Wondering what makes content marketing different from blogging?
Content is the backbone of an integrated digital marketing strategy. Contrary to popular belief, while content marketing is similar to blogging, they both don’t just mean creating content to post on your site!
Here are 8 things a content marketer (usually) does, which make them different from bloggers.
1. Following trends
While many bloggers don’t bother looking at recent trends, content marketers are obsessed with this sort of data. Content marketing depends on knowing what top blogs publish each week so they can stay as relevant as possible.
2. Building connections
Content marketing relies on relationships with other influential bloggers. Smart content marketers start building connections long before they need them.
Meanwhile bloggers often don’t bother making connections, and then later wonder why don’t they get any shares.
3. Writing a post is just the beginning
‘Content Marketing’ is made up of two words: Content and Marketing. After a content marketer creates a post or writes content, a whole new process begins (of marketing work).
Content must be marketing content so that it can reach the right audience via the appropriate medium. This could be SEO, email marketing, social media, or even word of mouth.
Most companies tend to re-share content over and over to market it. To do this, experienced content marketers will fire up their scheduling tools, plug in some good content and schedule it periodically far into the future. This helps them promote their stuff when they need to, without over doing it in too short a period and seeming too self-promotional.
On the other hand, many bloggers don’t bother promoting their work. Their work often starts and ends with writing a post, and then pressing ‘publish’.
4. Keyword research
Have you ever searched for keywords for your content, before actually writing it? Well content marketers begin their writing process with keyword research on their topic, to find out what phrases are popular and which ones would help with search engine ranking.
Next, content marketers build these phrases into engaging headings, to attract readers, and make sure content is as relevant as possible to what people want to read.
Bloggers, on the other hand, write in a way that they fancy. They don’t search for any keywords – they just write as well as they can.
While no-one should stuff keywords into their posts – knowing what people are searching for (and therefore interested in) can make a blog post more popular.
5. Promotion of posts
Have you ever wondered before writing a post about how difficult it would be to promote it? Content marketers have everything planned to make it easy to share once they have written their post.
Content marketers use various ways to promote their posts including mentioning big brands or quoting top influencers, who might share the posts with their large audiences.
Bloggers however usually don’t intend to find ways to promote their topic in advance. This can leave them scrambling for ideas once the post is out there.
6. Devising complementary content
Content marketing strategists usually know about what they are going to publish on their blog a month from now. They know what they will be selling months from now, and are busy devising the complementary content that will drive the right sort of readers.
Bloggers on the other hand usually don’t focus on devising complementary content, which can leave posts seeming out of place and off topic once they are published.
7. End with a Call To Action (CTA)
A good content marketer usually closes their posts by making a Call-to-Action. That means that they end by letting you know what they would like you to do next, even if it is just about subscribing to their blog. This Call-to-Action drives readers along the road to being buyers.
8. Increase your social media audience
Being a content marketer means that you can offer more than just good writing. It means you are both good at writing, and have promotional savvy.
Social media is one of the prime content-marketing tools. Content marketers connect with popular bloggers who already have a social media audience, and this further helps them build up reach pretty quickly.
Conclusion
Blogging and Content Marketing are two different forms of branded content, but they aren’t mutually exclusive. Both are important, and both serve a different role when speaking to customers.
When summed up, blogging aims to showcase a brand’s personality, while Content Marketing aims to create a demand through useful information.