Content marketing involves creating content that not only promotes your brand, but also focuses on creating content that attracts and maintains a dedicated audience. Content marketing relies on creating and posting content that is educational, insightful, entertaining, and overall valuable to a brand’s audience. The ultimate goal of content marketing to is develop a loyal following of customers who will make purchases, resulting in an increase in brand revenue.

One example of successful content marketing is Blendtec’s “Will It Blend?” videos on Youtube. Blendtec’s founder, Tom Dickson, wanted to demonstrate the incredible blending ability of his product, so he started recording videos of himself sporting safety gear and tossing various items into the Blendtec blender. Notable blended items include iPhones, glow sticks, Justin Bieber (or his merchandise, anyway), and the supposedly indestructible Nokia 3310 cellphone.

The success of this content marketing may be attributed to the fact that it incorporates humor and leaves viewers in shock and amazement that a simple kitchen blender can destroy so many different items. To date, Blendtec’s Will It Blend channel has accumulated over 800,000 subscribers and has received over 286,000,000 views. On top of that, their sales reportedly increased by 700% between 2006, when the Blendtec started uploading the videos, and 2009.

Another good example of content marketing is Whole Foods Markets’ Whole Story blog. 

With more and more people trying to be more health conscious, Whole Foods saw an opportunity to help its audience live healthier lifestyles while promoting their brand and products. Not only does the blog cater to its audience by providing healthy recipes and nutritional facts on various foods for a healthy body, but it also provides sustainable solutions for a healthy planet. The success of this content marketing is due to the growing desire for humans who want to take care of themselves, their families, and the environment they live in.

With all of the information I have learned about content marketing, I was able to construct a content marketing calendar for my client, Amazing Lawn and Landscape. Content Calendar-2762a1u

 

Developing this calendar prompted me to consider what exactly I want to post on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for November, December, and January. I enjoyed researching various social media marketing ideas to try. I look forward to seeing how much of an impact this calendar will have on my client’s success.

Managing social media pages for a lawn care and landscaping company has proven to be a little more challenging than I anticipated. I was struggling to find relevant and interesting content to post and attracting followers who actually want to follow a page dedicated to a local lawn care and landscaping company. I was beginning to wonder if I would come anywhere close to achieving the number of followers I set goals to reach by the end of the semester.

Facebook: reach 50 likes by the end of the project

 

Twitter: reach 15 followers by end of project

 

Instagram: reach 24 followers by end of project

Watching the videos and reading the various articles on how to build community did give me some ideas on what strategies I can implement to reach my goals. I now feel more confident in my

My general strategy will cover each of these three social media platforms. My course of action to reach my followers goal includes:

• Following other local business to increase awareness
• Using local and relevant hashtags on posts
• Making at least two posts per week to maintain interest
• Retweeting local businesses and local public figures on Twitter
• Using local keywords

 

I am excited to see how effective this strategy truly is, and look forward to building a strong online community.

Personal Branding Statement: “I use strategy and creativity to produce work that stands out.”

My personal social media strategy:

• Make more connections with individuals in my career field.
• Make more posts that are relevant to my career field and my passions.
• Make it easier for hiring managers to find me when doing a web search to learn more about me.

Additions and changes for LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter:

LinkedIn: I had already put a lot of time and effort into making my LinkedIn profile look professional. The only thing I was missing was my summary. So, I included a short summary, and achieved “All Star” status.

Facebook: I never bothered adding my place of employment, job title, or education to my profile. Even though I have several different social media accounts, I have always been fairly conservative about posting personal details, because I had always thought that the less information I display, especially publicly, the better. 

Taking this class has certainly changed my mind about this because I want to give myself the best chance possible at being hired for any jobs I may apply for. I now realize that it is a good idea to give potential employers the opportunity to get to know a little bit about me so that they can hopefully determine that I am a good fit for them.  So, I finally added my education and employment information.

I have also started making some of my posts public. I don’t post very often, and almost never publicly, but my goal is to post content that relate to my passions, values, and career field more frequently and make some of it more available for public viewing.  

As you can see, I am pretty passionate about cats.

Twitter: Before this project, I did not even have a Twitter account. I deleted my account years ago because I felt that Twitter was outdated and unnecessary. Having created a new account and explored the community, I discovered that Twitter is actually a useful platform for many business professionals, not just celebrities, corporations, and public figures. I found a few marketers and businesses that I would have never found out about if it weren’t for Twitter.  Going back to creating a Twitter account in the first place, I added a profile picture, cover photo, my location, and a short bio for all to see when they visit my profile. I also Retweeted a few posts that I felt were relevant to marketing and my interests.

Overall, I felt that this was a particularly challenging project for me, because I have never been one to expose so much of myself to everyone who uses the internet. Additionally, I had never really taken the time to think about what it is that I stand for and how I want to be perceived by others. My goal has been to just get through school, get a degree, get a job, and then figure myself out. I realize now that this approach would not have been beneficial for me in the long run. I am glad that I have been given the opportunity to reevaluate my goals and ambitions.

The strategies I would like to implement this semester for my client include:

– Building awareness of the company and the services that they can provide

– Gain more “likes” and follows. My main priority is Facebook, because I feel like that is the best platform to inform and gain more customers for the business. The Facebook page currently has 13 “likes”. I would like to achieve an increase of at least 385% to reach 50 likes by the end of this project.

Additionally, I would like to increase the number of followers for the client’s Instagram account, which currently has 8 followers. Ideally, I would like to achieve a follower increase of at least 300% by the end of this project, which would put the page at 24 followers. I plan on spreading awareness by following other local businesses and using relevant hashtags.

– Lastly, I would like to establish a consistent posting schedule to help me reach my goals, starting with one post per week. Posts will include photos of landscaping projects completed by the business, suggestions on when to coordinate seasonal services such as raking leaves, snow removal, spring cleanup, and encouraging viewers to contact the business to schedule their desired service.

2. Three aspects to improve upon on Twitter:

– Establish a consistent posting schedule (once per week).

– Gain more followers, particularly local businesses.

– Build lists of profiles related to the business.