10 Resolutions to make around your content marketing in the New Year
A new year is upon us, which means the time is right to start from a clean slate or up the ante on what you successfully built in 2015. We all know that “resolutions” tend to turn into “one solid month of dedication followed by an 11-month bender of kicking ourselves in disappointment.” Well, we’re not going to let that happen this year—especially with your content marketing. We’ve put together a list of 10 content marketing resolutions to make for 2016.
- Assemble a content marketing strategy. Do you have a website for your business but can’t remember the last time you updated it? Then the perfect resolution for you is to put together a content strategy for 2016. Read this post to break in your new shoes and follow some of the below resolutions to get 5-steps ahead.
- Populate your editorial calendar for the entire first quarter. We love our editorial calendars. This year? We’re going to get a quarter ahead on planning. Yes, this is ambitious and there’s work to do on the front-end, but come February, we’ll be productivity machines. And then, we’ll start grinding on the second quarter, because it’s a new year resolution so, we can’t just stop after the first quarter.
- Make a promise to evaluate your analytics. From your subscriber list to your social media audience, checking in on your metrics is the best way to learn from and grow your content. It’s hard to buckle down and look at metrics every year or even every month. Build the habit to break this down into bite-size chunks. Take a look on Sunday, make note of what’s working and what’s not, and tweak each week.
- Read great content. This is self-explanatory. If you want to create great content, you better be reading great content. Start making your way through one of these lists.
- Find brands and competitors that are doing it right. Take notes of the kind of content they share, and look to replicate the structure and format in an original way. You can learn a lot from studying the great content marketers. The key is quality over content every step of the way.
- Stay educated. Take a course in copywriting, marketing or online business to hone those skills and stay in the know about new trends. Or get creative and take an improv class or join a book club. Unique experiences stimulate different parts of your brain and it will show in your brand innovation and written works.
- Give back. Through mentorship, volunteering, or charitable donations. giving is one way to spur creativity and growth while doing good for others.
- Perform a target audience and brand gut check. Are you on track with where you want to be? Are you engaging the right audience? If not, take a look at the messaging your putting out the the world and see if that might be the cause. Need to tune up your target market? Use our target audience identification worksheet to tighten up your expectations.
- Challenge yourself to a reformat task. What alternative content can you create by reformatting your blog posts? Considerer creating added content through video, podcasts, white papers, or social media campaigns. How can you get creative and revitalize your content in a way that is new and different?
- Ok, you have 9 solid resolutions and you’re still not up to the challenge? Contact Yakkety Yak to see how we can help you get on top of your content marketing game. That’s right, there’s no shame in deciding that you would rather not ‘DIY’ it. We’re here to help you free up some of those resolutions so you can focus on growing other parts of your business. That’s why resolution #10 is to hire someone else to take charge of your content.
And that’s it. Pick as many resolutions as you need to make 2016 your most abundant, content-packed year, yet. Leave us a comment and let us know which ones you want to be held accountable for. Share it with us and your friends on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.