In order to maintain an effective content marketing strategy, you need to churn out new, high quality, engaging content like clockwork. While there’s no end to ideas for new content, if you know where and how to look, the simple act of creating all of these videos and blog posts, day in and day out, can grow tedious and cumbersome after awhile. Can’t the Magic Content Fairy just wave her wand and create new posts for you?
Well, not quite. But with a little innovation, it IS possible to get other people to create some of your content for you, easing the burden on your own office. Here are three ways of acquiring content without having to make it yourself.
- Guest posts. This is not only a good way of getting people to write content for you, it’s also great for networking and cross-promotion. Build up relationships with other bloggers in your field that have their own following, and ask them to do a guest post on your blog. From your readers’ point of view, it provides a fresh perspective on a topic they’re interested in. From the author’s perspective, it’s a chance to broaden their horizons and reach a new audience. From your perspective, it’s not only someone to write a blog post so you don’t have to, but a chance to tap into their existing following and make them aware of your blog and your brand. This also works for videos. There are thousands of video creators on YouTube. Find one willing to collaborate and hand them the camera for a week. The one caveat to hosting guest content is that, later, your guest may ask you to do the same for their blog or YouTube channel, so it won’t actually save you any effort. It will afford you a much-needed respite, though, and even further opportunity to tap into their existing audience.
- Content curation. This is a popular method of gathering content to post on your social media channels. Whereas your blog needs posts two or three times a week to remain current, your Facebook page should be posted on at least two or three times a day. How do you keep up? Gather content from around the web and share it with your followers: pictures, memes, videos, links, and anything else your audience may find interesting. That’s not to say steal it. Always, always give proper credit for whatever content you find/use, and link back to that person’s page or profile. A number of popular Facebook pages employ this method, including the immensely popular George Takei. It’s a win-win. You get content for your page, they get a new audience for what they’ve created.
- User-generated content. This one is so easy, and so effective, it almost seems like cheating somehow. But it’s a legitimate way of generating both content and interest for your brand. Get your users excited about generating their own content, that you host on your site. You can do this in a number of different ways. You can hold contests for fans to submit photos, videos, or essays. You can feature a review section on your site and encourage people to leave their comments about the product they’ve just bought. Or you can simply ask them. If your brand is popular and your own content is innovative enough, users will be eager for the chance to participate themselves. Then when you host their content, they’ll also be eager to share it with their friends—thus doing another part of your job for you as well.
