Getting your content in front of your target customers is essential to content marketing success. But with so much online noise, helping your audience discover your content can challenge even the finest enterprise content teams. Today we’re taking a closer look at various technologies that are driving content discovery, and techniques we can leverage to make the most of that tech.
What Is Content Discovery?
Content discovery, as Cision’s Pratik Dholakiya points out, is “the art and science of using predictive algorithms to help make content recommendations based on how people search.” Those algorithms — now powered by artificial intelligence (AI) — are the vehicles by which people searching for information find your content online.
It’s basically the same process you use while researching a blog post or another piece of content. The search engine’s AI uses previous online behavior and user interests to tailor search results.
The faster your target audience finds your content and the more relevant it is to their needs, the more likely they will engage with your brand overall.
That goes double for B2B content. As a recent NetLine study showed, B2B executives’ demand for relevant content climbed by 19.41% from 2020 to 2021.
So, it pays to find ways to leverage the algorithm and point your prospects to your content. But how might this be accomplished?
Start with Audience Research
You’ll never reach the right people until you know who they are and what they need from you. That’s the only way you can know which topics to create content around and which information to include in your content.
Use your social media, email, and content analytics to learn more about your audience, both prospects and customers. Then, create buyer personas for each segment to put a human face on your target audience.
Next, create a customer journey map to understand the various touchpoints each segment will follow on their way to becoming a customer and beyond. Those are the places you’ll want to target with content that focuses on their specific needs.
Use Content Discovery Tools to Open Doors
Once you’ve created that laser-focused content, you’ll want to get it in front of more people in your target market. Content discovery platforms, such as Taboola and Outbrain, will show your content to people likely to need the information your content provides through ads that appear alongside or beneath other related content.
For example, let’s say your company manufactures furnaces and that you’ve just published a blog post that offers several tips on saving on heating costs during the coming winter. When you partner with one of these content discovery platforms, you can place links to that post at the end of news stories about rising energy costs or other relevant articles.
These AI-driven platforms analyze user behaviors, pain points, and preferences to determine which users see your ads. Only people whose needs and interests align with your products will see your content.
Then, double down on your content’s effectiveness by linking to more related blog posts at the end of each post. The more time they spend on your site once they leave the original news story they were reading, the more likely they’ll make your brand their go-to source for information about your industry.
Take an Omnichannel Approach to Social Media
Make it easy for your audience to find your content by posting it to all the social media channels where your target audience hangs out online. With content automation tools, your teams needn’t waste time posting manually.
Leverage paid media to reach new audiences whose characteristics and needs match your buyer personas. With today’s social media audience targeting capabilities, you’ll likely find your audience growing by leaps and bounds as you help them discover your brand.
And don’t discount the value of paid social media for B2B brands. As a Content Marketing Institute survey revealed, 95% of B2B companies use social media to communicate with their customers and prospects. You just need to use the social channels they’re on, like LinkedIn, and industry-specific platforms.
Don’t stop there. Task some of your teams to reply to comments from your followers. You’ll build your reputation as a helpful expert and, even more importantly, brand loyalty.
Statistics demonstrate the value of not only responding — but also responding quickly. According to a Clutch survey, 83% of respondents expect brands to respond within a day, while 90% of the survey’s millennial respondents expect a 24-hour turnaround for replies.
Add Curation to Your Content Operations
Other content discovery tools, such as BuzzSumo, Google Alerts, Reddit, Twitter Lists, Pocket, Feedly, and Quuu, can provide you with content feeds from all over the internet.
Adding content curation – republishing content from sources outside your own content assets – to your content operations and governance strategy provides your readers with a one-stop source for valuable information on your industry.
Additionally, keeping an eye out for industry-related content can help you stay ahead of your competitors. Looking at their content and then going one better on the topic will position you as a thought leader in your field.
Keeping an eye on these industry content feeds can also help you save time while researching upcoming content on similar topics. Citing non-competitors in your content is an excellent way to build business relationships. Most of the time, they’ll return the favor and cite your content in their own posts, provided your content is of the topmost quality.
Repurpose Older Content to Aid Your Audience’s Content Discovery
Not every member of your audience likes reading blog posts. With 65% of the world’s population visual learners, a good part of your audience likely prefers to watch videos instead.
As you repurpose this content, update its existing form with current statistics and keyword phrases to help you rank better in searches. The better the ranking, the better the chance your target audience will find your content.
So, help your audience discover your content by repurposing it in various formats. That way, they’ll find it in the form they enjoy best.
Finally, Reorganize Your Website Content into Categories
Make it easy for your audience to find more content on your website when you organize it into categories by general topic. For instance, this post will fall under the category “Content Operations and Governance.”
That way, readers can quickly access more content on the same topic with a single click on the category. Make your categories part of your content’s URL so that search engines, as well as human users, can better find your content.
If your content marketing platform has metadata management capability, you can organize your digital assets into even more categories. Adding content format, buyer persona, search intent, and place along the buyer’s journey helps your teams find relevant content assets to link to in future content, thus helping your audience discover even more valuable content without ever leaving your site.
Additionally, the better you organize your web content and other digital assets, the easier it will be to measure each asset’s performance with your target market. Refining your content to perform even better will help more audience members find your content online.
With DivvyHQ, you have all that — as well as the capability to plan and manage content initiatives across the enterprise. With its leading-edge metadata management features and its ability to integrate with hundreds of other platforms, you’ll have everything you need to help your audience find and digest more of your content.
And you can try it free with no obligation for 14 days. Start your free trial today!