Content Marketing and Associations

How to Secure Your Association’s Place as a Thought Leader with Your Content

June 18, 2023 By Patrick L. Burns 31 Comments

The term “thought leadership” tends to be used loosely these days to describe any content that has to do with an industry, regardless if it has any real value to the reader or not. In truth, With so much online noise fighting for your member’s attention, your association must step up and provide quality content that benefits and provides real value to your audience.

What is Thought Leadership Content?

Thought leadership is not necessarily just a type of content, but a type of content marketing. According to Marketing Insider Group, this type of content marketing involves tapping into the experience and knowledge of your industry or business to answer the biggest questions on the minds of your audience on a particular topic. When it comes to thought leadership, your audience is usually looking for the best answer to a question.

In order to provide the best answers to your members, you need to be an expert on the topics you are discussing. As an association, you may have contacts in your network that can help with this; or you can take it upon yourself to do thorough research to develop content that has accurate and detailed information to ensure that you establish credibility and protect your reputation. Often members will look to the association for answers or support; and having this type of content available not only helps them, but also shows potential members that you truly understand the industry you represent.

How to Create Valuable Thought Leadership Content

Thought leadership content can come in many forms, and be distributed across many mediums. Blogs, essays, videos, presentations, webinars, research studies and any other form of media that can provide your members and potential members with useful, enlightening, and valuable information are considered thought leadership content pieces. This content is commonly available for free or in exchange for a registration of a name, email, and other contact information.

One of the key aspects to thought leadership content is that it is not a membership sales pitch. While critical to audience engagement, it should be kept enlightening, interesting, and informational. Your call to action at the end of the piece can be your pitch for your readers to take actions such as signing up for your newsletter.

A recent study by Edelman and LinkedIn shows there is an oversaturation of “thought leadership” content online. This makes it essential to come up with content that stands out from the rest. This can include original research and insights by your association with information that pertains specifically to your industry.

Whether you create content in-house or outsource for it, be sure to create, upload, and share content across channels including your website, e-newsletter and social media accounts.

Why is Thought Leader Content Important?

In this day and age, standing out by creating original content that resonates and solidifies your association as a trusted thought leader in your space is important. According to an article from Association’s Now, successful thought leadership content can raise your association’s platform. The recent Edelman and LinkedIn study showed 64 percent of the respondents say that thought leadership is used when deciding to trust an organization’s capabilities.

Having strong thought leadership content goes a long way in increasing awareness, bringing leads, establishing relationships, providing value, and recruiting new members to your association. It also drives SEO and your online visibility, making it more likely your association’s content appears first to people who are looking for information related to your industry. Doing your own research and creating original and high-quality thought leadership content will go a long way in securing your association as the overall thought leader for your members and potential members.

For help with your Association’s content marketing efforts or for more information, visit our website at www.arc3communications.com or contact us at info@arc3communications.com.

How to Increase Association Members’ Value with a Strong Content Strategy

March 19, 2021 By Patrick L. Burns Leave a Comment

Content strategy is vital for your trade association, not only to bring in new members, but also to provide your current members with value for their membership. Just like other aspects of your organization, having a detailed and planned content strategy allows you to develop and put out content in a way that will draw the attention of your audience; attract new members; and provide your current members with valuable resources and information. Creating and releasing content without a strategy makes it difficult to track success; and also makes it difficult for your members to follow your content schedule, or lack thereof.

Below we will discuss ways to put together a content strategy that will allow you to test methods and see results. This will help you plan, create, and track your content marketing efforts and make tweaks where needed to reach your goals.

Planning and Goal Setting

First things first, you have to work with your team to pinpoint the ultimate goals you are trying to reach with your trade association’s content marketing efforts. Whether you are trying to bring in new members, raise awareness, provide value, promote an event, or a mixture of things; having them laid out allows you to plan your content efforts with these goals in mind. This lends purpose to your content creation and distribution strategy, instead of just posting content to get it out there.

Part of this process is identifying your audience. Consider the age range, background, profession, industry, and any other contributing factors that may affect the type of content you produce. These attributes may also influence the channels you choose to use to distribute your content. Researching information such as this Pew Research Center study on social media use and demographics, can help you decide the appropriate channels to reach your specific audience.

Content Types and the Popularity of Video

When it comes to the types of content you create and distribute, you may need to experiment to
find out what works for your audience. While blogs and e-newsletters are good staples of content marketing for everyone to have, other content forms such as infographics, videos, photos, live-streams, webinars and more can help diversify and give your content strategy what it needs to cut through the noise. With so much content competing for your audience’s attention, the more you can stand out and draw members’ attention to you, the better. You may have to test multiple content types to gauge what gets the best results.

One of the most popular content forms now is video. According to Small Business Trends, 93% of marketers say video has brought new customers. With current video recording technology, it is possible to make professional looking videos straight from your cellphone. There are a number of different ways you can take advantage of video such as vlogs, behind-the-scenes, interviews, Q&A sessions, how-to videos, and many more. No matter the content path you choose to take, video is a good choice to have on your list.

Content Schedules, Calendars, and Consistency

As you create content, it is important to create a schedule for releases and posts. A good tip is to create and implement a content calendar that keeps track of what content is being posted, on what channel, and on what day. This helps you further strategize by allowing you to plan in advance what content you’d like to share. For example, if you have an upcoming virtual event, you will want to plan content regarding that event strategically leading up to it in order to recruit attendees.

Content buckets are a helpful strategy for organizing your content. Content buckets (remove link) refer to sharing certain subject matter on specific days of the week and can also be planned and tracked through your content calendar. For example, you can decide to always share association news on Monday’s, employee stories on Tuesday’s, industry how-to videos on Wednesday’s and so on. This way your audience will know when to look for the content that is most important to them. Your content buckets can also be tested and changed depending on performance. Always try to have a reason behind your strategic decisions to get the most ROI for your content efforts.

Consistency is key to a successful content strategy. As a trade association, you want your members to get as much value for their membership as possible. You also want potential new members to see that you are the leading authority for your association’s industry. In order for this to be possible, you have to consistently provide new and quality content on a regular basis. If you have an active blog that you post to once a week, try to find what day and time gets the highest traffic, and consistently post your new blog every week on that day and at that time. Again, this allows your members and the rest of your audience to know when to check back for new content.

One Size Doesn’t Fit All

When it comes to content strategy for your trade association, there is not a one size fits all strategy that works for everyone. If you need help creating and implementing a content strategy that works for your association and would like to learn about our content marketing services, contact us here.

How to Get Your Trade Association’s Content in Google’s Search Position Zero

February 22, 2021 By Patrick L. Burns Leave a Comment

In recent years, Google has been trying to find ways to get people the answers they are looking for without having to leave the Google search engine results page (SERP). One way they use to achieve this is the featured snippet. These can appear with traditional Google searches or voice searches which are growing in popularity. Featured snippets are boxes of text that answer a query and appear above the coveted top three results on the SERP. This has come to be known as “position zero”. These featured snippets pull the answer to the query from a content piece on a website and post the “snippet” along with a link to the full piece in a box at the top of the page. This allows people to get the answers they are looking for quickly without having to go to any website, but if they wish to know more, they can follow the link to the full piece.

While there is no exact science to getting your association’s content into featured snippets, there are things you can do to greatly improve your chances.

Understanding What a Featured Snippet Is

Before you can begin to think about trying to earn a featured snippet, you should know a few things about them. Featured snippets are usually answers to who, what, when, where, why, and how questions. Google ranks websites and content based on the reputation and factualness of the content and from there pulls answers to feature in the snippet. For example:

If you search “Why join a trade association?”

You will see this featured snippet appeared at the top of the page. This particular snippet was pulled from www.americanbusinessmag.com and features a basic answer to the question “Why Join a Trade Association?”. It also gives the user the chance to follow the link to learn more, thus increasing chances of someone visiting your website.

Snippets can appear in different forms including paragraph snippets like the one above, numbered or bulleted lists, and tables. Which snippet type that your content is featured in will depend on the type of content you create.

How to “Own” the Featured Snippet

As previously stated, there is not an exact science to winning the featured snippet, but there are steps you can take with your association’s content to increase your chances.

Find out what people want to know

For this first step, you really have to think like your audience; this could be existing members or potential members. Think of the questions you receive and try to focus strong content around answering those questions. Again, featured snippets are answers to who, what, when, where, why, and how questions. Keep this in mind when brainstorming potential audience questions. A good resource for finding what people are asking is www.answerthepublic.comwhere you can search specific terms and see what people are searching for regarding that term.

We searched “trade associations” and you can see a part of the wheel we got as a result. This image includes the who and how results. One popular question is “what do trade associations do?” so that may be a good topic for content for you to focus on.

Research Snippets in Your Industry

A good way to find opportunities for snippets for your association is to go to Google and begin typing the questions that you came up with. This will allow you to see if there are existing snippets or if there is an open opportunity for you to own the snippet. Even if there are existing snippets, if you tailor you content right, you can still take control of that snippet. Also be sure to pay attention to the “People also ask” section that appears further down the SERP. Below is the “People also ask” box that appears when we entered the question “What is a trade association?”

This section also pulls from existing content online so there is also potential to have your content featured as an answer here as well.

Strong Website, Strong Content, Strong SEO

One of the most important factors in having your association’s content chosen for the featured snippet is making sure your website is optimized, easy to navigate, and functioning well. This is one of the first things Google looks at when determining whether your page should appear on the first page of the SERP or in the featured snippet. If your website is slow and not user friendly by Google’s terms, even if your content is outstanding, you may be overlooked when it comes to the featured snippet. Not only that, but your website will get pushed further back on the SERP making it hard to find and less likely to be visited.

Also, devoting time to keyword research and using popular keywords in your content will help not only win the featured snippet, but also rank you higher on the Google SERP. Using backlinks, cross-linking, and releasing content consistently and regularly can also go far to increase your ranking and raising you up on the search engine results page (SERP).

You Can Do It

It takes work, but you can earn the featured snippets and even improve your position on Google’s search engine results page at the same time. There are many other factors that improve your chances for securing snippets and improving your SEO. If you would like further information or help with your association’s website or content marketing, contact us here.

Content Marketing and Social Media Training for Georgia Movers Association

November 2, 2017 By Patrick L. Burns 31 Comments

Arc 3 Communications recently conducted a content marketing and social media training program for the Georgia Movers Association as a part of their annual conference. The program was attended by hundreds of moving company executives from across the state of Georgia. The annual conference was held at the Idle Hour Country Club in Macon.

Arc 3 Founder Patrick Burns provided insights on what is content marketing and why it is important for a moving company’s marketing efforts. Participants were provided insights into how to incorporate a content marketing process inside their business and the fundamental elements for developing and implementing a content marketing program.

The Arc 3 Communications team also provided insights regarding the major platforms in digital marketing today – Facebook and Google. Session included strategies on how moving companies can utilize Facebook advertising to market their business using tools like the Power Editor for targeting and Facebook Pixel for re-targeting. Tips for sharing timely and informative posts and how to leverage Facebook’s live video feature were also provided.

Session attendees were also provided tips for “Keeping Google Happy”. Practical and helpful website tips in the areas of security, page speed, local SEO, caching, optimizing images, accelerated mobile pages (AMP), and inbound links were shared. Finally, insights into Instagram Stories and Snapchat and trends that may lie ahead in marketing were presented.

The training session on content marketing and social media stimulated conversation among the moving company executive attendees on the types of content and marketing tactics members were using to help them to achieve their business goals.

Arc 3’s content marketing and social media training seminars are customized for trade associations and have been very valuable to their members. Content marketing and social media are changing everyday with new platform updates, tools, shifting audiences and techniques. Through our research, lab work and networking we keep up with the latest trends in content marketing and social media.

Want to talk about a customized content marketing and social media training program for your association? Contact us here or via Facebook Messenger. Or sign up for our newsletter to get the latest tips here.

Content Marketing and Website Development Case Study: Georgia’s Coalition of Advanced Practice Registered Nurses (CAPRN)

January 25, 2014 By Patrick L. Burns Leave a Comment

Georgia’s Coalition of Advanced Practice Registered Nurses (CAPRN), formed in 2010, unites 20 advanced practice registered nursing organizations across the state of Georgia to improve the healthcare of all Georgians through collaboration, advocacy and legislative initiatives. CAPRN represents over 8,000 advanced practice registered nurses in Georgia, including nurse practitioners, certified nurse-midwives, certified registered nurse anesthetists, and clinical nurse specialists.

The leadership at CAPRN decided in order to better serve their members and also to help grow awareness and increase new membership, that they wanted to redesign their website and develop a content marketing and social media strategy. The leadership wanted a website that was easy to navigate, mobile friendly, and had a modern, professional look. For their content strategy, CAPRN wanted to solidify their place as the leader in promoting quality healthcare, educating about the advanced practice registered nursing profession in the state, and advocating for the profession at the State Capitol.

Arc 3 Communications worked with CAPRN to develop a plan for their new website that would meet all of their goals. From this plan, a new, modernized website was built that represented the mission of CAPRN, and brought value to members and potential members alike. This new website was mobile first, provided easy-to-find valuable resources, and allowed for donations to the association, and easy new member registration.

In addition, Arc 3 did a thorough content audit of their current social media presence and content efforts. From this audit, Arc 3 was able to identify key messages, audiences, and objectives that would help in forming a successful content marketing strategy for CAPRN. The Arc 3 team then held a content and social media training session with the group, providing a new content marketing plan and providing strategies and insights on how to grow the group’s digital presence and in turn increase traffic to the website and ultimately grow their membership.

Since the creation of the new website and the development of a content marketing plan, CAPRN has experienced substantial growth in unique visitors to their website. They have also grown their social media following by over 100%. The new website has given the association distinction and a strong online presence, leading to increased awareness and new members.

Does your association need a new look for your website or a content and social media marketing plan? Contact us here.

How to Secure Your Association’s Place as a Thought Leader with Your Content

How to Get Your Trade Association’s Content in Google’s Search Position Zero

Content Marketing and Website Development Case Study: Georgia’s Coalition of Advanced Practice Registered Nurses (CAPRN)

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