As someone who is passionate about marketing, I love nothing more than having a solid list of approved resources to use when marketing on social media. In this post, I want to share how to concoct your own comprehensive list of content resources that you can add to and edit organically.

Businesses should have two sets of content resources that they use for marketing on social media sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Google+:

1. Industry topics, news, and trends that you read

2. Information that your target market read to learn more about your industry

If the second set of resources is new to you, don’t feel left behind. Many marketers leave these by the wayside when formulating a social media marketing strategy. The problems with leaving out this set of resources is that you lose touch with what is important to your target market and just push your agenda down their throats, no matter how off-base it is.  Remember, your content needs to be engaging, and understanding what your audience wants is the first step towards engagement.

First, I want you to think about key problems that your product or service solves.  Get a pad of paper and write down five or more problems that your product or services alleviate.

For example, if I was an assisted living facility that specializes in Memory Care for people with Alzheimer’s and dementia, my list might look like this:

1. Alzheimer’s

2. Dementia

3. Aging Parents

4. Memory Care

5. Respite Care

All of the above directly relate to assisted living facilities with memory care units. Let me share another one.  How about a diet pill that suppresses hunger?

1. Eating Disorders

2. Overeating

3. Overweight

4. Obesity

5. Weight Loss

See how each of these is related to the diet pill?

Now, for each problem that your product/services solves, come up with 5-10 topics that can be associated with each problem.  For example, let’s use the diet pill again.  The problem it solves is being overweight/obesity.  So 5 topics that can be associated with the problems of being overweight are:

1. Diabetes

2. Lack of Energy

3. Low Self-Esteem

4. Loneliness

5. Heart Problems

Now identify at least one online resource that corresponds to each topic.  An online resource can be a website, newsfeed, or even a hashtag!  In the case of the diet pill, a health blog or an online fitness magazine could be a great resource, write down the name of the resource with the website address next to it for easy future access.

When you are done with this, start a list of websites that you personally visit to find news related to your industry.  Write down all of the websites that you go to for the latest trend and news with the website address written beside them.  Come up with 5-10 of these as well.

To help you get started, here are a few sites to try out:

1.  Alltop

2. Feedly

3. Hashtags.org

4. Quora

5. Buzzsumo

These lists are invaluable going forward because you need to generate content when using social media to market your business.  Having an approved list of resources is paramount to success.   These will help inspire your writing as well as help you easily find information to share with your target audience that will be valuable to them.

If you like this process, and would like some extra credit, expand your list to include opinion leaders within your industry.  These people share lots of valuable information that you could repurpose as useful tips for your audience.  In order to create an engaging social media strategy, knowing where you can go to pull fresh, engaging ideas for content is an absolute must!

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