building your social media strategy – Getentrepreneurial.com: Resources for Small Business Entrepreneurs in 2024

Content syndication is a hot topic in social media, and there is a lot of confusion about what it is, and how to do it. In the most basic sense, content syndication refers to the process of efficiently distributing your content around the internet.

Since effective content syndication does require a little bit of technical know-how, most people’s eyes glaze over when they hear about it. The problem is that if you’re ignoring the power of content syndication, you are only getting about 1/3^rd of the value from your social media efforts as you could be.

Done correctly, content syndication can help you accomplish four main business goals. It can help you generate more targeted visitors to your website and blog, it can help you improve your search engine positioning, it can help you build your following, and it can build your expert status. All of these are valuable outcomes for a process which doesn’t really take a lot of time.

One of the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make is in creating content (for their sites, blogs, teleseminars or trainings) and then only using the content one or two times. This means that your time to create the content is only paying off minimally.

Far better to repurpose your content into multiple formats, and be able to use it multiple ways, so that you are getting maximum value from the time you spend creating the material in the first place. Repurposing efficiently and regularly is one of the key underpinnings of an effective content syndication strategy.

An example of repurposing your content would be to take a written blog post, convert to an audio (instant podcast), turn to a slideshow, and then convert to a video. Your one blog post then becomes deployable in multiple formats, and can be sent out to the various article, audio, and video sites. So, in essence, you get four times the value for your content. There are multiple other ways to repurpose your content, and you’ll find, as I have, that once you get good at doing it, it’s kind of addictive.

So now that you understand the background of content syndication, let’s look at some easy ways you can get started:

1. Make use of RSS. RSS stands for “really simple syndication” and is one of the easiest and fastest ways to start syndicating your content. RSS is a technology which takes your content and puts it into a special format (you don’t need the details) so that the content can be shared easily and republished across the internet. The majority of the open social sites use RSS. You can find the link to your RSS feed by searching for the RSS icon, which often looks like the icon at the beginning of this paragraph. Sometimes it’s colored differently, but this symbol denotes the RSS feed. What the RSS feed represents is an aggregated container of that content.

To actually start using RSS, you can take your RSS feeds (such as from your blog) and submit these to RSS search engines, such as Bloglines, Blogpulse, DayPop, and Feedster. (There are many others, this is just a partial list.) The idea is that the RSS format allows for content to be deployed and shared in a consistent and standardized way. When submitting your blog’s RSS feed to these search engines, you are increasing the likelihood of your content being found, and, also, potentially giving others the option to republish your content with attribution to your site.

You can also submit RSS feeds from your Twitter account, as well as other social sites. There are specialized software programs that can help you rapidly submit your RSS feeds as well.
RSS submission is one of the easiest ways to get started with content syndication.

2. A second strategy for getting started with content syndication is to send your blog updates to your Twitterfeed. If your blog is built on WordPress, you can configure a plugin such as Twitter Tools to send blog posts to your Twitterfeed. This is a great way to drive traffic to your site, especially if your titles are compelling, and you don’t overtweet your new content. Since Twitter updates are searchable, you can find yourself getting first page ranking in Google for your content. This listing may not last, as tweets are constantly updated, but it’s a good way to get your content out in front of more people.

3. A third simple strategy for content syndication is to import your blog posts into Facebook and LinkedIn. You can use the Notes application in Facebook to get your blog posts publishing in there, and you can use the WordPress application in LinkedIn to get your blog content published there as well. Again, if you focus on highly relevant content, and use strong titles, you will see clickthroughs to your site. Importing your content into these sites also helps establish your expertise and credibility, and can grow your brand following.

While there are many other content syndication strategies you can use, these are three solid strategies to get you started. As you invest more fully in content syndication, you’ll find that your online following grows, that you get more opportunities, and generate more leads into your business.

Content syndication is an important step in the chain of social media profitability. Get started using it today.

To get 4 weeks of focused training on content syndication and repurposing, check out From Platform to Profit.

Dr. Rachna Jain is Chief Social Marketer at The Mindshare Corporation. Rachna works with speakers, consultants, authors, and small business owners to develop and execute effective social media marketing strategies. Her proprietary persuasive social media process (sm) focuses on building influence, credibility and visibility online. This translates into greater recognition, increased website traffic, faster lead generation, a shorter sales cycle, and more opportunity for her expert clientele. She blogs regularly at The Mindshare Blog

One of the biggest benefits of social media marketing is how easy it is to get started. Anyone can sign up for a Twitter account, or a Facebook account and start using them right away. It’s easy to put up a blog, and, of course, to engage in the conversation.
But the thing to remember is that the ease of use of social media tools does not directly correlate to how effective they will be for your business objectives. Stated another way, you need to think social media strategy first, and tools second.
Very often, people get overloaded with social media simply because they don’t have a strategy. Someone says they should be on Facebook- so they join. Someone says to get on Twitter, so they do. Someone else says to stay connected via LinkedIn- and they do. And it goes like this, on and on, because the number of sites you “should” be on will never stop increasing- and there are hundreds more social media sites coming online each day.
If you constantly jump from site to site, you risk wasting time and losing money.
Instead, start by considering your social media strategy. If you don’t have one yet, let me offer some suggestions and advice for building one:
1) Understand what business objectives you want to reach by engaging in social media. Business objectives might include outcomes such as increasing your network, becoming more visible, positioning yourself as the top expert in your field. Business objectives may also include outcomes such as growing your database, increasing blog visitors, and improving your online reputation. While several of these can be accomplished in parallel, for the most part, stick with one objective at a time. What is the one outcome right now that would move your business forward in the most significant way?
2) Acknowledge the time frame for your business objective. Social media is not a quick hit strategy and it can take a certain amount of focused effort to start seeing returns. If your time line for results is too short, you will feel like you’ve wasted time. If your time line is too long, you’ll feel frustrated, when it seems like results aren’t happening fast enough. For example, if you want to add 100 names to your database, you can probably accomplish this in 4-6 weeks. If you want to position yourself as the top authority in your niche, it will probably take a bit longer, especially if there is a reasonable amount of competition. Right-size your time line to the size of your business objective.
3) Focus on depth rather than breadth. While it can be tempting to be join 100 social media sites, you risk spreading yourself too thin, and diluting your resources. Better to select 2, 3, or 4 sites which you can commit to participating on regularly, than joining 100 sites you never have time to access. Repetition is an important element of building recognition and reputation. Focus deeply on a select group of sites, and participate as fully as possible.
4) Test your levels of participation to define how much is enough. There will be a sweet spot in terms of time put in and results obtained. This is true for any business process. Try participating very fully for two weeks, and see what your results are. Participate slightly less often in week three, and see if your results change. By focusing on measuring one specific business objective, you’ll have a good sense of how much effort you need to make on the social sites in order to reach your desired results.
5) Adopt new technology thoughtfully. There are multiple tools you can use to implement your social media strategy. Typically, you want to use the tools which are easiest, most cost-effective, and which provide the best results. Don’t adopt every new technology blindly, but then, on the other hand, don’t delay when a new technology can help you accomplish your business goals faster or easier.
Remember, the ease of use of social media tools does not correlate with their effectiveness in your business. Craft your strategy first, and then use tools to execute it. That’s the right order for business success.
Dr. Rachna Jain is Chief Social Marketer at The Mindshare Corporation. Rachna works with speakers, consultants, authors, and small business owners to develop and execute effective social media marketing strategies. Her proprietary persuasive social media process (sm) focuses on building influence, credibility and visibility online. This translates into greater recognition, increased website traffic, faster lead generation, a shorter sales cycle, and more opportunity for her expert clientele. She blogs regularly at The Mindshare Blog