Money Secrets

I don’t think I’ve ever posted someone else’s article on money secrets. If I have, I’ve forgotten about it so don’t shoot me down. I generally don’t like to post other folks stuff because it’s already out there and there’s no sense in repeating it. Besides, Google doesn’t like it when you clutter up the web with all that duplicate content.

However, I read a pretty good article today over on SitePro News. The rules of content creation that the author thinks are somehow new? I don’t consider them new at all. Social networking might be on the rise, but good quality content has always been the rule as far as yours truly is concerned.

Some folks think rules are made to be broken. Maybe some of them are. But when it comes to putting your name to content, and putting that content out there for the whole Internet to see… you’ve got to be some kind of dumb to think it doesn’t matter whether that content is good or bad.

Ok, enough of my rambling. On with the show. If you prefer, you can view the original article here.

The New Rules of Content Creation for Social Media Marketing

The Issues as We See Them

The real issue is that professional real estate agents/investors are being wrongly advised when it comes to creating and sharing content. Those things they are told might be relevant to their efforts – simply are not. Using information without taking a good look at the source of it will quite likely result in a real waste of your time and efforts. If you’re told that you should be tweeting, twittering, posting, and endlessly sharing, the advice you’re being given should be moderated by your own good sense.

While other self-proclaimed experts may be leading you down a path, or giving you misplaced hope, the reality is that you probably will not be markedly successful in getting a social media campaign off the ground in a week or two. The best advice that you will get from anyone is to use your common sense and do your own thinking. There simply aren’t any quick fixes or instant gratification arenas for those who want to get social media campaigns working for their benefit.

Most important of all, social media campaigns require relevant and excellent content to achieve. You can learn those strategies that it will take to share them, but the reality is that first that content must be created. The creation as well as the sharing of solid content will take time and learned skills to master.

What Are Your Next Steps?

Three key components are going to be next in line for you to get any measure of success. Identification, Recognition, and Organization.

Identification – what is your role in getting solid, relevant content for your website or your customers? If you’re a creator, or a writer, or a curator, then you already know where you fit into the equation.

The Creator can identify the need of the audience and can help to address that need. The solutions offered may be video, media of other varieties, written content, or even brochures. It may be a complete mixture of every type of content, including a blog that goes along with social media postings.

A Curator for the content is someone who will sort through all of the internet content that is out there and find those things that may be applicable to their chosen or intended audience. This is quite literally a hunter-gatherer of the internet. Sharing links, offering tweets, getting articles and rewriting them, selecting what will be a good draw for your chosen audience and then creating something like that is what a curator/creator does.

The Challenges that You Will Face

Among the other challenges that you will face when you are furnishing content will be those of frequency and a balancing act. The content that you provide to your readers or viewers comes to them as a representation of you. Too much means that you are nothing more than a marketer, too little means that you don’t really care. This content doesn’t just come from your brand, it tells them a great deal about you.

You’re going to want to not only balance the frequency of the content, but also to be sure that you check it yourself prior to offering it on your own website or other venue. Whether you elect to share that content in a feed, on a website, or on a single page, check it out first. Watch the videos and read the articles that you are offering as content to your audience.

Poor advice, poorly written content, grainy videos that share information that is not relevant or aren’t well done, reflect badly on you. If you don’t create the content yourself, then at least take steps to vet it for quality and relevancy. Your end goal is to share content that you believe would be good for the customer or client. Offering them less than a helpful tip or good advice makes you look bad. Your primary purpose here is to expand your own reputation, as well as to give them content that will help them. If you give bad advice, it’s far worse than no advice at all.

Frequency – No one wants an endless stream of things that say nothing at all. Lincoln once said it was better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak up and remove all doubt. That’s good advice whether you are speaking or offering content. Selecting a great deal of content and striving to offer an endless stream that gives no real benefit isn’t going to be in your best interests. Choose your content carefully and release it in drips, rather than in floods.

Let your motivation be to release content that adds good quality advice to the lives of those who read it, not merely an endless stream of drivel. Tweeting, Facebooking, Digging, are all important aspects of getting your content out there, but make it good quality content that improves the outlook or the knowledge of your reader, not merely reminds them you are alive. The whole thing is about adding quality-to the reader’s life-as well as your own. Be a well-trusted source of advice, not an endless stream of drivel.

Duncan Wierman is an Ex Software company CEO turned Real Estate Investor and Internet Marketer. Duncan teaches how real estate agents and investors can take their business to new levels using creating marketing methods to promote their business and get more leads. Get your free 14 day internet marketing e-course at: www.duncanwierman.com