One of the biggest benefits of social media is that it gives you a real-time feed of what your prospective customers are discussing. Listen carefully and you’ll discover plenty of ideas for good content. An added benefit of gathering ideas this way is that content that’s generated from social conversations tends to get shared.
For example, if you see people inquiring about a product or service you provide, you can then create a blog post, video, or podcast answering the questions.
Another idea is to use social media to connect with interesting people as a source for interviews, and guest post providers. I recently reached out to Cyndi Burnett, @Cyndiburnett, Assistant Professor at the International Institute for Creativity.
After being notified that she followed me on Twitter I checked out the institutes website and enjoyed the content. I then sent her a quick message via Twitter asking if she would be interested in doing an interview for my blog readers. She responded in the affirmative and we’re working out the details.
To help you become more efficient at monitoring socia media conversations, try using some marketing software like Hootsuite (what I use) to help filter discussions and identify the ones you’re most interested in.
Check out the other tips in the content marketing strategy series.
