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Content Strategy is Episode 70 of This Old New Business weekly business podcast with Jeff Korhan.

Frank Kenny has twice been a guest on the show. This week he graciously interviews me to discover and share the top takeaways from Social Media Marketing World 2016 hosted in San Diego, CA last week.

The key was having a strategy and following it, and that is also my top takeaway from the event.

Content strategy isn’t sexy, but it is indeed what everyone was talking about.

Here are a couple of examples from sessions presenters.

Stephanie Sammons talked about tilting your LinkedIn profile to the audience you are trying to reach today. In her own profile, she uses phrases like Texas gal and yogi to show some personality that makes her stand out on what many consider the least interesting social media channel.

And she gave examples of business she has landed with this strategy to back it up. So, don’t be afraid to test new profile strategies.

Shaun McBride (Shonduras on SnapChat) is exactly what you would expect from a SnapChat expert. He’s a snowboarding, surfer dude kind of guy that knows how to tell stories with short videos that will make you laugh out loud. His simple video strategy follows a theme: Will This Work?

He has built a massive SnapChat audience that wants to find out if his next crazy project will work.

If you are curious, the hot social channels nowadays are SnapChat, LinkedIn, Facebook, email, podcasting, and live video such as Blab and Facebook Live. A valid strategy with any of these channels should ideally provide a shift (or tilt) that gets you noticed when others are playing it safe.

And that brings us to a proven strategy that anyone can use.

Take The 3% Challenge

Mark Schaefer, the author of The Tao of Twitter and The Content Code, gave the closing keynote at Social Media Marketing World. He delivered an entertaining and informative presentation that challenged the audience to take the 3% content strategy challenge.

Most of us have a core group that loves us. They are the ones that engage with and share our content because we’ve earned their trust. Our challenge is to focus on this segment that is probably 2% of our subscribers and followers and grow it to 3%.

If you get there, refocus and go for 4%. That’s been my commitment with my weekly newsletter from day one, and it’s why I consider it my primary channel. Feel free to steal my strategy. Here it is.

Choose one channel to be your proving ground, the place where you push the limits to make new discoveries for that small segment of your audience that truly loves and appreciates your work.

In addition to being a source of valuable content, this is the channel that always gets 100% of your heart and soul, regardless of other commitments, and fuels the larger body of work that defines your brand.

Good luck with yours.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on content strategy. Meet me over on Twitter to take the conversation further.

Key Take-Aways

• Thanks to Frank Kenny for helping to put this podcast together. You can learn more about his work with local Chambers of Commerce at FrankJKenny.com
• While SnapChat was the darling of the event, you may be surprised to learn that all four of the LinkedIn sessions I attended with Stephanie Sammons, Viveka von Rosen, Melonie Dodaro, Jason Miller and Alex Rynne were completely full. This is a reminder that for many businesses LinkedIn is considered an essential social media channel.
• Peg Fitzpatrick offered a couple of resources for upgrading your images. They are DesignFeed.io for resizing images for the social media channels and RelayThat.com for quickly and easily creating cool graphics.
• Syed Balkhi shared AnswerThePublic.com for learning what people want to learn more about so that you can create content that addresses relevant issues. Note: When using it you’ll want to change the country from UK to US, or whatever is most relevant for your search.
• You can still buy a virtual pass to access to 140+ Social Media Marketing World session recordings and slides by going here.

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About the Author:  Jeff Korhan, MBA, is the author of Built-In Social: Essential Social Marketing Practices for Every Small Business and host of This Old New Business podcast.

He helps organizations use media to create exceptional customer experiences that drive business growth in a digital, social and global world. Connect with Jeff on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Google+