It is the new year already and I’m sure every entrepreneur and marketers must have gotten over the hangover of the holidays. You want to do the most natural thing everybody does in the new year: make new year’s resolutions.
With our (I mean humans in general) notorious ability to not stick to every new year’s resolutions we make, there’s been serious debate on whether people should even make new year’s resolutions anymore.
While many believe making resolutions is not any effective, I’m thinking otherwise.
You might not be able to stick to your new year’s resolutions but I think making resolutions holds up to certain expectations, which we always try to pursue. Even though this attempt may not be successful with most people, the reality is we always end up improving ourselves.
So for every content marketer out there, here are 6 new year’s resolutions you should make.
Be More Helpful and Less Critical
In a world where everyone wants to be heard, it easy to fall into the trap of ranting. Its actually a good thing to voice your disagreement with some popularly held believes and ideas, but going over the top with this will only make people respect you or any brand you represent less.
Instead, focus on investing more passion and efforts into delivering solutions through very helpful, and entertaining content for your audience. Trust me, the reward is worth the effort!
Go Simpler
We know you have a Phd in English and marketing, but please leave the big words for your thesis. Keep your content crisp, simple and easy to read for everyone.
Successful marketers are those that have mastered the craft of simplicity.
Your blog posts should be so simple a lay man would easily understand what you’re saying. To get this right, use short sentences, and use the simplest of words.
Guest Blog More Often
Yeah! You should guest blog more often. Top experts agree that guest blogging is going to play a pivotal role in 2015’s content marketing efforts. This doesn’t mean that marketers will only use guest blogging to advance SEO, no! But marketers will use it to create brand awareness and build relationships.
Don’t even think about it, cheap guest post won’t do the trick. Only quality articles written with the audience in mind and posted on authoritative sites will return results.
Make New Friends
It’s time to finally get out of your shell and make new friends. Start by following someone on Twitter and then taking time to write an email praising their contributions to your industry. We all need to connect with each other again.
I know a lot of content marketers are always busy doing their “stuffs”, but the fact is we all need one another. So embrace the idea of reaching out to people without an intent to benefit from the relationship and you’ll become really good at networking.
Put Your Audience Before Your Goals
It’s natural to have goals for each marketing material you create for your brand. I mean, this is why you’re in the business in the first place. But as part of your new year’s resolution, let the audience take priority in 2015. Doing this will not only give you a clear view of how to arrive at a solution for your audience, it is also the shortcut to creating high quality content.
Once you’ve learned to put your audience above your goals, your marketing efforts will be a lot simpler.
Embrace Other forms of Content
Content marketing does not live in just one form of content. If you’ve been using more of written content in your marketing efforts in 2014, now is the time to embrace other forms of content. 2015 is the year video and other easily digested forms of content will take rule.
What other resolutions have you made for 2015? Please share them with me in the comment section.