How to use your digital magazine for content marketing  

In Part I of our series we explained what content marketing is in the first place. We picked up the questions: what is important in a content marketing strategy and how can you use your content in the best imaginable way. In Part II we will take  a closer look at how you can use social media to get the most out of your digital magazine. 

CONTENT 

Start

Editorial planning

Tips how to increase your reach

Tips how to enhance interaction

Tips on better performance 

Useful Tools

Conclusion

START

As soon as your new digital magazine has been uploaded, it is highly recommended to point it out to your users, "fans" and followers by using your social media channels.

In general, all posts, and the initial post especially, should be as informative and content-loaded as possible. So instead of just writing: "Our new magazine is online. Read the new issue now …" you better let your user know right away what they can expect or what he/she will get out of it when reading your magazine. For example you would announce your content like this: "Among other things the magazine will show you how to use digital magazines in the best possible way for your content marketing“. By giving people the idea of what they are about to learn, you will generate interest and increase likelihood that your magazine will be read and your posts be clicked. 

EDITORIAL PLANNING

To make content marketing work planning is required. Often, an editorial plan is a great idea. Like your entire content marketing strategy, the editorial plan should suit your company itself as well as your corporate image and all related goals.

An editorial plan solves the following problems in terms of content creation and publication:

• Vague fields of responsibility
• Irregularities in publishing and poor timing
• No consistency in number of publications
• No consistency in quality
• No consideration of upcoming events
• Data, information and research chaos

Since your digital magazine and every single article in it have their own URL, you can share the individual articles on your social media channels - not just the entire magazine.

1. So first create an editorial plan to make it more easy for you to keep the overview (this is possible with existing software such as Excel, Google Sheets or calendar, or more professionally with special tools)
2. Share your individual created articles and content of your digital magazine at sensible intervals, e.g. once a week or every 14 days. Please consider the reading habits of your target group and the value of your content. Nobody wants to receive information about your products or service three times a week if they are not really novel.
3. Think about an order in which posting your content is most reasonable, e.g. first news, later reports, interviews or product news.
4. The order of the shared content should be diverse and entertaining. For example: You want to avoid that users receive a disproportionate amount of product information at a stretch.

A balanced editorial plan could e.g. look like this:

TIPS HOW TO INCREASE YOUR REACH

By producing great content you can generate a lot of attention. With just a few simple steps, you can also increase the range with ease.

Simple tricks to get more social media awareness:

1. Set a social media budget. The reach for business pages on many social media channels such as Facebook or Instagram is relatively limited as these channels target on companies to promote their published posts. This is also recommended, since even a small amounts money often significantly increase your range. If possible, plan some expenses for promoting your posts.
2. Link your employees, partners or other companies in your posts. In this way they will become aware of it, like or comment on the post and maybe even share it with their own contacts. This promotes both the reach and the exchange with each other.
3. Make use of in-house information about your activities. If possible, ask your employees to share the posts or to publish suitable posts themselves via private accounts. Maybe you want so send your employees predesigned templates for this, e.g. with an info mail about the new issue. The background is that the organic reach of private accounts e.g. on Facebook is significantly higher than on company pages. You will also strengthen the bond with your colleagues. Note: your employees shouldn't feel obliged - personal social media accounts are always a part of everyone's private life
4. Use hashtags to draw the attention of users who already search for these terms to your posts. However, the effect of these hashtags is limited and they make sense on Instagram and Twitter, but not really on Facebook.
   

TIPS ON BETTER PERFORMANCE

In order to evaluate and eventually increase the performance of your social media activities you can make use of analysis tools. It's important that you know your community well to make sure your social media activities turn out to be successful.  

Tips and tricks to help you improve social media performance:

1. Identify which topics are relevant to your target group. Listen carefully to your community and try to understand what concerns them. Try to recognize trends as early as possible, e.g. through the frequency of certain hashtags used. Then connect your own topics to the current trends. 
2. Analyze the social media strategies of your (successful) competition. Look at key figures such as post frequency, interaction rate and reach.  
3. Analyze the interaction rate of your followers and optimize it constantly. A successful post also needs to be published at the right time. Analyze which regions you should focus on and what interests your followers have as well. By using this information you can now further optimize, adapt and also advertise your posts more purposeful. 
4. You can also use social networks to deliver your content straight to the right target group by integrating paid ads. With Facebook and LinkedIn, target groups can be predefined very detailed according to interests, locations or other characteristics. In this way, you will only reach those people who are really interested in your offer and relevant to your business.  
5. Animate your posts, e.g. by using videos, visual language or sound. It's  important that the rules for an appealing design are followed. With powerful texts, good pictures and a spark of originality, you will attract more attention.
   

USEFUL TOOLS 

By using social media tools you can optimize your marketing and offer an easy way to use your digital magazines on social media. To save time and to make sure you don’t forget anything, you can use these tools to automate processes and schedule your posts. To optimize your posts, you can analyze them. Also: with the help of certain tools, e.g. the visual imagery turns out well. Only by using just a few tools your work processes will end up more effective and efficient.

Helpful tools that make life on social media easier for you (and for us too):

• Editorial planning:  We are using the tool Hootsuite for our editorial planning. Hootsuite is packed with features. For example posts can be planned and automated, data analyzed and internal processes handled. Supporting over 35 social networks, the majority of traditional platforms is covered. Hootsuite offers a  Free Plan for up to 3 channels and 30 posts per week, which makes it appealing to beginners. Another great alternative to Hootsuite is Buffer. Social media posts can also be planned with Hubspot. 
• Analysis tools: Fanpage Karma is a popular tool which was developed for analyzing Facebook pages in the first place. Meanwhile, however, Twitter and YouTube accounts can also be analyzed by using Fanpage Karma.  
• Market research: The tool BuzzSumo allows you to find out which content is shared the most on which specific topic. This tool might also be used  You can also use to research relevant ideas for your own content. In the thinking of an eye you can find out what interests your users most.  
• Image creation: Canva, a tool with which you can easily customize numerous templates to create your own graphics. Canva provides formats, photos, shapes and fonts. Note: When posting articles from a Webmag magazine, article preview images are set automatically. 

CONCLUSION

The use of social media nowadays is not only an obligation for companies, but also a great opportunity. Because there is a big difference between simply using social media and using it strategically to get valuable measurable results. Such a strategy includes both the use of an editorial plan and the help of useful tools. By taking simple steps a large influence on range, performance and interaction rate can be achieved. Even on a small budget the results you achieve can make a difference already already - simply by combining simple tips, tricks and tools.