3 Steps to Create a Global Social Media Content Plan
Posted on 05. Oct, 2011 by Lee Odden in Blog, content marketing, content plan, Guest Posts, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, social business, Social Media
Note from Lee: I’ve known Michael Brito for about 5 years (he hired my agency TopRank Marketing when he was at HP) and I’ve followed his moves around Silicon Valley from Yahoo to Intel to his current role as SVP, Social Business Planning, Edelman Digital. Michael’s new book on Social Business (Included in our list of Optimized Online Marketing Books) is something I’ve been looking forward to and I asked if he’d share some tactical insights with our community. This post focuses on content and social media for companies operating globally.
Creating a social media content plan is easy if you own the customer experience in one country (well, not that easy). It’s a whole different story if that level of responsibility included countries in Latin America, Europe or Asia. When expanding into global markets, strictly from a content perspective, there are 3 important things to consider — the establishment of governance policy, a content library and community management.
Establishment of a Governance Policy
Governance can mean a lot of different things. In this context, it needs to be the foundation of the content plan. Not in terms of content creation but in terms of standards and processes for expanding into a certain market. For example, Company A wants to launch a Facebook page and Twitter channel in Latin America to support its operations into that region. A governance model will ensure that the regional marketing team has the following lined up before launch:
- A content plan to include frequency and context of Tweets, Facebook Updates, blog posts (or whatever relevant tools/platforms are used in that region)
- An established moderation policy
- A crisis communication plan
- An understanding and “buy in” of the measurement philosophy (everyone in the organization SHOULD be measuring social media the same way)
More importantly, a smart governance model will have checks and balances to determine if there is even a need to create additional social channels in specific regions. It may be more effective to leverage a Facebook tab for regional, specific content.
Content Library
If it’s one thing that marketing teams in other regions lack, it’s content. The reality is that most brands do have really good content. It’s just scattered all across the internet, various internal portals and even within employees’ inboxes. Content can include videos, PDFs, spec sheets, FAQ, blog posts, infographics and the list goes on.
A content library is an internal web property that aggregates, hosts and/or links to branded content. Like the screen shot below, content can be categorized by product, language or by a timeline of when the content was created; and it’s very easy for a region (or employee) to share the content with their social graph or branded channel.
A content library can also include hashtags and other campaign elements, specifically for a product launch or event. This ensures that employees, regions and even partners are consistent when sharing content which is good for driving awareness about a particular initiative as well as pulling metrics reports.
Community Management
Without an active community manager, a content marketing plan will fail. A community manager will not only be responsible for actively posting and aggregating content; but he/she is essentially the face of the brand and should be sanctioned to solve customer problems. A proficient community manager will answer questions and provide real and “tangible” solutions to disgruntled customers. Additionally, he/she should have the authority to provide rewards to random customers simply for being customers.
Michael Brito is an SVP, Social Business Planning at Edelman Digital. He just released his new social business book, Smart Business, Social Business: A Playbook for Social Media in Your Organization. You can also follow him on Twitter.
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3 Steps to Create a Global Social Media Content Plan | http://www.toprankblog.com
Core Content SEO Tools: Keyword Glossary & Editorial Plan
Posted on 18. May, 2011 by Lee Odden in Blog, content marketing, content plan, editorial plan, keyword glossary, seo tools, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing
It’s funny when you work in an industry for a long time that the basic things you create to make life a little easier can save others who are new to the field, a lot of time. I’ve done a few webinars and speaking events in the past few months where one of the tools suggested was a Keyword Glossary (spreadsheet) for managing category and page level optimization, keyword mapping and competitor keyword mapping.
Another tool was an Editorial Plan that documents articles/blog posts, media, promotion and planned re-purposing. There are basic building blocks for becoming more efficient with search engine optimization tasks, but I’ve received a lot of requests for them. I thought they might be useful to our readers to use for inspiration to create their own and maybe even modify and mashup into something better.
Below are screen shots which you can click to see larger versions.
Basic Keyword Glossary
After conducting research using one of the various keyword research tools, organizing that information in a useful format like a Keyword Glossary helps SEOs manage their on page optimization and it brings a measure of accountability as well. The example of above shows a matrix of competitors sites that have been optimized for the target phrases, a list of primary and secondary phrases with measures of popularity and competitiveness. The phrases are also mapped to category levels or individual pages so you know which pages are being optimized for what keywords.
Basic Content Plan for a Blog
It’s no mystery that we like blogs as an online marketing, Social, SEO and content marketing tool. Planning content through an editorial calendar (as a magazine other publication would) is essential for producing content that is of interest to the target audience, that represent target keywords, and keeps authors on track and flush with ideas on what to write about.
The spreadsheet above shows dates for publishing, titles, keywords, categories, media used, cross-posting, promotion channels/tactics and future re-purposing of the content. Organizing an editorial plan like this helps online marketers gain maximum value for their investment into content creation and also makes curation more valuable.
The best tool or format depends on your own needs and applications. That’s why I don’t link to the actual spreadsheets – at least part of the reason. 
However, will be making the actual spreadsheets available at BlogWorld New York and the Vocus User’s Conference in Baltimore. Be sure you check out my sessions if you’re attending those events.
What kinds of templates have you created for managing SEO and content marketing tasks?
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© Online Marketing Blog, 2011. |
Core Content SEO Tools: Keyword Glossary & Editorial Plan | http://www.toprankblog.com
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