I'm always updating my popular deck on creating content that works for social media. There are a lot of things to take into consideration in your content marketing efforts. These tips will give you a leg up.

1. Creating Content
(That Works)
Amy Vernon
Amy Vernon LLC
#cre8content

2. Finding Your Subjects

3. Look Who’s Talking
Mention, Talkwalker, Google Alerts.
• Set up alerts for your main keywords
• Subscribe to daily email of mentions or view in app

4. Love ’em and read ’em
Don’t listen to the haters. Whether through
Flipboard, Feedly, Digg Reader, or wherever else,
RSS lives on.
•

5. Before It’s News
Forums - people still use 'em. And love 'em.
Something Awful forums have launched many memes and have something like
154MM threads. No, really.

6. They’ll Stumble For Ya
StumbleUpon - the easiest way to get
content to come to you

7. Content Categories
Targeted Funny
How-to Commentary
Target photo by Ville Miettinen viaFlickr Creative Commons Owl photo by Doug Wheller via Flickr Creative Commons

8. Targeted
Any piece of news that relates to
your niche/genre. They can be
quickly recapped and take little
effort.
 Industry happenings
 News releases
 Personnel changes and moves
Writing/Creation Time: LOW
Social Potential: LOW
Value: Helps share important news,
caters to your core audience, boosts SEO
and helps keep the blog filled.

9. Funny
A play off the news or something topical, but with an
eye toward the absurd.
 Start from the topic, but focus on the funny
Writing/Creation Time: MEDIUM to HIGH
Social Potential: HIGH
Value: Shows a light-hearted side; brings in traffic, boosts
SEO and exposes you to new audiences.

10. How-to
 Teach your readers
something they don’t know.
 Better yet, teach your readers
something they didn’t know
they needed to know.
 Can take many forms
Writing/Creation Time: LOW to HIGH
Social Potential: HIGH
Value: High shareability; establishes your
thought leadership; provides value to
reader (which makes them think better of
you); boosts SEO.

11. Commentary
Covering popular news stories
or timely topics, but making it
your own by expressing opinion.
 Covers the news from a
specific angle.
 On a news release – is this a
departure from the norm?
 Has this worked in the past?
Writing Time: HIGH
Social Potential: MEDIUM
Value: Establishes your thought
leadership, boosts SEO.

12. Content Types
Infographics Timelines
Video Photos

13. Infographics
 DON’T: just throw up a
bunch of stylized text
 DON’T: Change color
schemes for no apparent
reason
 DON’T: Mix and match fonts
just because you feel like it.

14. Infographics
 DO: Share interesting
information in an engaging,
informative way
 DO: Have some
information that people
want to know and share
 DO: Visualize data and
make numbers tangible

15. Timelines
 “Evolution” (of a logo, a singer, etc.)
 Design is important
 Memes are still good
 Yes, this is a type of infographic

16. What happens if you
Google “LEGO timeline”?

17. Video
 YouTube is the biggest by far, but it’s not the only game in town.
 Dailymotion is 2nd-largest in the world.
 Vimeo has reputation for quality video.
 Telly, Viddler – more players every day.
 Video is getting
bigger every day
 It doesn’t have to
be expensive
 When it goes viral,
it goes HUGE

18. Photos
#smx #24A
 Use large, high-res, attractive
photos
 Slideshows need to be short, or
very fast-moving (i.e., no
reloading the page every scroll)
 Encourage users to send in pics
 Then & Now
 “Separated at birth?”
This had 102K views on StumbleUpon

19. A few words about lists
 People love lists.
 They really do.
 They complain about them being linkbait, but they read
them.
 And share them.
This had 469K views on Stumbleupon and 147K shares on Facebook.

20. A few (more) words about lists
This had 166K views on Stumbleupon
 If you’re going to do a
list, cover the subject.
BE
COMPREHENSIVE.
 Why do top 10 if you
can do top 34?
 People like learning
things they didn’t
know.
 Did I mention that
people love lists?

21. These didn’t really fit into any of the
other categories
A COUPLE
MORE THINGS

22. Do these things
Be useful.
Be relevant.
Be consumable.
Link out. People will
notice, visit and
maybe even link
back to you.
Photo by Matt Brown via Flickr Creative Commons

23. Also do these
Illustrate whenever
possible.
K.I.S.S.: Keep it
simple, stupid.
Emulate content
you like.
Review before you
post — would you
read it if you
happened upon it?
Cartoon by Ape Lad via Flickr Creative Commons

24. Thanks and Keep in Touch
amy@amyvernon.net
www.amyvernon.net
www.Facebook.com/AmyVernon
www.Twitter.com/AmyVernon
plus.google.com/+AmyVernon