How South African brands use Instagram

Instagram started out as a platform for users using it more for personal reasons than businesses using it for marketing purposes.

However, these days brands understand the value of Instagram – and how to successfully integrate it with their marketing strategies. Instagram has become the ‘newest’ way to connect with target audiences by sharing visually attractive photos with short messages.

Researchers found that 92% of luxury brands who post an average of 5.5 times a week will show an increase in their customer base. (You can view the report here). So how can you utilize this amazing platform? Here are a few tips on how to use Instagram for your business:

Monitor your Instagram account constantly. Every mention you receive is a chance to engage with your audience.
Share the love. Don’t expect people to like and comment on all of your photos and you don’t return the favour. Be interactive and engaging – this is a fantastic way to grow your following.
Use hashtags. Give your audience a topic / subject to photograph and a hashtag to use. There is no better way to grow your audience and to engage with them than a competition where people can win a prize.
If you are already using hashtags on other social media platforms, use them on Instagram too. Keep in mind that hashtags used on a platform like Twitter might not have the same power when used on Instagram. Do research on the most appropriate hashtags to use (the ones your audience is looking for) to ensure maximum exposure.
Include your customers and employees. Get customers to show how they use your product and / or services. You can also do this from your side by taking a picture of your customers and showing your audience how others experience your brand. Another option is to feature images of your employees having a good time on the job – this is a good way to humanize your brand.
Reward your followers with discount codes or promotions unique to Instagram.

With that in mind, let’s look at some of our favorite brands on Instagram and how they leverage the platform. These are some of South Africa’s top brands using Instagram:

Woolworths

This is South Africa’s top brand on Instagram. They are very successful in their social media efforts and if you take a look at their Instagram account you will see why. They engage with their followers and they also include their staff and customers in their feed. In addition to this they also feature new products, post inspirational quotes and photos of their yummy looking food.

Topshop South Africa

Topshop has over 16 000 followers. They use relevant hashtags, which is most likely one of the reasons why they are so successful. They also engage with followers, but not on the same level as Woolworths.

Nifty250

We just love Nifty250’s profile! Their images are alluring, and you just can’t stop scrolling down to view more. Nifty250 is very interactive on Instagram – commenting and liking on photos on a regular basis.

Yuppiechef

They do an excellent job of including their staff and followers in their posts. They humanize their service on a very appealing level.

South African Tourism

Go take a look at their profile page, it is very impressive. The photos you will find there will make you fall in love with South Africa all over again. They use relevant hashtags and include followers by mentioning the person who took the photo.

If your brand is not yet using Instagram, what are you waiting for? If you need help incorporating Instagram with your current marketing strategy, feel free to get in touch with our team for advice.

Social media monitoring tools

One of the keys to social media marketing success is listening to what your audience is saying, analysing it and using these insights to improve your marketing strategy.

In our previous post we discussed tips to make the most of social media monitoring and there are many social media monitoring tools available to help you track online mentions and conversations. It’s probably a good idea to try a few of them and then choose the one that works best for you. Below we discuss some options for you to consider.

Social media monitoring tools

Hootsuite

At Twenty3Media we use Hootsuite to manage updates and comments, and Hootsuite can also be used to monitor what is being said. Hootsuite is a great monitoring tool to use when there’s multiple people working on various social media accounts. It offers everything you need in one place. Schedule your social content in advance, and engage with people across all your accounts, all conveniently located in one place. Its easy-to-read reports makes analysing data a breeze. When using Hootsuite you can manage various social networks including Facebook, Twitter, WordPress, Google+, LinkedIn and Foursquare.

TweetReach

If you want to monitor what impact your tweets have, then this is the right tool for you. TweetReach also measures the implications of social media discussions. By using TweetReach you will be able to find out which influential followers to target to get better results.

Social Mention

With Social Mention companies can monitor over a hundred different social media sites, and analyse data in depth. It gives you four measurements of each social media site – the Strength, Sentiment, Passion and what Reach it had.

Twazzup

This is a Twitter monitoring tool. Just enter the name you want to track in Twazzup and it will list the most active influencers, the top retweeted photos and links as well as the top ten keywords related to your search.

HowSociable

You can measure your and your competitors’ social media presence with this tool. You can track twelve social media sites for free. HowSociable allows you to see which social media platform works best for your brand and which ones need more attention.

Sprout Social

With Sprout Social you can manage and monitor on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Its social reports provide analytics, and organizes data of user activity and demographic information.

Unilyzer

This tool can help you see which campaigns are working best on which social networks. It retrieves data from a wide variety of social media platforms and analyses the data. This tool will tell you which visitors are “loyal” and from where users are coming. It also measures social media marketing efforts over time and gives the user a growth rate.

Google Alerts

Google Alerts is a fantastic way to keep track of trends and interesting topics. It very useful for companies’ in the sense that you can keep track of what people are saying about you and your brand across the World Wide Web. You can also use it in a personal capacity when searching for a job, following a trending story or if you’re searching for discounts or promotions.

For more information read this article for some interesting facts about social media monitoring or contact us if you need help with your social media marketing strategy and management.

Tips to make the most of social media monitoring

The world of social media and monitoring what is being said about your brand can be confusing and daunting.

There is so much to keep in mind and so many different online platforms to monitor. Social media monitoring is also known as online analytics, social media measurement, social media management, buzz analysis, and the lists goes on.

Firstly, social media monitoring is the act of using an online tool to monitor what is being said about your brand (or a competitor for that matter) on the World Wide Web. It includes the monitoring of social media and other online platforms like blogs to determine the sentiment of an online conversation about a brand or topic.

One of the benefits of social media monitoring is that it can help marketers determine what impact their online marketing or advertising campaigns have on the public. Once the impact is determined, the marketer can identify opportunities for engagement. Social media monitoring can also provide valuable information about emerging trends and what consumers think about a specific brand or product.

There are many different online tools businesses can use to monitor a variety of social media channels. These tools allow companies to track what consumers are saying about their brand, product or actions. Companies can then react to interact with people through the social media platforms where these conversations are taking place. We will discuss the different social media monitoring tools in detail in an upcoming blog post.

Why is social media monitoring important?

You know where you stand: Monitoring conversaionts will let you know what consumers think of your product as they will tell the truth on social media as they have nothing to lose. It can also provide valuable information about what your competitors are offering.
Crisis control: Social media can quickly turn on you if you don’t pay close attention to it. By keeping your finger on the pulse, you can quickly respond to negative comments to ensure that disturbed customers are attended to.
Identify influencers: With social media monitoring you can identify those consumers whose opinions are respected among their peers. You want these people in you good books so find ways to attract and engage with them, once you have identified them.
Learn what works: You can learn from other companies’ mistakes. Keep an eye on your competitors and you will soon learn what works and what doesn’t.

How should brands handle negative comments on social media?

It is important to always be kind in your response to consumers. The old saying “the customer is always right” applies here, no matter how wrong he is! When faced with a complaint, don’t get defensive. It is best to be accommodating, polite and try to truly listen to the comment. If your business made a mistake, own up to it and apologise. Mistakes happen, and if you deal with them head-on consumers will respect that.

If you want to find out more about monitoring what is being said about your brand online, feel free to contact us to see how we can help.

How to create a marketing strategy (template)

Creating a marketing strategy that includes a detailed digital marketing strategy can be daunting.

I’m often asked what should be included as part of the strategy document so I decided to create this blog post as a reference point. As part of the Marketing short course that I lecture on behalf of the University of Cape Town and GetSmarter, we provide students with a basic marketing strategy template that was adapted from the template on QuickMBA.com. Here is a shortened version of the strategy, with some notes for guidance.

Marketing strategy template

Executive Summary

This section of the marketing strategy serves as the introduction to the marketing strategy and should provide the reader with a concise overview of the problems, challenges and recommendations identified in the marketing strategy.

Introduction and Background

Give an introduction to the business and the purpose of the marketing strategy. This section will include the business’ mission and vision statements and the broader marketing goals the business wants to achieve through the marketing strategy.

Market definition

In this section, describe the products or services that are going to be marketed through the marketing strategy. Describe each product or service individually and include the marketing goals and objectives for each one.

Situation Analysis

The situation analysis section of your strategy will include:

An internal analysis of your business;
An analysis of your customers;
An industry analysis;
A competitor analysis, and
An analysis of your partners and suppliers.

Here is an overview of what each of these sections should include.

Internal Analysis

The internal analysis in your marketing strategy should cover the following points:

Goals. These include the business and marketing goals the marketer wants to achieve through the marketing strategy.
Strengths. These are the business’ strengths.
Weaknesses. These are things that the business can do better (normally competitors’ strengths),
Market share. This section will look at your business’ share of the market in relation to competitors’.

Customer Analysis

This section of the marketing strategy will look at who your current customers are. Include the following details:

Number. This will detail the current number of your customers.
Type. This section looks at how many customers are regular customers and how many only purchase your product or service once in a while. If there are any other differentiators that you can use to distinguish your customers, include that information here.
Decision process. This section will detail the process that happens before a customer buys your product or service.

Industry Analysis

The industry analysis will look at the market the business operates in. It will discuss the market’s potential, size and competitiveness.

Competitor Analysis

This section of the marketing strategy will focus on analysing the business’ competitors. Include the following sections:

Market position
Strengths
Weaknesses
Opportunities
Threats

Partner Analysis

This section of the marketing strategy will focus on the details of your suppliers and distributors (where applicable).

SWOT Analysis

The SWOT analysis will look at the business environment in detail. This includes the internal and external environment, based on the business’ strengths and weaknesses and the information from the competitor and industry analysis, which would have highlighted potential opportunities and threats for the business.

Market Segmentation

This section of the marketing strategy will look at your market, the strategies that you will use to segment the market and a high-level overview of how you are going to reach each segment. Include the following headings:

Each segment
Description
Percentage of sales
What they want
How they use product or service
Support requirements
How to reach them
Price sensitivity

Marketing Strategy

This section of the strategy will discuss the details of your marketing mix. For a product’s marketing mix, the marketer will only include the first five Ps of marketing, namely product, price, place, promotion and people. A service marketer will include the two additional Ps to form the service marketing mix, namely process and physical evidence. Include the following headings:

Product (or service in the case of service marketing)

List overall marketing goals and objectives for the specific product (or service)
Name
Quality
Scope of product line
Warranty
Packaging
Price
Discounts
Payment terms (if applicable)
Place
Other channels available
People (for service marketing)
Physical Evidence (for service marketing)

Marketing Tactics (Promotion)

List each tactic
Goal it is going to achieve
How it is going to be measured and projection

Marketing Budget

Give a high-level overview here of the marketing budget, but include the detailed marketing budget as an addendum.

Marketing Implementation Calendar

The marketing implementation calendar should be included as an addendum.

Addenda

Research
Info used in situation analysis
Market information

Your digital marketing strategy will form part of your overall marketing strategy. The template above should serve as the basis for your marketing strategy. Feel free to add in headings or sections as you find necessary, for instance under the Marketing Implementation Calendar section you can include a Content Strategy document that will give a high-level overview of what content you’re going to post where and when.

Under the Marketing Tactics (Promotion) section you will list all of your marketing tactics – both online and offline. Throughout the marketing strategy you will include both online and offline elements, for instance under the Competitor Analysis section you can include your findings on competitors’ websites.

If you’re purely doing a digital marketing strategy for a company, ask them for their marketing strategy so that you can extract the necessary information from there or create a questionnaire to obtain the information you need. If you have any questions, feel free to contact us.

Is your digital marketing strategy getting the return on investment you want?

While most businesses invest in a digital marketing strategy, after their initial efforts, most of them find it hard to continue to implement the strategy.

The most common reasons for this are a lack of human resources or specialist skills. Often, a tight marketing budget is also a crucial factor.

Why measure digital marketing ROI?

Marketing ROI is the measurement of the marketing activity’s impact on sales. It lets the marketer understand where to increase or decrease advertising investment, so that they can maximise the return on their investment. Moreover, it enables the marketer get more sales at the same cost, or get the same sales at a lower cost. By measuring ROI, investment can be allocated to marketing activities that bring the most sales.

Measuring ROI involves the setting of goals, determining the right platforms, tracking and monitoring, reviewing and assessing results and resetting goals. It includes:

The use of the appropriate tools like web analytics, which is critical in determining the performance of investment in digital platforms, and
Optimizing processes that are essential to collecting the right measurements.

At Twenty3Media, we have the expertise and skill sets required to assist you in creating digital marketing strategies that work, along with the tools and techniques for measuring marketing ROI to ensure you get the best value for your marketing investment.

A strategic digital marketing plan that is implemented in a timely manner and managed efficiently can show significant ROI – making the cost of outsourcing the creation and implementation worthwhile. Investing in a specialist team to create and implement a digital marketing strategy for your business may be your best business investment this year.

Interested in maximising your marketing ROI and achieving your business and marketing goals? Get in touch with our team.

Should you incorporate Instagram in your social media strategy?

Is Instagram worthwhile including in your social media strategy? This is a question I’ve heard many marketing managers ask. Take a look at the stats: With over 100 million monthly active users, 40 million photos per day, 8500 likes per second and 1000 comments per second, Instagram is definitely not a platform to be ignored. The popular photo sharing app ranks among the top social networks today. Even as millions of users upload photos and share them via this app, business are rapidly realizing and leveraging the massive potential offered by Instagram. Brands can no longer resist the attraction of engaging with their audience using this highly visual medium.

Initially, Instagram was used as a medium to share photos with fans but over the last couple of years, it has become a platform of choice for businesses to engage with their fans and increase their reach using images and short text messages. The unique feature of Instagram is its ability to take advantage of the fact that users trust their friends’ and other consumers’ opinion about brands. Since users are clicking photos of brands and sharing them online all the time, brands must make sure they are available right where their market can see them, engage with them and build relationships.

Connecting with the audience

How can they connect with their audience? Here are some examples of how some well-known brands have successfully used Instagram:

When automobile company Ford launched the Ford Fiesta it created the #Fiestagram campaign on Instagram in the form of a photo contest to reach its target market. In a span of seven weeks, more than 16000 photos were posted and shared, generating a tremendous amount of interest on Facebook and Twitter across which the photos were shared, amplifying their reach.
Top brand Nike launched a 24-hour event to celebrate reaching the 1 million followers mark and to push the sales of its #Airmax shoes. The brand invited users to create their own shoe designs based on the photos on the microsite created especially for the campaign. Users shared their photos and the site found a colour scheme to match the background in the picture, enabling the user share the shoe across social media platforms. The shoe was available for sale on the mobile site.

Combined with the power of Facebook and Twitter, Instagram has become an essential component in the marketing strategy. To ensure the effective use of Instagram, here are some tips:

Instagram is a great content marketing tool. The first step is to share unique yet memorable branded content that inspires the audience to interact and share. Planning ahead by creating an editorial calendar to schedule content helps maintain the frequency of publishing based on the type of business. Posting often is a good idea to keep the brand on top of the audience’s mind, keeping them engaged.
One of the critical things about using Instagram effectively is the use of hashtags relevant to the content and brand. In the examples earlier, Ford used the hashtag #Fiestagram while Nike used #Airmax for instant recall. When users find a hashtag appealing, they have the power to use it and boost the brand
Interacting with users is an excellent way to build relationships, especially when users are saying positive things. Asking questions, answering questions helps co-create content and success stories. Many brands share and feature actual user feedback across their channels.
Brands must not shy away from responding to negative feedback about the brand.
Some great content ideas include photos of products in the pipeline, photos of the office with the staff at work, using user generated images, screenshots of a brochure or white paper and other marketing material, using humorous images related with the brand, discounts and promo codes.
Photo contests are one of the most popularly used strategies for creating user engagement on Instagram.

As with any marketing effort, Instagram’s results must also be monitored for return on investment. While measuring traffic to the business website from the links in the photos, if most of the traffic comes from Facebook, it might mean focusing on Facebook and creating a suitable strategy for optimum results.

It is true what they say about a picture being worth a thousand words and this is amply proved by Instagram. While it is easy to get started, marketing via Instagram requires planning and a clear editorial strategy to see the expected results.

Are you thinking of adding Instagram to your marketing strategy? If you are already using Instagram, do share your experience in the comments!

Content marketing to become even more important in 2013

Over the last few weeks I’ve read a lot about content marketing, including the predictions regarding the direction of content marketing in 2013. The consensus seems to be that marketers are going to spend a bigger percentage of their marketing budgets on content marketing, and they are going to utilize more marketing tactics in order to reach their content marketing goals. Many brands have already seen the success of content marketing, and those are the brands that are already a step ahead of the rest.

For those that are not 100% sure what content marketing entails – here is a brief explanation. A content marketing strategy normally include all the platforms that you use to connect with customers and prospects (for instance your website, blog, newsletter, social media profiles, etc) as well as the editorial plan for these platforms. An editorial plan will detail what content will be posted when, and where. As part of the strategy, a business should also determine its “voice” and this voice should be consistent in all content. Your content strategy should aim to tell your brand’s story and connect with your target audience in an engaging way. To determine how to engage with your target audience, market research is needed. It’s also important to set content marketing goals and determine how you are going to measure the success of your content marketing strategy. Some of the marketing goals for a content marketing strategy can include:

Drive targeted traffic to your website
Lead generation
Engagement
Educating your market on your brand, products or services
Improve SEO results
Retain customers

It seems as if the biggest obstacles that marketers are facing include a lack or time and resources. Another obstacle is that marketers are not sure how to accurately measure the ROI of a content strategy, and others don’t measure ROI at all. In 2013 it is going to be important to make sure that your brand don’t get left behind. Competition in the online world is tough and brands with strong content marketing strategies will have a definite advantage.

The Google Penguin Update and what it means for business websites

Google rules the search engine industry and every business website must heed its updates to avoid losing traffic and revenue. Google periodically releases algorithmic updates, with the aim to ensure that search engine users see the most relevant results in response to their search. Recently, the “Penguin” update, one of the most powerful to date was rolled out to curtail websites that used all the wrong techniques to raise their ranking and recovery has not been easy.

What is the Google Penguin Update?

The Penguin Update targeted websites that used black hat SEO and spammy methods to increase their search engine rankings. These included unnatural link exchanges, stuffing keywords, comment spamming and web spam. The update also rewarded sites that did not use these techniques. Google urges webmasters to focus on creating high quality sites with useful content, enhancing positive user experience through white hat SEO.

With the Penguin Update, a number of businesses noticed a decline in their rankings, while some simply disappeared from the first page results.

Last year, Google released the Panda update to sift out low value websites with duplicate content that existed purely for linking. The goal of this update was to encourage websites to focus on the user experience rather than over-optimising for search engines. Similarly, the Penguin update seeks to minimise the number of websites that indulge in link cloaking and other black hat SEO methods without offering visitors any value. Websites that offered fresh, original and valuable content were not touched.

For business websites that regularly create high quality content across their web properties, this is good news. Google Webmaster offers specific guidelines on the best practices to help Google find, crawl, and index sites and adhering to these can ensure that your business website remains unaffected by search engine algorithmic updates.

The bottom line is to avoid stuffing keywords, overuse of site-wide links, distributing unnatural anchor text, an overdose of links, purchasing links and of course, duplicate content. Instead, create valuable, relevant and keyword optimised content that users want to share. The focus must always be on the user experience through engaging content.

Some takeaway tips to ensure your business website thrives through the updates:

Watch those keywords – make sure they appear naturally and in sync with your content. Don’t forget to optimise your images
Maintain a natural link profile by varying the anchor text and including non-descriptive links to look natural
Content was, is and will always be king. Keep it good and relevant. One way to do this is through a blog that is regularly updated. Use press releases and whitepapers to increase your authority.
Keep track with Google Webmaster tools where you can stay informed about how Google sees your website.
Don’t cloak links and avoid duplicating content.

By following the above, it is easy to stay in the good books of Google, and achieve your internet marketing goals consistently.

Why web design should be intuitive

Today, the internet is the prime source of information for consumers looking for a product or a service. A business’ target market will naturally use the search engines to find what they want, and from the results produced, browse prospective websites before they finally decide to buy, or sign up for a newsletter by trusting the website with their contact information. In order to reach that point, the website must appeal to them by being easy to navigate through intuitive web design. When consumers enjoy a positive experience on a website, they are more likely to respond to the website’s call to action.

It follows from this that a business, besides offering great content to engage its market, must also focus on its website design and come across in such a way that the visitor is motivated to look forward to connecting with the business via the website.

What is intuitive web design?

A website’s design is considered intuitive when its content is presented in a manner that makes it easy to access from all types of devices, such as the personal computer, smartphone, laptop and netbook. The website selects the most suitable template for the device and displays the content, loading quickly, enhancing the user’s browsing experience.

It is well known that users do not have the time to sift through content to find what they want especially on smaller screens. They would rather move on to a different site where the information they need is easily accessible. This means determining what the user needs to see to ensure their browsing experience is positive and results in action.

The importance of intuitive web design

A website is a business’ online presence, through which it reaches a wide audience, conveying its message and positioning itself as a trustworthy brand to attract its target audience. When visitors find it hard to navigate the website, it results in lost business and defeats the goals of the business. The information offered must be useful so that it can be leveraged to take the business forward.

Since Google has made it very clear that content will continue to rule, businesses must essentially use content to connect with customers and this must be supported by web design that adapts itself to all devices. Once a content strategy is in place, the next step is to make it easy for visitors to access the content through responsive web design.

Some tips to make web design intuitive are:

Understand your target visitor’s needs
Incorporate a prominent navigation bar that shows the visitor where to go
Add calls to action appropriate to the goals of your website
Link to related content within your website
Design specific and focused landing pages so that they convert visitors into customers
Include social media sharing buttons

When people like a website, they return as repeat visitors, increasing the chances for the business to convert them into buyers.

The main benefits of intuitive web design, besides increased targeted traffic and sales, are better engagement with visitors and higher search rankings. It also means increased usability, higher conversions, better competitive edge and ultimately, maximised marketing ROI.

Keyword research for content strategy

Good quality content offers website users a reason to keep coming back. A content strategy is the blueprint for great content which can then be leveraged in various formats for a variety of channels and media to get the best return on investment. With the major search engines cracking down on sites with less than average content, it is more important than ever to ensure that your website features fresh and relevant content regularly.

Content strategy plays a key role in search engine optimisation and is a great on-page optimisation method. This means the content must be dedicated to the relevant keywords and key-phrases that attract the maximum search engine traffic for your site. The website content must be optimised with these keywords, preferably long tail keywords, to consistently generate traffic. To do this, keyword research is the first step.

Keyword research – the foundation for a successful content strategy

Creating great content must begin with identifying the relevant keywords for your business website. Adequate time invested in the extensive research of keywords and key phrases that include long tail key phrases will pay off with a high ROI.

Specific yet descriptive multi-word or long tail key phrases have better chances of ranking well than a single word keyword. They also help target your traffic since users who search with long tail key phrases are likelier to buy, increasing your conversion rate. Examples of long tail key phrases are:

“Cape Town hiking tours for beginners” Instead of just “tours”

“Sony digital camera 10MP free shipping” Instead of just “digital camera”

“Criminal defense lawyer in Johannesburg” Instead of just “Lawyer”

Notice how the long tail keyword narrows down the search, helps the user find what she wants and increases the chances of converting her into a customer.

While creating your content strategy, create content around long tail keywords to drive more traffic. There are many advantages with the long tail keyword strategy:

Easier to rank for
Less competition
More targeted traffic
Higher conversions
More search engine indexed pages

After deriving a list of long tail key phrases, your content should be packaged around it in a relevant way. The focus must always be on the topic, not the keyword. In fact, the content strategy must be built around these keyword silos.

A word about keyword silos

Keyword silos are groups of theme-based keywords. On most websites, themes and keywords are spread out without being aggregated in a specific location. This makes it hard for the search engines to decide the relevancy of each page in relation to the search phrase used by the user. In the process, it can affect web rankings negatively.

By building silos, you create keyword rich content and themes for each page and section of your website. The information must be structured in a logical and easy to understand manner so that it is both search engine and user friendly. Besides this, the silo also helps with inbound links and higher rankings.

When your content strategy is built around keyword silos, it must ensure that it sounds natural and is in alignment with your overall content strategy, which is part of your marketing plan, and include all your products and services.

Remember to avoid keyword stuffing as you consider the following:

If you have consumer questions to answer, this is a golden opportunity to build valuable, relevant content.
Research what devices your market is using for various keywords and searches to discover trends if any. Based on this, create content that displays on these devices and creates a happy user experience, motivating them to interact and respond.
Your content must be found in order to be effective. Concentrate on the search engine results pages with keywords. Users depend on the search engines throughout the purchase process, right from searching for information to placing their order. What are they looking for? How can you add relevancy to their search and make sure your brand shows up? The answers to these will help frame your content strategy.

While creating your content, bear these in mind:

Vary your word count across pages to make it appear natural.
Use synonymous phrases and secondary keywords.
Add value to each page for a happier user experience.
Write unique content about what has not been said before. If it is a popular topic, provide a new slant to it.
Use emotion to engage your reader.
Encourage visitors to tell you what they want to read and give it to them.
Create an ongoing list of interesting topics around long tail keywords.

Aim to make your website an authority repository of valuable information about your topic.
Content marketing is here to stay and your business is guaranteed to flourish as long as you can keep the search engines and your users happy. Add website analytics and keyword research, and you are well on your way towards a successful content strategy.