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“All marketing needs to be measured for results… Think of what success looks like before starting a content marketing strategy. With digital content marketing, you can see exactly how every piece of content performs.” 10. Be part of the conversation. Participate on social media by contributing something valuable to the conversation. While this should be consistent, a company does not need to be part of every conversation on every platform and website. Trying to accomplish this can be too overwhelming. 11. Measure results. all marketing needs to be measured for results. if there are no results, do not invest in it. Think of what success looks like before starting a content marketing strategy. With digital content marketing, you can see exactly how every piece of content performs. use social media analytics that are associated with most tools and Google web analytics tools to track how many people interact with each piece of content and what they do afterwards. also test different elements (headlines, images and keywords) to see which get the best response from your audience. This is called “a/B testing” and is a great way to discover small tweaks that can make a 9. Share your content. of course, you should post your content on your own website, but sharing it on social media is the key. if you can, budget for some social media advertising to make your content stand out in viewers’ crowded feeds. hootsuite and Sprout Social are popular tools to help you manage content on social media. it can make sense to automatically pre-program posts, but monitor them carefully so they are not seen as irrelevant or insen- sitive if there is a big, new current event that everyone is talking about. and don’t ignore email; a recent content marketing institute study of B2B marketers ranked email as the most effective channel for content marketing. big impact on data points like click rate, likes and conversion rate. 12. Get reviews. user-generated content is an important part of a content marketing strategy. Some customers will naturally post comments on social media sites. other customers need to be solicited by the company to encourage reviews and references. Don’t be afraid to just ask. remember, content marketing is a long-term strategy and needs to be executed for at least six months consis- tently to show results. n Barry moltz is an author, speaker and small business consultant with over two decades of success helping small businesses grow and overcome challenges. APriL ■ PULSE 2019 59