Day 3 - Buckle Up (social media marketing series)

Buckle Up for Takeoff - List Your Ideas Make a list of relevant or useful topics to use as potential posts. These can include:

• Month-specific topics (i.e. national awareness, holiday, weather)
• Company announcements (i.e. promotional events, general events, activities or changes)
• Industry topics (changes or big moves in your industry)
• How-to topics (safety procedures, tips)
• Prompt questions (for your audience)
• Surveys
• Articles
• Quotes
• Credible industry sites

Stow Your Luggage

Based on each topic’s timeliness and relevance, determine a rough monthly outline of when you plan to post it, in which media it will be posted, and whether or not you plan to include multimedia (graphics, surveys, video, etc.). There are bound to be topics that come up on-the-fly, in which case, these other items can be rearranged. If they aren’t too timely, they can be stowed away for later use when there’s a lull in post-able activity.

Other Hot-Spots for Topics (Juicy Sources)

First, build a list or database of key individuals associated with your business who you’ve either worked with in the past or who are willing to be contacted for quotes, advice or other content. This can include individuals within the company. Include their preferred times to be contacted, as well as their contact information in this database.

In a separate database or spreadsheet, keep these hot-spots and tools on hand:

• Youpolls.com – current and popular polls and surveys
• Wildfireapp.com – grow, engage and monetize your audience on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn
• Northsocial.com – design your own Facebook applications
• Stufftotweet.com- what’s hot to talk about at the moment
• Edgebankchecker.com – tool to help determine best times to post to get maximum exposure
• Alltop.com – hot topics of every kind, like pop culture, business, technology, etc.
• Popurls.com - a landing page for popular topics, conversations, how-to, and images
• Marketing.Grader.com – grade your website’s traffic compared to competitors
• Tweetgrader.com – See how you grade and rank on Twitter, compared to all other users

Remember: Don’t just throw your own content around out there; participate in others’ polls, discussions and forums. Also, don’t talk just to talk. Be prepared with an actual contribution to the topic on the table. As you monitor your own posts, you can also see what’s popular and what isn’t based on the various tools for measuring traffic.

Begin tailoring your content accordingly.

Runway-ready, baby.