Page 135 - The Content Code: Six essential strategies to ignite your content, your marketing, and your business - PDFDrive.com

Promote your content “As seen on …”: Have you been quoted or featured
on a well-known blog, newspaper, or television show? Don’t keep it a
secret. Many content creators use “As seen on …” testimonies to display
where they have appeared, powerful social proof.
Request endorsements: Here’s the cool thing about LinkedIn
endorsements—they’re public and permanent. And you can use them
anywhere. Go ahead and ask some of your favorite customers for a
recommendation and then promote the heck out of them.
Take advantage of friends and family: If you’re just starting a content-
creation effort, don’t be shy about asking for help. Explain to everyone you
know how important it is to get your blog off the ground and ask them for a
little Twitter or Facebook love. Ask them to leave a comment, too, while
they’re at it!
Activate employees: Every person in your company has a stake in making
your marketing as successful as possible. Identify employees who are social
media enthusiasts and ask them to help support the effort with some social
sharing. Devoted employees usually feel proud about participating in
marketing activities. You may even send out an email once a week with
suggested tweets that they can either post as written or use as inspiration.
Highlight testimonials: Dr. Gary Schirr of Radford University left this
review of my book Social Media Explained: “Mark Schaefer is the master
of great little books about marketing.” That’s a great validation, so I have
that quote posted on several sites featuring my book, including Amazon. If
your company collects testimonials, sprinkle them throughout your website
on the pages you know will be seen often. A quote from someone who says
she learned valuable lessons from your content can help persuade a visitor
who’s not sure whether or not to subscribe to your content channel.
Promote badges: Visit any university website and I guarantee you’ll find
at least one badge on the site touting something like “Named one of the Top
10 Business Schools in Southeast New Mexico.” Everyone is known for
something. If you’re listed, named, featured, or honored … let people
know.
Focus on powerful customer reviews: When is the last time you made a
meaningful purchase on Amazon or an eCommerce site without glancing at
the reviews? Scoring systems are powerful social proof, but don’t get too
upset about a few negative reviews. Nobody’s perfect, and the balance
actually adds to the credibility of the reviews.
Keep track of subscriber counts: People feel comfortable joining the
crowd. Many sites feature a counter with numbers of subscribers to a