It can be all too easy to focus solely on results when you’re working on your digital campaigns. Although without the right tools in your arsenal you’re going to fall short every time.
Here we’re going to look at the top 10 Content Marketing tools that you should be using to boost the performance of your campaigns.
1. Gorkana
Site: http://ift.tt/1NOGAUe (Paid)
In the past, I’ve talked about the value that Gorkana can bring to your Content Marketing efforts and now, thanks to a recent update, it’s better than ever before.
By using the ‘Database Search’ function, you can segment your search and find the most appropriate journalists and bloggers to reach out to. This saves you from the painstaking task of crawling sites looking for contact details, which 9 times out of 10 don’t deliver. The site is updated on a regular basis so you can be sure that you’re contacting the right company, department and person.
The beauty of Gorkana is that it gives you all the information you need in one place. Looking for a monthly UK publication that specialises in consumer tech and has a strong social following? Gorkana makes these requests a doddle.
This accuracy has a knock-on effect to the success of your campaign. For example, using it when creating your Content Marketing strategy means that you can easily locate the sites and publications that your target audience reads. It can also be used to identify those key people who are most likely to share, link to and host your content.
Filters include:
- Sectors
- Country
- Social Media
- Language
- Interests
- Keyword
- Media Type
- Frequency
- Circulation
- Keyword
- Social Media
2. Copyscape
Site: http://ift.tt/I3vzgJ (Paid)
If you’re not already using Copyscape then you really should be. Sites like Copyscape are helping make duplicate content a thing of the past – or at the very least they’re making a considerable dent in the issue.
Using a debit card, credit card or Paypal account, you buy a certain number of credits, depending on how many your budget allows. Then simply copy and paste the content that you want to check into the text field. Next, click ‘Search Private + Internet’. This clever piece of tech will instantly identify any lines of text that have been duplicated, and provides their location.
What’s more, you can also compare the two versions of the content. This is great for checking if your content has been scraped so that you can pro-actively work to prevent a Google penalty for duplication.
A trap many Content Marketers fall into is unintentional plagiarism. It’s all too easy to read a piece online when researching for your own work, only for the odd line or phrase to accidently wheedle its way in. Copyscape helps to eradicate these instances and ensure that your content is 100% unique.
3. HARO
Site: http://ift.tt/fslNCK (Free)
Help a Reporter Out – more commonly known as HARO – is a powerful sourcing service connecting journalists, brands and industry experts. Every year HARO helps introduce over 475,000 sources with just over 35,000 journalists, making it an essential tool for brands and reporters alike.
So how does it work? Well, you just need to visit the site, sign up for the service and state your fields of interest. Then you will receive a minimum of three emails per day with the latest media requests for your chosen subjects.
HARO sends out over 50,000 media requests from high-quality outlets each year. This free tool is perfect for those looking for newsjacking opportunities. Journalists on deadline will provide a short description of what they need help with, or require a comment on, the kind of expert they have in mind and the deadline for entries.
This straightforward pitching approach works well for content marketers looking to increase their client’s reach and showcase their expertise. It’s also an effective way to facilitate your SEO campaign. So it’s a win-win situation for everyone involved. Content Marketers can provide comments and statistics related to their client’s expertise and journalists get high-quality content to include in their articles, thus saving time on sourcing data from multiple sites.
Preferences include:
- High Tech
- Energy and Green Tech
- Sports
- Public Policy and Government
- General
- Travel
- Business and Finance
- Biotech and Healthcare
- Lifestyle and Fitness
- Entertainment and Media
- Education
- Giftbag
- UK
4. #journorequest
Site: https://twitter.com/search?q=%23journorequest&src=tyah (Free)
Twitter is an undoubtedly powerful tool that many Content Marketers utilise every single day, but are you aware of the #journorequest feature?
Type #journorequest into the search bar on Twitter and you’ll be greeted with countless tweets from journalists all over the globe looking for help from brands and industry experts. This is a great tool for sourcing news stories to contribute to.
To use the hashtag to its full potential and make your search more defined, just type #journorequest and then a topic relevant to your client into the search bar. For example, for a business insurance client, you might type ‘#journorequest insurance’.
The #journorequest is fantastic because both parties involved get something positive out of the experience. Journalists who are often working to a strict deadline have less research to carry out and gain a quote from a credible source. You or your client, on the other hand, gets to increase their brand’s exposure, share their expertise and acquire high-quality links. As always, make sure that the link is natural. Keyword stuffing in anchor text just isn’t good enough.
#PRrequest is also a great hashtag to search for in Twitter. This is more for clients who want to gain exposure for a certain product or service. An example would be a consumer technology provider wanting to boost sales of their key products and a journalist looking for tech products to review for a Christmas gift guide.
It’s worth noting that links included in any product reviews must be no-followed so that Google doesn’t deem them as paid-for links and dismiss them entirely.
5. Buzzsumo
Site: http://buzzsumo.com/ (Paid)
Buzzsumo is an effective tool for a number of reasons, the first being that it’s perfect for checking how your content is performing. Just enter the URL of the content into the search bar and, hey presto, you’ll see the social shares it’s acquired. You can also view the backlinks that the content has acquired.
Another reason that Buzzsumo is a great resource for Content Marketers is that it’s extremely effective for identifying which sites and publications are talking about subjects relevant to your business, or that of your client. This can then help when it comes to newsjacking. It saves a huge amount of time spent on trying to find targeted articles to contribute to.
It can also be used when creating your Content Marketing strategy. Type your chosen topics into the search bar and you’re instantly shown the existing content that’s out there. This shows what is and isn’t working and will hopefully inspire you to create something even better now that you’re armed with information on how to make it more effective.
Filters include:
- Date – 24 hours, past week, past month, past 6 months, past year or specific date
- Language
- Country
- Content type
6. Ahrefs
Site: https://ahrefs.com/ (Paid)
Ahrefs is a wonderful resource for Content Marketers. You can use the ‘Content Explorer’ to search for a topic relevant to yours or your client’s brand. You’re then provided with a list of content that has gained the most social shares.
The effective tools allow you to tap into the mindset of your intended audience. You can see what grabs their interest and causes them to share online, and then use this to help boost your marketing strategy. It’s also a great source of inspiration. Ask yourself: “Can I improve on this?” If the answer is yes, you could potentially create a powerful piece of content. However, make sure you find a hook, an angle, to make it unique.
Ahrefs is also a brilliant tool to use when newsjacking. Again by typing in topics relevant to your client, you can see the posts out there that you could potentially add a comment to. You can also filter by date and location to make your search more defined.
The search results include the title of the article, the author, the date it was published and a link to the content. So next time you’re searching for leading sites to work with as part of your Content Marketing efforts, keep Ahrefs in mind.
Filters include:
- Date
- Domain name
- Language
7. HootSuite
Site: https://hootsuite.com/ (Free)
Hootsuite is so much more than social media scheduling software. It’s also a powerful aggregator, making it an essential tool for Content Marketers. You can add a whole host of social media platforms to the software and assign each one its own tab. That way you can keep up-to-date with all your social platforms in one place.
Hootsuite provides you with the capability to add streams to your dashboards so that you can keep on top of not only the latest industry updates, but also your social media activity and interaction. This is perfect for analysing how a social media campaign is performing, for example tracking a hashtag connected with a competition.
Of course, Hootsuite is known for its social media scheduling. It’s still one of the best scheduling tools around and given the effective additional features it offers, it has developed into an essential piece of kit for marketers.
If you want to improve your Hootsuite skills, there’s also a great ‘Hootsuite University’ course you can take to get the most from your social campaigns. There’s a fee attached to this, but it’s well worth the investment.
You can add the following social networks:
- Google+
- WordPress
Feeds options include:
- Home
- Mentions
- Messages (inbox and outbox)
- Your tweets
- Likes
- Retweets
- Scheduled posts
- New followers
8. Feedly
Site: https://feedly.com/ (Free)
Feedly is an invaluable tool for those looking to collate news stories that are relevant to their clients. The site provides a minimalist, user-friendly experience, optimised for productivity rather than style.
With Feedly you can discover fresh, authoritative voices on both niche and broad topics. You can easily share or schedule posts to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ and more by using a Hootsuite or Buffer plug-in. Remember that a brand which only shares its own content is somewhat one-dimensional. Sharing stories connected with your brand helps define it as an authoritative one that passes on valuable information.
There’s also the capability to monitor news about your client and their competitors by connecting Feedly to Google Alerts. Feedly can be used as a resource of information too, enabling you to stay informed about all the latest news related to your brand. It helps you keep your content relevant and competitive.
In addition to these useful features, you can also share the collections that you create with colleagues and networks. This can be used to discover what other thought leaders and teammates are reading.
9. YouGov Profiler
Site: http://ift.tt/1zV3doa (Free)
YouGov Profiler is a fantastic tool to have at your disposal. Enter the brand, person or subject that you want to research and it will segment the data into a series of fields.
You’re presented with a multitude of insightful data based on your search term, including where the average amount people interested in that term live, their earning power and their social grade. You’re even given a glimpse into their interests and online behaviour. The data is 100% accurate and based on information given by YouGov panel members.
Content Marketers can use YouGov Profiler for a variety of different tasks, the most important being audience identification when you’re creating your Content Marketing strategy. For trustworthy data on your intended audiences, YouGov Profiler is one of the best tools around. It provides an unparalleled breadth of data, which is why it’s used by a wealth of agencies and brands across the UK.
The paid version gives you access to exclusive information from YouGov Cube, a data vault that holds over 120,000 data points on a group of over 250,000 UK YouGov panel members.
Results include:
- Demographics
- Lifestyle information
- Personality traits
- Brands they are invested in
- Entertainment preferences
- Online activity
- The type of media they consume
10. TweetDeck
Site: https://tweetdeck.twitter.com/ (Free)
TweetDeck is an extremely powerful Twitter tool that provides real-time tracking, organisation and engagement data. It allows you to create a customer Twitter dashboard where information on how your brand is performing on Twitter is just a click away.
The free tool means that you can create custom timelines to keep track of everything from lists and searches you’ve created to follower interaction activity and more, all in one place.
You can set up custom searches to track topics, events and hashtags connected with your brand and then refine the results with TweetDeck’s filtering system. For example, you may have a search column set up showing people tweeting stories or mentioning your brand’s name or account. That way you can see in real-time how people are reacting to your content.
What’s more, you can share your account with your marketing team without having to share your password, meaning that a vacation or sick day doesn’t mean giving others access to the valuable data.
Columns include:
- Mentions
- Activity
- Likes
- Followers
- Messages
- Trending
- Collections
- Lists
- Collections
- Scheduled
Get in Touch
These are just a handful of the Content Marketing tools we use to deliver award-winning results at Koozai. Have you come across an effective tool that hasn’t made it onto our list? I would love to hear from you. Leave your suggestions or comments below.
If you don’t have the time or expertise in-house to reach your Content Marketing goals, then get in touch with Koozai today.
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