These days, if you want to have potential clients find you, you know that your business needs to be online. A website and social media are critical to your online marketing.

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Good content should drive your online marketing. Now that you’ve set up your website, how will you ensure that users will find you online? What are you going to tweet about and post updates about?

This is where your content marketing comes into play. You need to determine what kinds of content will be of interest to existing and potential clients. What information do they need that you can provide? How can you provide that information in a way that will be interesting and informative?

Why Content Marketing Is Important

Content marketing is important for a few reasons:

1. Most people today don’t want to be bombarded with advertising that may or may not be relevant to them. The old method of marketing “at” people (through billboards, commercials, etc.) is not nearly as effective as providing information that is relevant to a potential customer at the time that they’re looking for it. Content marketing helps you to provide useful information that people are looking for right when they’re ready for it.
2. Search engines are driven by content – every single search consists of someone using keywords to look for something. You want the people who are looking for what you have to offer to be able to find you.
3. To bring in fans, followers, and readers (all of whom are potential clients), you need to give them something worth reading, watching, or listening to. As many people have noted, when it comes to online marketing, “If you build it, they will come” does not apply – you need to give people a compelling reason to engage with you.
4. Blogging for business is recognized as one of the best forms of marketing your business online, and good blogging requires that you have a clear idea about the content you want to deliver via your blog.

In short, content marketing is the process of creating content that will be valuable to current and potential clients and then making sure that your content is shared online so that people can find it.

Tips to Get You Started

Be aware that working on your content marketing will take time. You will need to:

1. Identify your goals. What do you want to achieve through your marketing? What is the target market that you are trying to reach? Developing a marketing plan and a social media strategy should be your first steps in this process.
2. Keep it manageable. Content creation can include blogs, podcasts, videos, presentations, and more. As a small business owner, it’s important to stick to doing something that will be manageable, especially if only you and perhaps one other person will be creating the content. Don’t feel that you have to do it all.
3. Develop a system for implementation. This doesn’t need to be too complicated, but you should at least be clear about who will develop the content, where will it be published, how it will be shared through social media, and how you will respond to comments on your blog and Facebook.
4. Develop an editorial calendar. This is a handy way of planning what you will post and when. You can identify the types of blog posts that you want to write, as well as plan ahead for your Facebook updates and tweets.
5. Identify appropriate content for each of your channels. People will engage with your content differently on your blog than they will on Facebook, and they will engage differently on Facebook than they will on Twitter. For example, when people go to your blog, they are looking for specific information on a topic that they want to learn more about and it will take more than 140 characters to provide them with that information. When they see your status update on Facebook, it will often be mixed in with updates from their friends and family, and they are more likely to click the “like” button if it’s something that they can take in really quickly.
6. Incorporate your keywords. This is particularly important if you are blogging for business. Make sure that you use keywords that people will use to search for your product or service and incorporate those into your blog title and posts. Although the search engines are constantly changing the way that they serve up search results, people are still entering keywords in their searches and you want to make sure that they can find you.
7. Be aware that this will take time! Like all marketing, this will take time. It’s not a simple matter of setting up your social media profiles and just sending out a few tweets. You’ll need to work on this regularly, but over time, you will begin to see the results of your efforts.

B Corporations and Benefit Corporations are changing the landscape of sustainable business. Here’s the latest from around the web about this important movement:

• California’s new Benefit Corporation legislation went into effect on Jan. 3, paving the way for more companies to maximize social good while turning a profit. In all, 12 companies registered as Benefit Corporations on the first day, with Patagonia leading the charge as California’s first Benefit Corporation. KQED reported on Benefit Corporations, and even mainstream business publications took notice of the new law; Bloomberg examined the possible future of sustainable business law and the Economist noted that firms with benefits are part of a larger trend, with Britain and European countries already having or also developing new legal frameworks.
• B Lab has set up a comprehensive Benefit Corporation Information Center that is a great resource for information about Benefit Corporations. It’s well worth checking out for businesses, attorneys, and directors interested in learning more about benefit corporations.
• A great article on the Stanford Social Innovation Review explains why corporate structure matters and notes that Benefit Corporations represent “an opportunity to make a paradigm shift that harnesses the incredible power of companies to benefit society and the economy.”
• The emergence of Benefit Corporations that incorporate a social or environmental mission into for-profit companies of course also blurs the traditional lines between for-profit and non-profit organizations. A short post on The Non-profit Quarterly asks, “But what does it [the Benefit Corporation structure] say about non-profits?” The American Bar Association noted that it could help non-profits deliver benefits by offering a new solution to the dilemma about whether to incorporate as a non-profit or for-profit. Nixon Peabody Law Firm provides a lengthy and detailed examination of Benefit Corporations, L3Cs, and the need to clearly understand the new legal alternatives for structuring business entities.
• B Corp Warby Parker continues to make the news, this time with a write-up in Entrepreneur magazine about how this innovative eyeglass company secured venture capital (if you missed their Fast Company video, you can view it here.)
• B Corps continue to grow in Canada. IMG  just became certified in December 2011, joining Dirtt and Bullfrog Power as Founding Canadian B Corporations.

Finally, our local NBC Bay Area spotlighted Give Something Back in its segment about Benefit Corporations:

The start of the new year is a great opportunity to revitalize your small business blog. If you’re looking to make improvements this year, these 6 tips can help you get started:

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1. Create compelling content: No one wants to read content that isn’t insightful, interesting, informative, or enlightening. This doesn’t mean that every post has to consist of Pulitzer-worthy writing, but it does have to be worth reading for the audience that you are trying to reach. Be clear about who you’re writing for and what they’re interested in and need to know.
   
2. Focus on SEO: Search engine optimization (SEO) refers to optimizing your online content so that it can be easily found by search engines. While this is an area that can appear to be complex, there are several simple steps that you can take to make your blog posts search-engine friendly. For example, using keywords in your blog title is an easy way to optimize your business blog.
3. Grab your reader’s attention: When it comes to blogs, you don’t have much time to get your reader’s attention. People click over and scan your post in seconds to decide if they want to read it or not. Fortunately there are simple techniques that can help you capture a reader’s attention – quickly.
4. Commit to blogging regularly: Like anything else, blogging is a skill that gets easier with practice. As you become more comfortable with the blogging process – generating ideas, researching and drafting posts, editing and publishing, sharing your content via social media – you’ll find that it does become easier over time. Getting into a daily writing schedule is key to successful blogging.
   
5. Learn from the mistakes of others: By this point, blogging is no longer a new field to be explored the way it was a few years ago. Many bloggers have made mistakes and graciously shared their lessons so that you can avoid making the same business blog blunders.
6. Share your content via social media: Unless you’re writing a personal blog for your friends and family, you obviously want people to find your blog and share its content. This is especially important if you are blogging for business and trying to achieve specific business goals. Make sure that your content can be shared as part of your social media strategy.

Of course, this all assumes that you already have a blog!  If you don’t yet have a blog, here are some tips to get started with your business blog.

Do you have questions about how you can improve your blog this year? If so, please leave them in the comments.

B Corporations and Benefit Corporations are changing the landscape of sustainable business. Here’s the latest from around the web about this important movement:

• The biggest story recently has been the news that NY became the 7th state to pass Benefit Corporation legislation! Even Forbes noted that NY is now a better state for business. Or, as one writer noted, Benefit Corporations are set to Occupy Wall Street.
• A good post on Greenbiz.com explains the legal requirements for Benefit Corporations in California, including the reporting requirements and shareholder votes needed to convert to a Benefit Corporation.
• Mike Hannigan of B Corp Give Something Back notes the macro-trends that are changing the face of corporate philanthropy, especially in the support systems that now exist for responsible businesses: business associations, investment capital, business professionals who support values-based businesses, and of course new legal structures such as Benefit Corporations. Taken together, it’s quite a potent force!
• As Benefit Corporation legislation continues to spread across the country, at least one state is wondering if it will miss this opportunity: Will Nevada be left behind?
• This Wall Street Journal post describes the differences among the three emerging legal structures for social entrepreneurs: L3Cs, Benefit Corporations, and Flexible-Purpose Corporations, with suggestions about which structure would be ideal for different types of companies.
• Mashable has jumped into the fray as well, asking “Do they really indicate good companies?” This is an important question, especially since the article notes that “72% of Americans believe it is important to ‘buy from green companies.’”
• B Corp Warby Parker was featured in a Fast Company video that is well worth watching. They have built giving back right into their business model: for every pair of glasses they sell, they gift a pair to someone who needs them but can’t afford them. The result in one year? 85,000 pairs of glasses to people around the world!

Finally, I’m happy to share the news that Cultivating Capital is now a certified B Corp as well! As a staunch supporter of B Corps, I am proud to be a part of a community committed to harnessing the power of business to solve social and environmental problems.