Content Boomerang. What is a boomerang? According to Wikipedia it is: a bent or angular throwing club typically flat on one side and rounded on the other so that it soars or curves in flight; especially: one designed to return near the thrower. 2: an act or utterance that backfires on its originator.
Social media marketing is definitely NOT for everyone, as Mark Schaefer explains in this post.
Table of Contents
How to Boomerang Your Content for Traffic Growth
Still. Word-of-mouth marketing is all the marketing you’ll ever need because people talking is the most perfect organic business builder. But it isn’t just about throwing your content out there if you can’t get something back.
Today, social media marketing (SMM) represents the new organic route to develop word-of-mouth marketing for your business. Okay, maybe it’s more word-of-feed.
Still, positive results for business prevail, and isn’t that what matters? SMM pumps up word-of-mouth with a bigger mouthpiece than you may imagine but, if you add a little boomerang spin to your social efforts, the surprises that return may overwhelm you.
In fact, SMM changes the entire landscape for conducting business and so, requires modifying current business models for a digital world.
But the point of using social platforms hinges on your ability to drive traffic back to your business. Most often, this means you’re increasing visibility and establishing expertise with the goal of bringing visitors to your digital home.
The next trick is twofold for content boomerang
First, developing value-heavy content assets, and offering visitors a welcoming resource-driven website is key.
But even more so, this business hub – usually anchored by an engaging blog – needs to resonate with people. Getting them there is one thing; drawing them in is quite another!
Enticing Visitors to Your Digital Home
It’s not enough to get site visitors for a single visit. Your objective is to create an interactive community around your business. Therefore, your blog has an enormous job.
Sure, conversations happen on social media platforms, enhancing your word-of-mouth reach while also building a strong brand image and reputation over time.
Lisa’s Inspire to Thrive blog focuses on Twitter foremost and social media. She does a great job sharing the latest trends and changes impacting your online business. The speed and variety of social media updates mean material for Lisa’s blog for a long time to come.
More importantly, though, there’s a community here, making the blog more than a one-stop-shop. That’s what you want for your site, right?
So, how do you create enough super fab stuff to keep your brand content new, exciting, and visible, EVERYWHERE?
And how do you keep up a level of quality in each piece you produce?
It Helps if You CARE
Consistency and clarity in communications happen when you CARE by keeping your content:
- Current
- Accurate
- Rare
- Exciting
CARE addresses the quality and consistency of your content. However, gaining visibility, driving traffic, and turning up everywhere requires you go a few steps further.
Ready to Go BIG?
Go big and bring quality guests home. Yep! Truth is if you aren’t out there:
- being seen,
- getting noticed, and finally,
- bringing new friends back to your website,
then you may as well offer your services from a dry desert or lost island. You know, in a magical (hidden) place no one knows about or ever visits?
So… Are you ready to take off and grow your blog reach?
Here’s The Story of Content Boomerang
There I was vehemently tackling WordPress to create a shining business blog—and minding my own business—when suddenly, I was smacked with a Boomerang!
A Content Boomerang, that is, whipped at my head with zest and verve by the ultra-smart, Ana Hoffman, of TrafficGenerationCafe.com.
And so our social media and marketing friendship morphed into an unlikely duo of boom-boom-boomeranging adventurers.
Joining Ana’s Beta Content Boomerang Training and “Groupies” was one of the best decisions for my web-based writing business so far for learning to promote my brand, and work, in a relevant way.
Working with Ana’s results-driven method (and help from fellow Boomerangers), my content toolbox is overflowing with tools, tips, and tricks to give my content wings. Even the name Content Boomerang indicates the significance of using content outreach to bring something back to you.
Ana’s online course for “being everywhere” keeps going and going with learning. And that’s a good thing since I don’t want to get off the Boomerang ride—surely not yet!
The core technique Ana works from is essentially content repurposing. Content repurposing on steroids, though.
So, if you’re ready to pump up visibility to find more eyeballs (people attached, of course) for your business, then hang on with both hands. There’s more to it than you think.
Take it Away, Ana Hoffman
TrafficGenerationCafe is Ana’s home base where she’s perfected the art of—you guessed it—traffic generation.
Specifically, she blogs about driving free targeted traffic to your website.
I need website traffic and, if that’s you, too, I’ve got some insider secrets to share.
First, here’s Ana’s take on Content Boomerang’s “core technique” using repurposing:
Let’s repurpose the phrase ‘ into
REPURPOSED CONTENT = RECONTENT.
Re-content is NOT about reusing an old piece of content again and again. It’s content is reimagined and reinvented.
Recontent has to be every bit as good, creative, and compelling as the content it’s based on. As a prospect discovers your re-content across various platforms and channels, she forms an impression of you and your brand.
That overall impression is what, in the end, will determine whether you get the sale. ~Ana Hoffman, Content Boomerang
Now you understand you’re entering the wide world of #recontent in an effort to BE EVERYWHERE. It’s a fun and exciting experience, but, be ready to get busy, too.
And I mean busy in a good way because Ana likes to get things moving for you with immediate and easy shortcuts, so you get seen more. Faster.
Like a boomerang, it’s all about sending your content off your site to where your target audience is right now.
Then, if you’re doing it right, your content finds friends. Friends who may pop over to your home island—actual visitors to your website. Whoa!
Want to Learn More About Content Boomerang Operations?
Join Ana’s Facebook Group to get in on the #recontent excitement by clicking the image below:
Start Collecting Coconut Heads
Hijacking a hugely engaged and well-targeted audience is the first step.
As this post of Ana’s explains, there’re many options for reaching new audiences. (Or, you can always wait for a shipwreck, hoping for a lost soul to stumble upon your site.)
My favorite gateway to new audiences and one of Ana’s top methods to easy access is to borrow LinkedIn’s robust user base via sister platform, SlideShare.
And that’s the best part. You can start right now using content you already have. I created a step-by-step video to walk you through Ana’s easy, few minutes process for taking a blog post to re-promote it quickly to a new audience using SlideShare.
HINT: This is just the tip of the iceberg!
Remember to make sure the content you select to amplify using #recontent techniques meets the CARE criteria for high-quality standards.
Consider, perhaps, a content audit to identify key content you want to focus on or showcase for your business. Google Analytics helps identify what’s working or not content-wise but also gives you other useful indicators.
For example, one thing I’m always interested in is the average time a visitor spends on my site. Weirdly, I notice some big traffic sites when they give a behind dashboard look, revealing fascinatingly quick visit times regardless of the extremely large visitor numbers.
To me, engaging quality content on your website means people will spend time there. Maybe they’ll actually read a post or two. Hopefully, a few folks even download your leads offer.
Successful content is consumed, right? I may not have high traffic numbers (even though they continue to rise after years of hard work), but people tend to linger a bit.
Does Content With No Engagement Count?
Hooray, winner, winner, chicken dinner! See, when people check out my site stuff, it makes me happy, and, when they interact with comments and on social media, and I get emails from readers, etc., I get a sense of what content resonates with people.
HINT: Work with what you find out from your audience as you go.
For content repurposing, you can go with already banging content to add more bang, or you can go for content that has yet to find a spark, let alone the fireworks, it deserves.
Either way, you’re sending a water taxi enticing visitors to take a little adventure back to your isolated business island. Lai, anyone?
Infusing Visual Impact Takes Your Content Higher
Visual infusion is one of the best ways to put the POW in powering up content and conveying memorable messages. Plus, with smart planning and execution, the visuals you produce offer multi-purpose capabilities to further boost your visibility for a variety of platforms.
As an example, Medium allows you to share content and the pdf creation method explained earlier makes simple reuse of a single content piece to hijack more than one platform. You can also write summaries of content on Medium or LinkedIn, even FaceBook, with links back to your original post.
Individual slides you create on SlideShare can be used for social media posts, turned into a video, audio piece, or audio-video content.
Check out this smart and stylish example of SlideShare to video by fellow boomeranger Linda Lopeke from SmartStart—and she swears she does it in no time at all, easy peasy: Check out this video.
Re-content Every Which Way to Boomerang Your Content
Or, you can take another fresh approach, like Andy Crestodina suggests, by Orbit Media promoting your blog content via a short video to then share on multiple social platforms.
NEWSFLASH: Ann Handley calls out this piece from Andy in her latest newsletter Anarchy edition calling the technique, PR for your writing. lol
I’m on Orbit Media’s email list, so I received the post in my inbox but, first, I saw Andy’s video example promoting this same post on LinkedIn. Hmm, I think I want to try this:)
To add to the awesomeness of this post, a friend of mine (thanks Larry Elkin!) who knows I’m a big #recontent student and Andy follower, tagged me on LinkedIn to be sure I was aware of this content.
Hey, it looks like Andy has some boomerang and #recontent spinning in Orbit’s media for sure! His business island is a hopping tropical destination where everyone who’s anyone wants to visit, right?
So, can you and I get out there and entice visitors to our own desert business, turning our lonely, dusty, dry website island into an oasis of beautiful cacti with freshwater sources for the content thirsty?
Can we get traffic like Ana, industry kudos like Andy, and a first-rate engaged community like Lisa does here, or my friend Henneke does on her oh-so-enchanted Enchanting Marketing site?
Your Thoughts on Content Boomerang
Let me know what you think so far and, in the next post, I’ll share more tips and secrets about #recontent for your blog or business.
But, you better be ready to grow your reputation and visibility to build more business and gain website traffic.
We’re going to take a tour of the #recontent tools I’m playing with lately so you can put better #recontent techniques into your digital marketing repertoire right away.
Then you can really put Content Boomerang to positive use for your business. See you then?
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Content repurposing is a real killer strategy to promote your old content and also boost Google rankings. I’ve tried it myself recently and although I’m publishing around 3-4 new articles per month, my traffic has increased tremendously.
Thanks for the great article!
Ronald:
So nice to see you here! Repurposing content comes in handy for creating new work (from old work), quicker, and yes helps rankings in strengthening your best work.
But, I applaud you for consistent new articles, too. I have a theme…ABC for “Always Be Creating,” and I think as creatives, making new productions and expanding yourself, certainly improving your writing/content, and promoting new ideas are some of the things that always push you forward to keep creating. The thing is, when you create with a multi-purpose mentality, you’re able to stretch important communications taking you less time:)
Thanks for checking this out and sharing…we appreciate it!!
Sue-Ann
That’s Great and an amazing article, I like it as it motivates me more to write and write better, a year ago I told to My friend that I think I can’t write anything, He told have you ever tried to write something? I replied No, He asked me again then How can You say that You Can’t Write? You should try at least, And then I start writing and start my Tech Product Review Blog and I am very Happy that my writing skills Improve day by day, Its also increase my writing skill as well support me financially, Now after a year when I look back I thanks to my that friend Who insisted me to take action,
Thanks
Paul
Paul:
I write A LOT and I can promise you, you will just keep getting better and better. You get so much better with practice…and as much as I think there’s a talent involved for some writers, I think even for those, practice just makes you more awesome. I always say, even an editor needs an editor:)
It must be super fun to write about products you get to play with and learn about as part of your blog and congratulations on your skills helping you financially. That’s HUGE.
Now, use some boomerang techniques and find even more traffic for your blog!
Thanks for taking time to read and comment on this one!! Appreciate it very much and best of luck going forward…keep on #writing…
Thank you, Sue-Ann
I’m really learning a lot of new strategies from you and Lisa. Didn’t know about content boomerang before i read this article. But come to think of it, I have encountered people use this strategy. I have been in Medium for quite some time now and I didn’t know that’s what its called. For Facebook even! Got some new knowledge thank you!
Hi Amit, glad to hear you are learning some things here at Inspire to Thrive.) How do you like Medium? I want to start posting more on there too. I have been reading more pieces from it lately. You are most welcome and thanks for coming by Amit.
Amit:
Thanks for the comment and mention of Medium. Seems like we all need to do more on there from what I’m hearing! The bottom line is if your content isn’t getting out there and getting seen and noticed, then there’s no chance for anyone to realize your value or the value of the value of the content itself. Lots of ways to go about it…
Take care and thank you, Sue-Ann
Repurposing content has long been a strategy for websites (especially bloggers).
But there are many WRONG ways of doing it. I’ve seen plenty of examples and even been there myself.
I think you are right on the money with:
“It’s content reimagined and reinvented.”
It’s not just about mindlessly reusing your content. It’s about delivering the same message in another way and/or using another medium.
I think I’ll start doing this more after reading your post, thanks.
Looking forward to the next edition,
– Mat
Hey Mat:
You bring up a very important point. There’re ways to #recontent and repurpose content and then there are WAYS to do it with charm, pizzazz, freshness, and more.
I love Ana’s “reimagine” phrase for your #recontent projects because the nuance is in the “how” to diligently expand on what is already quality work. That said, you can start off with baby steps (like I did) by sort of doing the easy (maybe sad, lazy) first ditch efforts of simply syndicating, even reposting best work using, for example, pdf’s, like the hints in this first post.
But truly, visual impact or a “Show NOT Tell” attitude, is one of the biggest points Ana’s makes in Content Boomerang.
In the next post, some of these techniques for visual impact will really help you pop doing #recontent projects, and perhaps in your web content, in general.
Further, at the start of a project, you end up taking a different approach in light of how you will expand your communications. For example, you start by creating your content with several purposes in mind from the get-go. But, to get a quick start and maybe for some practice, you don’t have to start from scratch but, only need look in your archives.
You with me? P.S. Most definitely YESSSSS to not “mindlessly reusing your content”!!!!
Thanks for reading and for the smart, thoughtful, comment. Take care, Mat, and thanks,
Sue-Ann
Hi Sue-Ann,
I just love Ana’s take on engaging content. Not everyone will comment. Others will email or send a PM how they enjoyed a blog post. It is so important to share whatever we write on Social Media. We can do it in so many ways. I like to do videos (short ones because people just don’t have time) to reinforce my content on different social media platforms. It does take a bit of time, but as long as you know where your peeps are hanging out, then get creative. Sometimes I use slide shares also. Anything that redirects folks to where I want them to be works well.
-Donna
Donna:
Thanks for taking time to comment. I’m thinking that video working from Slide Decks messaging may be a good way to start for the camera shy! I’m pretty sure you have tons of the techniques I’m learning and currently testing all down pat but hey, you never know when a new tip or trick comes in handy.
I guess you’re aware of the new change on SlideShare NOT allowing adjustments or changes to a SlideShare once published. That’s one heart-breaker as I’m getting to use and love the SlideShare platform as a #recontent superhighway.
I know for sure using SS is one of the best ways to get more folks to at least see your content. But, I really thought it was great when you had the ability to keep things up-to-date with simple changes that now requires an entirely new submission.
One of my personal pet peeves is outdated content shared on social feeds. Don’t share stuff that’s no longer is accurate, right?? Oh well. We’ll keep trying to keep it fresh and exciting and the way you go about it does exactly that, I think, Donna!
Thank you again, Sue-Ann
Hi Sue-ann,
I’m really learning a lot of new strategies from you and Lisa. Didn’t know about content boomerang before i read this article. But come to think of it, I have encountered people use this strategy. I have been in Medium for quite some time now and I didn’t know that’s what its called. For Facebook even! Got some new knowledge thank you!
Hi Adrian, thank you. How do you like Medium? I recently started back on there but haven’t done a lot recently since I’ve been sick. I hope to start up cranking in the next month there. Thanks for coming by on this “content boomerang”. Have a wonderful day!
Lisa:
First, feel better soon! I mean sooner than that…
and okay, I intend to write on Medium but, don’t very much. So I guess I better jump up my game there, too, along with you.
Thanks again for having me as a contributor here and hope you have a lovely and healing-filled weekend. Talk soon…
With appreciation, Sue-Ann
Adrian:
Thanks for checking out the post and commenting. Ana has taken the content repurposing approach a little higher and harder with her Content Boomerang concept.
What it seems to show me is, well, endless possibilities for one thing. And secondly, as you work with #recontent, it becomes integral to the planning process for content and changes how you look at things and produce them to some degree, too. You start to think about content in multiples variations from the onset.
Lisa does it as just on instinct but, the cool thing is, with these tips and tricks in mind…your content flies miles further. Well, hope you’ll tune in for part 2.
Thanks so much, Sue-Ann
Great topic, I was just looking forward to it, this becomes a headache for me thanks for your tips and tricks.
Abid:
It is a great topic, right?
There’s nothing worse than creating content that no one sees and with #recontent and boomeranging a bit, you can change that reality. Best wishes in your content endeavors and hey, any tip or trick we find, helps!
Take care and thanks, Sue-Ann
Hi ladies!
It’s great to see you Sue-Ann, I hope you’re doing well!
Ana is amazing and just with the vibe I get from reading your blog post, I have no doubt you are too.
I read Ana’s blog post about the boomerang affect and she laid it all out there, just like you did here!
This couldn’t have come at a better time for me because I have blog-related content on a blog that I want to move to a new blog – it’s a long story, we’d need a couple of margaritas to go over it, lol.
The thought of rewriting the content is tiring enough. I’ve done a couple in text format but I will be focusing on visual content for the rest.
I haven’t done videos yet – I have a fear of getting in front of the camera, but I have been practicing.
And I love your CARE analogy…and you’re right, we have to go big to bring those quality readers to our home.
Awesome post lady! I can’t wait for your next post!
I hope you both are having a great week.
Cori
So many #recontent possibilities, so little time!
I totally get you, Cori, and of course, a margarita discussion or two can solve so many of the world’s problems and no doubt your perfect re-blog content strategy, too! Let me know if I can help:)
In the meantime, I’m so thrilled you want to get the next treasure chest of goodies from my #recontent toolbox because even a non-techie like me is making a sincere go of it so I know you’ll shine! My first step (besides practicing, like you) to come alive in a more 3-D way and get to the video part, is playing with podcasts and audio content. The point, we can and will do this, slowly maybe, but a step at a time. And why not make it fun?
P.S. I’m going to try to recruit Lisa to play in podcasting with me, soon…but, don’t tell her til I break her the bad news!! lol
Thank you for the kind support and I am already working on Part 2!
Talk soon, Cori and thanks again, Sue-Ann
Hi Sue-Ann & Lisa,
This post is so great it reminds me of myself. I love the recontent strategy as it enables you to reach a wider audience. Although I haven’t don’t that with videos, podcast, and infographics, I love to write my best performing posts by adding more value to it. It helps drive more traffic and increase engagement.
I read Ana’s post a couple days ago, and i must say, she is who you say she is. Many bloggers might not know her, but when it come to traffic, check out her blog.
Thank you, Sue-Ann for sharing, and thank you too, Lisa for publishing.
Hi Moss, Moss, Moss…
I’m saying your name 3 times to make up for the typo in another comment here on the super fab, InspireToThrive site!
Moss, you should really join Ana’s Boomerang FB Group because you are one of us, I feel sure…okay? All those things you haven’t worked on yet…we all are working on there, little by little, step by step, and it really helps take your content up a notch or 10.
Thank you for your kind support, sharing my stuff, and for today’s lovely comment here to Lisa and me. You are awesome and we appreciate it very much, Sue-Ann
The CARE analogy is perfect Sue-Anne. Ana is a gem because she embodies the rare aspect of sizzling, compelling content. She is clear on being genuine. My blogging buddies are genuine, authentic souls, but most bloggers struggle with sounding like themselves, choosing instead to mimic others. If you practice writing, and gain clarity and confidence in your writing voice, you can pinpoint that rare aspect of crafting inspired content. You definitely have it down cold, Sue-Anne.
Ryan
Ryan:
I seem to love to craft acronyms…is that a strange side effect for being a word lover? lol
One of my all-time best posts was the AMAZE post on Gail’s GrowMap site:) What a lovely surprise that was, splashing around in words!
Anyway, if you saw my tweet, I mainly feel like your comment on this post made me just feel like, “Wow!”
And also, grateful, so thank you.
I really truly work on my writing skills and felt extremely nervous about this particular piece so your comment is more relevant to me than ever. With appreciation, Sue-Ann
Thank you for churning out such helpful content!
RB