We all know or have heard in social media that content is king. This was to my knowledge challenged recently asking if it is still true. Well, in my opinion, it still is. Besides content in your blog, or on your website, we now are finding how to effectively use content as a marketing strategy as another form of pr marketing strategies.

Simply put, a content marketing strategy actually refers to the power of the content and understanding how you create the appropriate content strategy. Confused yet?  Ok, let me give an example.  In social media, such as Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest you probably tell people, followers and sometimes even customers about your products or services. Take this PR one step further by now creating a “two-way” conversation.  Make your pr content be shareable, work to make it trigger a discussion to encourage your social network to continue the conversation within their social circle.

In order to be effective with a content strategy you should have a clear understanding of your objective before you begin making any statements, or starting up a conversation. This type of content is designed to build viable web content that will engage your target customers as well as search engines.  This can also help increase your visibility with the search engine rankings.

When you create conversations (content) it will usually increase your online business and generate maximum web visibility to build a strong reputation. Therefore be sure to always provide enough quality content for customers to talk about with others. This is an effective way to expand your pr marketing strategy.

Aron Agius a well-known person in the field who has helped online marketing campaigns become successful made this statement:

“The importance of content marketing strategy cannot be underestimated. Content is the foundation of any successful online marketing campaign. A great strategy is needed in order to fuel social media activity, to create high converting landing pages for pay per click marketing, and to power increases in search engine rankings for target keywords.” He continued saying, “businesses of all sizes can benefit from implementing a solid content marketing strategy. Small businesses have just as much opportunity as big business to reach an increased audience trough content marketing – the key element that needs to be monitored is consistency. Consistent content creation and marketing is what sets apart businesses from the many similar businesses jumping on the content marketing bandwagon.”

I do not think I could have said it any better.

And if you are not sure how to implement this strategy, Aron has these 5 steps that you can follow:

1) Focus your plan around being able to consistently create high quality content.

2) Ensure your content strategy covers a wide range of different content types. Text blog posts, advanced guides, info-graphics, images, video — the more types of media you create the greater the potentially reach and the number of different distribution channels you can use to get eyeballs on your content.

3) If need be outsource your content creation, but only do so once you have developed strict guidelines around tone, style, voice, and the core messages that you want your content to speak towards.

4) Identify the problems in your industry, the questions people are asking and focus on being a resource that creates content that solves problems and puts you in a position of authority within your industry.

5) Don’t forget the marketing in content marketing. This is the most important point. People are now creating endless amounts of content and thinking they are doing content marketing. You should be spending as much time in marketing the content as you are creating the content on the first place.

Now go and start some conversations to engage your customers.