Social media is not just a tool for distributing and promoting your content, it’s also a tool for finding an audience.
It’s not enough to create your content, post it to Twitter and sit back and wait for the people to come. Your content won’t market itself no matter how good it is.
You need to use the tools available through social media and search engines to reach out and grab your audience.
Sites like Twitter and Google Blog Search offer powerful search features that allow you to find people talking about your niche or area of business right now. These are the people who are going to be interested it your content.
If you’re in the coffee business or have a blog about coffee then you need to be searching terms like “coffee beans”, “espresso” and “lattes” every day.
And when you find people talking about these things, simply sending them a helpful message on Twitter or leaving a comment on a blog post that adds to the conversation (but doesn’t over-promote yourself) is usually enough to put you on someone’s radar. Chances are they will come check you out too.
And I’m not just talking about popular sites and big names in your industry, I’m talking about everyone. This process of reaching our to new people is a marathon, not a sprint.
But if you’re pumping out great content, then you’ve created a sticky destination and greatly increased the chances of someone entering your network when they come to see what you’re all about.
This aspect of content marketing is so important I believe it deserves half of your time, especially when you’re just starting out. I’m certainly going to give it half of mine.
Content is king, but unless you have eyeballs it’s one lonely throne.