How Guest Posts Boost Your Content Marketing (With Links to Five Top Sites)

 I attended a 2012 BookExpo panel where the moderator said the iconic statement content is king is no longer true: content marketing is king. This comes down to creating and writing posts and Tweets and marketing them to larger and larger numbers of followers. What most marketing folks forget is how hard it is to consistently write well and have the research and knowledge to offer fresh insights. But if you want to get followers to share, click, and connect, you need better content marketing.

One of the most effective strategies for writers and thought leaders is to sign up for major blog platforms and post on topics relevant to that platform. In other words, to reach folks interested in a field, go to the biggest blogs in those fields and guest post. However, you’ll need to be serious about your post. Read what your target blog is posting on a daily basis, and peg your post to breaking, high-interest news. I remember when I wrote a post on business books and publishing for CBS BNet, a business news site. After the bin Laden operation, my editor asked me to write a column the next day about the books publishers should be pursuing about bin Laden in the wake of the successful May 2011 mission.

A related strategy is to tap into online influencers. Write about and interview the connectors, authors, and bloggers with major audiences in the social media and online space. For example, if you are in marketing, expert and author Guy Kawasaki has more than one million followers on Twitter. Write about Kawasaki’s big ideas, comments, books, or social media and link back to his website. You never know, some of Kawasaki’s followers and fans might find your post and ideas.

Many big blogs in the social and online media, marketing, and publishing space encourage guest posts, including, Copyblogger, Problogger, Social Media Examiner, Technorati, and ReadWriteWeb. Spend some time on these sites to get a sense of the tone and the kinds of stories they publish. When you’re ready, make these sites (or others you may have found in your research) part of your content marketing strategy. Look for more posts the next few weeks on content marketing!