The first thing you need to know about content marketing is what it is. Content marketing is an online marketing strategy for getting your brand out there. Whether you’re trying to get a website, a video, a book, a person or anything else some extra popularity points, you need to employ the power of content marketing. Create tonnes of content in all shapes, sizes and forms. Online content comes in the form of videos, images, animations (called gif’s), articles, webinars, podcasts and more. If what you’re looking at can teach you anything – it’s a form of content.

Next, where are good places to put your content? Everywhere. As long as there is a link going to it from one or more websites, eventually the content will be found. If you create a blog on your website, but there are no links from any other websites pointing to it, your blog faces the chance of never being seen by search engines. Make sure your website links to your blog. Make sure your social channels, like Facebook, link to your website. All these links create a “web”, and thus the name world wide web. But here’s a trick: do what you’re good at and your target audience likes. If you operate an online book store, write articles. If you conduct interview, record podcasts and live audio recordings. If you make animations, create demo videos and put them on YouTube, Vimeo and every other video platform available to you. If you’re skill is writing articles, but your target demographic would rather watch a video, you need to find someone who can make a video for you while you write articles. And put both pieces of original content on the internet. Also, never forget to link back to your original source and your website.

The reason for creating as much content as you can and putting it on every platform you can manage (We suggest not using platforms you cannot manage. If you don’t have time for Google+, don’t use it.) is because not everybody is in one place. I’m sure you can name one person who doesn’t use Facebook. You can probably name a few people who don’t use Twitter. And even more people who don’t use Google+. Internet users tend to stick to the platform they like most. Twitter users tend to enjoy Twitter more than Facebook. Vloggers (A vlog is a video log, similar to a blog) tend to spend more time on YouTube and prefer that over reading a blog. And if you put your content on every content platform you can manage, more people will find you. More importantly, they’ll discover your brand on the platform they enjoy most – a friendly environment.

As a caution, don’t create too much of the exact same content. It’s irritating for people and search engines don’t enjoy it very much either, and can make you rank lower than you should in search results. So before you write one article and post it on 500 of the closest sites you can think of, perhaps think about writing 100 articles and posting each one on the closest 5 sites you can think of. It does take a lot longer, but it will pay dividends in the end.

The most important aspect about content marketing is being able to educate your readers and provide them with value. As long as your content adds value to the reader (or viewer) you’ll do great. Just remember to create that original content and be active on the platforms you submit your content to. Every piece of information you add to the internet is one tiny asset. You never know who’ll stumble upon it one day and become a customer.