There is a lot of information flying around about content marketing – you’ve probably seen it.
But so much of it relates to the corporate structure. It’s content marketing for big business.
On the flip side, there’s a lot of information about personal branding – principally revolving around engagement strategies, connections and awareness about who you are and what you do.
So let’s bring the two of those together and think about this: what’s your personal content marketing strategy?
But Wait – You Work for a Firm?
The reason, of course, that many professionals don’t consider media creation from a personal perspective is that they work for a firm.
And, of course, your firm probably owns everything you do in terms of media creation.
If you make a video about your work – then your employer probably owns it.
If you write an article about a success story – then your employer probably owns it.
If you manage to sneeze into your handkerchief and discover that the pattern resembles a lost masterpiece from Monet – then your employer probably owns that too.
So you have two options at this point: have a conversation with someone and make sure that what you’re going to do isn’t going to ruffle too many feathers. Based on the answer you can then decide how much feather rustling is too much for your personal circumstances.
Alternatively, you can just do it and wait for someone to tell you to stop.
Personally, I’m a fan of the second one but I don’t want to encourage people to do things that will get them fired, so this way you can’t say I didn’t warn you.
Once you’ve got that done, you’re ready to go.
The next question being… get going with what?
Production or Curation?
Most people think of content marketing in purely terms of creating stuff.
Videos, articles, podcasts – you could do it all.
Except that you probably don’t have the time. After all, you probably work some fairly long hours, right?
So if you’re not up for a consistent regime of content creation, then what about curation instead?
You already read a lot I’m sure – curation simply involves organising yourself so that you can strategically and consistently share the best content with your personal additions and comments.
So how to do that?
Here’s a process that you can replicate for free, and easily:
- Sign up for a free account at Feedly.com
- Sign up for a free account at evernote.com
- Sign up for a free account at buffer.com
- Yes – you now have three new accounts – congratulate yourself on having more login details to remember going forward…
- Into feedly, search for and create a pool of resources that you commonly read – there will be more than you can possibly ever get through.
- Use feedly for your reading – as you find things that are great – save them to evernote.
- Each week, from evernote, take 10 articles and add them to buffer, so it will automatically share out to your LinkedIn and Facebook audiences (or whichever accounts you choose).
Simple, right? 7 steps (one of which was a joke, and 3 of which involved clicking a few buttons) and integrating this habit into your usual reading patterns, and presto – you have a content strategy.
Of course – just yet you’re not creating things, but you’re still offering value, and that’s the aim of the game here.
We’ll get into creation soon enough, but for now enjoy simply taking your value proposition to the next level, and having to barely write a word in the process.
Until next time…
