As your "tropical disturbance" continues to build momentum, you're drawing closer to that all-important first piece of content.
But, you've probably already noticed that a successful Content Marketing Hurricane requires a lot of planning and preparation. Otherwise, it'll just fizzle out over the open sea and no one will ever know it existed.
So the next step you'll need to consider as you prepare for that first creative effort is the huge range of media options available to you as a budding content creator.
We'll go over specific examples with a lot more information in Section Three, but for right now, let's just take a bird's eye view of what's available:
Written Content
The majority of the content being created is in written form. And this makes sense, since it translates easily to the various channels through which content is delivered and consumed, as well as all the devices we use to consume it.
It's also the medium that most content creators are most comfortable with because it doesn't require that they stand up in front of a crowd or a camera. It doesn't even require their voice. It just requires their mind, limited typing skill, and access to a computer.
Creating written content is one of those skills – like playing some musical instruments – that's easy to learn but difficult to master.
It's fairly quick and easy to throw something together and get it in front of people if you have a mediocre grasp of the language and an internet connection. But to really shine with written content requires time, patience, and practice. Not to mention an appreciation for the masters that have come before.
Of course, as you look through this list and consider your own topic(s) and your own preferences, you may find that written content is not your first choice, so keep an open mind as you review this list of potential written content:
Drilling down into written content
Yes, written content is relatively easy to produce and distribute.
But that doesn't necessarily mean it's the very best option for your specific Content Marketing Hurricane. And that's important to realize.
Written content is probably the first thing that comes to your mind when you consider creating something, but you'll need to ask yourself whether your target audience would really prefer an article over, say, a video or a podcast.
You'll also want to consider whether your writing ability (or your aptitude if you still have some practice ahead of you) can make written content shine, or if you would achieve greater success with a different medium?
After you get a grasp of written and verbal content – as well as how the two can be combined – you'll be in a better position to make your selections and test them out.
But for right now, let's assume you have an acceptable grasp of the language, and your target audience is happy to consume written content. Here are some details for you to consider:
Blogs and Online Articles
I consider a blog to be one of the most powerful means of marketing with content – especially at the beginning – because of a few factors:
Still need some convincing? Check out these blogging stats as reported by IgniteSpot.com{8}:
Can you tell I'm a fan of blogging? It's my number one weapon of choice for my own content marketing efforts, and it's done wonders for my own Content Marketing Hurricane.
Not to detract from other forms of online articles, but all of the above applies to articles created for reputable online article banks as well.
(Although, when you get right down to it, you're going to have a better chance of building your own Content Marketing Hurricane around a property you own – like your own branded blog – than around a mass of articles scattered across the web.)
Social Media
Personally, I tend to use social media primarily as a distribution tool for other content I create and as a means of locating people and companies that I'd like to be connected to.
I also share a lot of interesting things I find online that I think will be of benefit to my audience of followers.
But a lot of content marketers successfully take this a step further by actually creating bite-size content specifically for the social networks they are active on. Google+ seems to really be a magnet for this style of content marketing and I've come across a number of very talented marketers who are going to town on G+.
One of the key benefits of creating content specifically for social media is that it can become a powerful vehicle for engagement – generating conversations and building relationships – with your target audience.
Unlike posting articles or distributing e-books, content created specifically for social media channels tends to spark real conversation. Years back, a blog could accomplish this via the comments section, but these days, unfortunately, blog comments are primarily a place for self-serving marketers to sneak in a backlink to their own websites, and rarely evolves into real engagement.
For an eye-opening glimpse into the power of social media take a look at these stats, pulled together by Digital Insights{9} and current as of the publication of this book:
Newspapers, Newsletters and e-Newsletters
While the local daily newspaper is slowly going the way of the dodo, it's not dead yet. And from a business standpoint, it still can impress some pretty important people, especially if your target audience is local.
Writing articles for the local newspaper, or penning a regular column, still proves to be a very effective content marketing strategy for professionals like doctors, lawyers, and accountants. It also works well for authors who are marketing their books, and business leaders looking to expand their local expert status.
Smaller newsletters can also work well if they're popular with your target audience.
As a special note, e-Newsletters, used as a means of staying in touch regularly with e-mail subscribers on a home-grown e-mail list is probably second on my list after blogging as a powerful and flexible force in building your Hurricane.
The real secret to the power of newspapers and newsletters is the habitual nature of their readership.
Unlike blogs, most of which are read sporadically and only succeed in securing a limited percentage of their readership as subscribers, nearly 100% of a newspaper's readership gets the paper on a daily or weekly basis. And, if they're paying for that subscription, there's a very good chance they habitually set aside a portion of their day or week to sit down and peruse the paper.
If you're featured regularly as a contributor to that publication, you're going to become a familiar presence in that person's life. And before they even actually know you, they begin to like and trust you.
And that is content marketing gold.
Trade and Consumer Magazines
Just like newspapers, print magazines may be dying off, but they're not dead yet. And you'd have a hard time finding another mass media with a more targeted audience on the hook than a trade magazine that's established in a particular industry.
Most established trade magazines have digital versions available already, and at some point in the future, they may all switch over to digital-only. That doesn't change their value.
Trade magazines provide a fantastic opportunity for content marketers because – in the case of the most popular examples – subscribing to them is almost a right of passage for decision makers in that industry. For that reason, you can be sure that if your article appears in that trade magazine, a huge percentage of your target audience is going to read it.
Consumer magazines tend to have a broader appeal, but there's still a demographic and psychographic majority that each consumer mag appeals to. If your target audience includes many members of that demographic, you're going to grab a lot of eyeballs with a well-written article in Cosmopolitan or Us.
Pamphlets, Brochures and Books
The physical "thud" effect of a book still can't be beat for establishing your status as an expert in your field. Smaller printed works like brochures and pamphlets can also be quite impressive under the right circumstances.
For instance, as part of a direct mail package to a targeted list of prospects, a book or brochure printed professionally with your name on the cover has to turn some heads.
As another special note, e-Books are becoming absolutely huge! They're not just cheap .pdf downloads selling for ridiculous prices online. They are now a perfectly legitimate and recognized form of publishing that is within everyone's reach.
Writing a quality e-Book and publishing it via the Kindle format gets you on Amazon.com as a published author, which can be worth the effort in and of itself. (Special Hint: Amazon can be a fantastic source of testimonials and referrals as well, thanks to their powerful review and suggestions features!)
There are plenty of other options for written content available, but you get the point. So keep your eyes open as you consume content yourself, and make note of other options that come across your radar and may work for your own Content Marketing Hurricane.
Verbal Content
The options available are less varied with what I've labeled as "verbal content", but don't take that to mean it's less powerful.
As a matter of fact, in many ways spoken content can be a more powerful force in your Content Marketing Hurricane because it captures attention more readily, does an even better job of branding you as an expert in your field, and offers you priceless face time in front of your targeted audience that a blog post or a white paper simply cannot accomplish.
The big downside, of course, is that you have to get up in front of people and speak about your topic, and that's nearly impossible for some due to overwhelming stage fright.
But, if you're capable of doing so with skill and dignity, you can capitalize on that by getting involved in:
Drilling down into verbal content
As noted above, verbal content can be even more effective than written content for accomplishing some content marketing goals.
Why?
Speeches
Simple speeches at the local Chamber of Commerce breakfast or the Rotary Club, or keynote addresses in front of thousands... regardless of the size and format, if you're willing and able to get up in front of an audience and talk about your subject of choice, you're going to garner attention.
A short speech can be quick and easy to prepare, and yet be powerful in its effect.
As an added benefit, most opportunities to speak in front of a crowd are automatic networking opportunities as well. As a speaker on the program, you'll naturally attract the attention of those audience members, providing a perfect ice breaker for conversations before and after the speech.
Seminars and Workshops
A seminar can be as simple as a series of speeches that follow an educational course outline. In many cases, these are not only powerful in their effect on your content marketing efforts, but are also a source of revenue if managed properly.
The benefit of a seminar over one or more speeches really depends on the content you're trying to get across and how involved in the learning process your audience needs to be. If some extensive back-and-forth questions and answers would be beneficial for them, a seminar setting may be best. If a lot of hands-on experiential learning is more appropriate, a workshop may work better.
As you develop your content marketing strategy, you'll need to determine what level of time, energy and money you can dedicate toward this channel. If allowed, it can become all-consuming, especially if you're handling all the event planning yourself.
But, if running seminars and workshops proves to be the most effective content marketing weapon in your arsenal, it can be, not only effective from a marketing standpoint, but very lucrative as well.
Recordings
For true Content Marketing Hurricane benefit, making an audio and/or video recording of any speech, seminar, or workshop you deliver makes all the sense in the world.
This allows you to multiply the value of each occurrence, extend its reach beyond the limited number of attendees, and use that content permanently for repurposing and even the addition of revenue streams as your strategy progresses.
Although you may have your personal preferences between verbal and written content, you'll likely find – as most content marketers do – that a combination of the two types works best to attract and convert the most members of your target audience.
Combining the Two
Another increasingly popular form of content creation made feasible by the online craze encapsulated in YouTube, iTunes, and Slideshare, requires combining writing skill with a willingness and ability to put yourself out there in front of the audience, at least to an extent.
Video
With YouTube holding its place as the second most popular search engine online, and the increasing popularity and efficacy of mobile video, adding online video to your Content Marketing Hurricane should be high on your priority list.
Even if you shied away from the public speaking route because of stage fright, you can likely make a success of starring in your own online videos through detailed planning, script writing, and practice.
Since you don't actually have to see your audience looking at you, and you have the luxury of going back and re-recording any part you're not happy with, there's a way to fit video into your comfort zone.
Of course, you don't have to star in every video you make. There are plenty of other options including videos made from screen captures, PowerPoint presentation slides, combined still images... the options are nearly endless.
But, since one of the main benefits of video is the way it draws your audience to the human side of what you are discussing, don't eliminate yourself (or at least some human being) from the equation completely.
To get a handle on just how powerful online video has become from a marketing standpoint, take a look at these ten statistics curated by Strothers Communications Group on their 41 Stories blog{10}:
Podcasting
While technically some podcasts employ video, for the sake of our discussion, we'll consider podcasting to be the audio side of the equation.
Podcasting has proven to be a quiet explosion of content for years now. The premise is simple: anyone can record themselves speaking, upload it to iTunes and a number of other podcasting services for free, and have their recordings streamed to subscribers automatically to be perused at their leisure via their iPods, in their car, on their morning run, or wherever.
Using this basic formula, many content marketers have built huge audiences of avid listeners who tune in for every episode, engage with the podcaster via comments and links that accompany the recording, and become rabid brand evangelists as a result.
If you can get used to the sound of your own voice, and are interested in exploring the creative options available in podcasting, you can consider it an audio blog as it has basically the same potential.
Presentations
What used to be the boring "necessary evil" of the board room is now the darling of the content marketer: slide presentations.
Thanks primarily to SlideShare, especially after its acquisition by LinkedIn, slide presentations created on PowerPoint or a number of other popular applications can be easily distributed across the internet.
These presentations often employ stunning visuals, emotive backing music or narration, and sparse but powerful text to tell stories that each of those media by themselves could not.
But the key to the effective use of presentations – as it is with videos and podcasts – is a strategically written script.
The script doesn't need to be anything formal, but it's important that the backbone of the script exist before the video, podcast, or presentation is created. Otherwise, it's very easy for one of these media to fly off track and lose its value to your Content Marketing Hurricane.
This has been a lot to take in...
As we'll discuss in more detail going forward, each of the different media and the channels available to distribute them have their own pros and cons, and no content marketing strategy is required to use all of them.
But every content marketer should be aware of all of them, and stay on top of new avenues and technologies for content creation, distribution, and consumption as they appear.
The key, as always, is to pick and choose strategically what is going to work best for you and your target audience, and always keep adapting as needed to keep your Content Marketing Hurricane spinning.
Exercise #13 – Brainstorming: Deciding on Media
1. Using the niches and microniches you identified in the previous two exercises, choose which forms of media make the most sense for the target audience you're going after.
2. Remember to take into consideration your own abilities, likes and dislikes as well. But, don't rule something out that you can learn to be comfortable with.
3. Read the next chapter.