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Using content marketing to become a media mogul

Wouldn’t it be great to have the media clout of Oprah Winfrey, Arianna Huffington, Rupert Murdock, or Mark Zukerberg?
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Wouldn’t it be great to have the media clout of Oprah Winfrey, Arianna Huffington, Rupert Murdock, or Mark Zukerberg? While all these icons have carved out substantial media empires on broadcast, print and online platforms, never before has there been such opportunity to leverage your own content and channels in building awareness and a brand position. If you’ve got expertise and knowledge, you should be building your own media empire.

Three compelling reasons to build your media empire:

1.  Authority: Be seen as the expert, the one who gets the calls, the quotes, and let’s face it, the business!

2.  Search: Be the most visible. You want to dominate SEO without ever paying for it, simply because of the volume and quality of your content and knowledge.

3.  Engagement: Build community; generate engagement with your brand, which ultimately leads to sales.

The four pillars of your media empire:

1.  Anchors: These are your media assets. Your assets include things like your website, blog, enewsletter, podcast, webinar, and video. As such, you own them, which is a good thing, since nobody can change the rules of how they are used except you. And you host them within owned properties of your media empire. Anchors are key players for search, authority and engagement. Ultimately you want your other three pillars to drive people back to your anchors. Your anchors are where you will convert exposure and engagement into sales.

2.  Outposts: Think of these as rented property. Outposts include social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Instagram, Pintrest, Vine, Youtube etc. While you customize them like your own property, often decorating them like a home and taking ownership, ultimately someone else owns them and can change the rules at any time. They could charge you more rent, restrict your access, or use your property if they want to. But before you think of them too much like a nasty landlord, you must also consider the power and opportunity they can deliver. Outpost social media platforms have the ability to broadcast and share content, and by their nature, they offer two-way engagement, which helps build community around your brand. Outposts should be used to broadcast and engage, but ultimately drive people back to your anchor content. That’s where you own them and that’s where you’ll convert the sale.

3.  Earned: This is third party endorsement. In the traditional sense it is when a print of broadcast media company publishes something about your business, giving it visibility, without you paying for it. But it could also include other online media like the Huffington Post, industry authorities through their social media, or well read blogs. Since it is an earned property and it can’t be purchased, it is coveted and valued. Usually these days coverage by other media outlets includes content online, which is great, since you can feed those links back into your outpost media engines and also feature it in your anchored content. If you earn media coverage, maximize the exposure as much as you possibly can.

4.  Paid: This is the strategic stuff you do to boost and promote content online to a selected audience. It used to be that a Facebook Like meant that everyone who “liked” your business received the post in his or her feed. Since going public and needing to show revenue, they have closed the “Like” funnel down. Current estimates are that 10% of content gets through to the folks that like your page. To reach the rest, you need to boost your posts. The good news is, boosting can be relatively inexpensive, and offer the opportunity to be very strategic about whom the post is delivered to. I’d suggest experimenting and then measuring with analytics to see the effects on site visits and links. Overall I’d exercise caution and only go with platforms your audience uses a lot, and monitor closely what works and what doesn’t.

Success comes when all four pillars are leveraged together

The successful building of brand awareness through content marketing usually has at least three and oftentimes four of the media pillars. Original content is created and shared on several anchors. Outposts are used to broadcast widely and create engagement. If earned media picks up the story, it is fed back through outposts to generate more interest and ultimately drive people back to the anchored content. Sometimes paid is also used strategically to fuel outposts and drive people to the anchors, or to generate awareness and coverage by earned media. While the pillars of your media empire are separate entities, if used well with their purpose and unique abilities in mind, they build on each other offering you incredible media content clout.

Mary Charleson, MBA is a marketing educator, speaker and writer. For more marketing insights, check out her blog: www.fiveminutemarketing.com follow her on Twitter, or sign up for her weekly e-newsletter at www.charleson.ca