In the prior lesson, we reviewed case studies of companies that are doing a great job with content marketing. In the final lesson, for this module and the overall course, it's time to get back to basics. Let's take a top down look at what content marketing is about and how it works. You'll remember that I've said from the very beginning, that it starts with reputation and your visibility online. But of course, we want to grow our audience because that helps us that. And because this is an SEO specialization, we want to get some links as well and do the things that will drive SEO value for our overall business. You'll remember that I shared a chart in the very first module about how content marketing drives visibility. We have our target audiences over on the right here, media, bloggers, influencers, your target audience segments, customers, partners. These are all different audiences we're trying to reach. And we have many different ways to do that. Of course, we're trying to accomplish SEO goals through this specialization, so search engine optimization is part of that. But from a content marketing perspective, we've got branded and editorial content. We can do offline content marketing, that's very much a part of it. Social media promotion and engagement, and of course, influencer marketing. These are all components, and they all help us reach these audiences. And remember, we also talked about how today's environment is an ecosystem. You publish great content on your site, you share it in social media. You use PR, you use effective outreach. And that leads to relationship building with media, bloggers, influencers, of course, your target audience, all very useful. But it isn't just about publishing content on-site. You can also use publishing off-site, third-party sites, where it gives you exposure to those same audiences and same promotional channels. And this is also a big part of any content marketing campaign. And I also explained that social media can help drive links for you. Sharing on social media, gosh, if you're sharing great content, helps your social media presences grow. And yet, those social media presences turn back around and send traffic, links, and new subscribers to your content. Keep in mind though, when you first start out in content marketing you probably start with no audience. And maybe you're a large brand and you already have kind of an inherent audience, but when you first start they're not really expecting high value content from them. So they're not conditioned yet, to you're being a provider of this kind of stuff. So, you kind of start from ground zero, and you have to work up from there. So, how do you go about doing that? Well, social media sharing can help you build your audience. As I've shown before, sharing something on your own social media feed, puts you in front of your audience, called Susie's Audience on this slide. And someone in your audience retweets it, and now you're in front of their audience, back to OPA, and other people's audience. And that's great, because larger audiences increase your overall visibility. Now your social media feeds and the people who are used to coming to your site for great content, or, look for your content on other sites, that audience has grown, more media, more influencers, and more secondary audiences. This is fantastic. But, influencers are a big part too, they can also help you build your audience. Here, I'm showing an influencer, still calling her Susie Powers but imagine it's an influencer this time, sharing on Twitter or any social media site. Get in front of her audience. Somebody retweets it. Get in front of their audience. So, this is two incremental audiences that you're getting in front of. Helps you build your audience as well. And this is great because influencers have larger audiences. And as I explained in the last module, influences have influence. And that means they have more of an impact on the audience than perhaps you do on yours. This is important too. And, keep in mind that influencers, therefore, act as an accelerant. So, I'm showing that same virtuous circle in that red rectangle up top. But, influencers make the whole thing go faster as a result of their social sharing. And last but not least, how does all this drive SEO? Well, here's a much more complicated version of the chart. So, I'm now showing that same rectangle in the middle with the blog post being shared and social media share taking place. And, that might actually result in links to your content because people see it and choose to link to it. And those links drive your SEO. And by the way, internal links on your site plus those external links drive value to the post you published. And, that also gives you visibility which drives more followers through your social media feed. And then down at the bottom, we still have the accelerator making the whole process go faster. This is a view of the entire ecosystem. Now, for the first time, I've actually looped in the SEO benefits a little bit more deliberately and discreetly so you can actually see it. It's very powerful. You can make this work for you. And then last but not least, don't ever forget that this group over here on the right is your community. These are your peeps. You have to treat them that way. You have to think of them as family. You have to nurture them. You have to grow the relationships. None of this works if you ever lose sight of that. Very, very key point. So, there you have it. Never forget that content marketing needs to be about building your reputation and visibility first. You're only a part of a larger community. You hope to be recognized as a leading contributor to that community. These principles are at the core any successful content marketing program. Just one more video to wrap up this course. And in that, I plan to share some final thoughts, that I hope can provide you with some perspective on your own path in content marketing.
