As many as 89% of business to business marketers and 86% of business to consumer marketers utilise content marketing as part of their ongoing online strategy.
If you’re part of those statistics, then you’ll know precisely why it has a positive impact.
If you are in the percentile that is lagging behind, it will be only a matter of time before you’re scrambling to make desperate changes to your marketing plans for 2018.
But, as with most aspects of online marketing, if you’ve never done it before it can be quite intimidating.
So, how can you do it correctly and efficiently?
In this blog article, we have compiled nine of our favourite content marketing tools that will turn your content from drab to fab.
BuzzSumo
There’s nothing worse than spending hours on a blog post only discover that no one is interested in what you’re trying to say. It’s disheartening.
BuzzSumo is a content marketers best friend, not only does it give you all the topics you should be putting out there, but it can also show you the kind of content that is working particularly well for your competitors and the influencers in your sector that are making some serious waves.
BuzzSumo works by showing users what content is receiving the most shares across social channels. You can also analyse popular authorities by way of what they’re sharing and interacting with across the internet. You can use this information to plan your outreach strategies.
Once you set content alerts you can see which companies are mentioning your keywords and when your chosen competitors post new content.
You’ll always be on the pulse and you’ll never miss a beat.
Trello
In the digital sector, most businesses attack content marketing as a team and Trello is a personal favourite of ours at POD.
This tool uses cards, boards and lists to organise and schedule content creation, posting, sharing and promotion.
You can communicate with team members, share ideas and copy tasks from one board to another, so everyone is on the same page.
There’s plenty of task and collaboration tools available, but Trello is undoubtedly amongst the best.
Check out the definitive guide here.
Tweriod
74% of businesses are using Twitter to promote content and if you’re not, you really ought to be.
But sharing content when no one is paying attention is like nailing the sickest trick basketball shot you’ve ever attempted while everyone’s back is turned.
Tweriod aims to make sure everyone sees your crazy mad skills by giving you an indication of when you should be posting your tweets to increase engagement.
This is a free tool and will analyse up to a thousand of your followers and indicate the best days and times to put your content right in front of them.
These days it’s hard to get noticed.
You’re surrounded by very talented marketers in your niche, and unless you get yourself in front of the people who count, you’re basically screaming into a pillow.
No one will hear, and they certainly won’t come looking for you.
Canva
When you’re creating your content, you’ll need some high-resolution images that enhance the style and clickability of your content.
As much as we’d like to be, we’re not all design whizz kids who can whip up gorgeous graphics and imagery in Photoshop in a matter of minutes. Programs like that aren’t always easy to use if you haven’t had the practice.
If you’re a bit of a design novice, then Canva is perfect for you.
The free version of Canva comes with a wide variety of templates and layouts, so it takes minimal effort to create something that looks great. These templates also include all the size dimensions for profile and header images on social media, so you won’t have to trawl through Google looking for each aspect.
It’s straightforward to create your own designs from scratch too.
Just drag and drop the different elements into your design and Canva will help you size and place your chosen components.
SEMRush
If you’re a marketer, SEMRush is an absolute essential.
It can give you a whole host of data you never even knew you needed. You can view the keywords your competitors are ranking highly for, which might offer opportunities for your content that you’re not currently chasing.
You can also investigate your competitor’s backlinks, and cherry pick a range of links that you can curate and point to your content to gain some traction in the SERPS.
MailChimp
Email marketing has been the mac daddy of content marketing for some years now.
Marketing through email is one of the oldest forms of online marketing, yet remains one of the most effective. On MailChimp you can create bespoke emails using imagery and content.
You can monitor different email metrics, such as click and open rates, which can help you detect why specific campaigns work well and some don’t. The software also allows you to build up a list of engaged users, which you can keep an eye on.
AHRefs
AHRefs is a nifty tool that allows you to keep one eye on your competition while keeping the other firmly fixed on your progression.
It’s a great way to research topics before you write content.
You can then put your competitors under the microscope and find out exactly what they’ve been doing well and what pitfalls you must avoid.
Once you’ve sent your content out there, you can put everything on the table and answer the following questions:
- “Did I gain any backlinks?”
- “How often was it shared on social media?”
- “Did my content achieve everything I wanted it to?”
- “What can I improve or change next time?”
The great thing about AHRefs is the fact that’ll you’ll always be working with up-to-date information because the program crawls billions of websites every day.
Hootsuite
Creating great content is great for SEO value, but getting it in front of people can do great things for your business. But this kind of thing, while valuable, does take up time that you probably don’t have.
This is where HootSuite comes in.
HootSuite allows you to schedule your social media posts ahead of time, which gives you a great chance of getting your posts in front of more people at peak times without being glued to your screen waiting for the right moment.
You can hook your account to over thirty social media channels, such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Pinterest.
You can create posts, schedule them and create a social calendar to remind you what to share at certain times.
Grammarly
How can you expect anyone to take your work seriously if it’s littered with spelling and grammar errors?
Not only that, but Google is not a fan of content that’s chock full of blunders.
Sure, we’re all human, and the odd typo is a fact of life, but consistent and glaring mistakes are hard to ignore and leaving it in the hands of the Microsoft Word spell checker is a risky move.
Grammarly is the best spell checker on the market.
Fact.
Grammarly catches errors, overused words and contextual mistakes and best of all – it’s absolutely free.
Downloading the Grammarly Google Chrome extension gives you the freedom to work on any tab on any window with the knowledge that Grammarly has your back.
Most marketers are using content to bolster their online strategies.
We live in a world full of noise these days, so if you plan to slice through it and make a name for yourself, you must be sure that you’re producing engaging and share-worthy content.
These nine tools are by no means the only tools out there, but they’re the ones that we’ve found to be the most effective in our quest to create great content that gets people talking.
If you require any help with your content strategies, look no further than POD Digital. We have a proven track record of engineering fantastic bespoke solutions that make our clients websites a success.
Contact us today to find out how we can make your business a success.
