, and it increases the likelihood that they will get engaged, as well.
COMMENTS