There’s a lot riding on your content.

For each blog article, infographic, white paper, and ebook that you share, the company is counting on you to generate a certain amount of brand engagement and ROI. The more you invest in the creation process, from hiring designers to contracting a copy editor, the more pressure you will face to make sure it succeeds.

What happens when it doesn’t?

At best, content fails keep your blog in relative anonymity and wastes the time over everyone involved.

At worst, it costs the company hundreds of dollars and makes the department head question the use of your budget.

There’s good news for the content marketing managers who can’t afford to fail. With the right planning, you can reduce the risk of missed KPIs and have backup plans in place to make sure everything you post at helps the business a little, even if it’s not a home run.

We’re all online looking for someone. Our next fan, follower, employee, lover, business partner, critic, cheerleader, investor, mark, or exorcist (that last one is admittedly rather specific to my needs this week).

Everyone’s searching for something. And we’re turning to social media in snowballing numbers to do so. A full 78% of Americans have at least one social network profile in 2016, and there’s currently about 2.2 billion social media users worldwide.

With those kinds of numbers, you’re sure to find what you’re looking for (unless you’re U2, in which case you still haven’t found what you’re looking for). But the onslaught can work against you, too.

How do you stand out in a crowd of 2.2 billion?

You can’t. Not really. But you can work smaller. One platform at a time.

Take Twitter, for example. Good old Twitter (can something started in 2006 really be called “old”?). It’s got a respectable 310 million active users, but that’s a far cry from Facebook’s 1.65 billion. So how do you stand out in a crowd of 310 million?

As Danny Kaye would say, make ‘em laugh. Everyone loves a comedian. And your Twitter bio is the perfect opportunity to give ‘em a chuckle and make a quick connection. Bios have a cap of 160 characters; not a lot, but certainly more than you need to make an impression.

Deciding what keywords to target is one of the first challenges budding marketers face when starting or re-evaluating their content marketing strategy (and for good reason – it’s one of the most important strategic-level things to get right!).  

It’s the fourth largest social network in the world, behind only Facebook, Google+ (according to Google at any rate), and Instagram, with over 300 million active users.

From humble beginnings on March 21, 2006, it now boasts an average of 6000 tweets per second, 500 million tweets per day, and 200 billion per year.

It’s penetration among U.S. social media users is a healthy 29.2%, with 42.6 million Americans using the app on their smartphone.

All hail Twitter!

Remember Twitter? It doesn’t get the attention it once did (everyone has moved on to Snapchat…and Peach, although no one can explain that one), but it still has a place of honour at the Social Media table. Facebook may be the Godfather, but Twitter is Sonny.

Okay, maybe not Sonny. But at least Fredo. And you need to show it proper respect.

WordPress, Wix, Weebly, Website Builders oh my. 

When it comes to building a website – there’s no shortage of options open to you.

Most business owners just won’t care, and will go with whatever their web developer/designer recommends.

But you should know – even just a little bit – so when you’re discussing it with them – you understand at a high-level what advantages and disadvantages come with each. After all – a shiny new website can be built on any of them – but you’re the one who is going to rely on it to bring you new traffic, leads and customers for a few years to come (when your developer may well be long gone), and your choice now *will* make a difference in what you can do down the road.

You write an amazing piece of targeted content, hit publish, share it a few times on social media, rinse and repeat.

Ever wonder why your posts never end up having much reach?

Even brands with an established blogging audience can’t get their content viewed and shared with that strategy.

Getting views and shares involves a whole lot more than writing awesome content and putting it out there for people to see.

A quick Google search will tell you there are hundreds of ways to promote your blog posts, but some strategies are more valuable than others. Here are 7 steps you should take to promote your blog post, every time.

Holy alliterative descriptor, Batman!

The Dynamic Duo will always be Batman and Robin for some. They fight crime. They wear tights. They drive some epically cool vehicles. They’re dynamic alright.

Dynamic segmentation, on the other hand, may not be as flashy as the Caped Crusader and his colourful sidekick, but it can be just as powerful. Nay! More powerful. It could take on the Joker, the Penguin, and Two-Face all at once…metaphorically speaking.

But what is it exactly, and why is it so crucial to your success in 2016? In the immortal words of Bette Davis:

“Fasten your seat belts, it’s going to be a bumpy night.”

Or morning, or mid-afternoon. Whenever you’re reading this, really. And it won’t be so much bumpy as informative and helpful…but “it’s going to be an informative and helpful night” just doesn’t have the same ring.

[Editor’s note] This is a guest blog post by Cristian Rennella of El Mejor Trato. El Mejor Trato provides comparisons for financial products like loans, mortgages and credit cards in central and south america. Renella and a friend started the company in Argentina in 2008 and have grown it to several dozen employees and over 20 million uniques in the past 8 years.  He tells us how he did it here. Please be sure to ask any questions in the comments below.

When we began our business venture in 2008, the goal was simple: help the user to make a better decision by using the internet to compare all available services. Similar Expedia or Priceline but focused on loans, cell phone plans, medical and other types of insurance, etc.

As perhaps you have experienced first hand, if you have your own start-up and you have programmers working for you, developing the platform and the technology has its own measure of challenges which generally take up most of your time in the first months. Once a minimum viable product has been obtained, the error of all rookie entrepreneurs is to think that success is guaranteed. However, this is just the first step.

Your next goal is based on designing a scalable process in order to gain new clients and this is where content marketing comes into play, with which I would like to share 4 points for you to implement: