Who would have thought that the Dalai Lama was an expert on content? Greg Mischio, for one. In his presentation at SMBMad’s January event, he echoed the Dalai Lama’s insistence on interdependence. “It’s the nature of everything to be interdependent,” Greg said.  “Everything we do impacts someone else.”

Too many companies create content in an “independent” framework, thinking only about themselves and their own products and services.  Interdependence is a lot like socializing—you can’t do it alone.  Thus, your content must be “socialized” as well.

Make the move from creating content by yourself, which typically focuses only on your company, to collaborating with other experts and influencers. Greg contends that you’ll not only have more fun, but more success.

In his presentation, “Socialize Your Content: How to Move From Blogging to Collaborating,” Greg outlined three steps to make your content more social:

Step One: Understand How Content Fits into the Bigger Picture

Greg said that collaborative content works best at the top of the “buyer’s journey.” Top of funnel clients may not be aware of an existing problem or the need for a new—or different product, service, or provider.

He cited the example of a safety blog created for a travel insurance company. All six of their customer profiles care about one particular aspect of travel: safety. With the blog focused on travel safety tips, the company collaborated with other influencers on safety-related topics.

Content should also be created with the customer journey or marketing funnel stage in mind.  A customer in the “buying stage” should be served content specific to persuading a prospect or lead to make a purchase. This might include information product or service features and benefits, social proof, and clear call-to-actions.

Step Two: Learn Your Customers’ Language

As marketers and business owners, you must learn your customer’s language to improve your success.

Greg asked the crowd to name the one characteristic shared by each of the last four Presidents that allowed them to win their respective elections.  “Charisma,” he said. This stemmed from their ability to articulate their message and connect with supporters. “They spoke the language of the voters,” he said.

Here’s how you can learn the language of your own customers:

• Conduct one-on-one interviews with three customers. Find out what they read, view, and eat. Then, seek insights from those results.
• Use keyword research to see what words your prospects use to search for your product or service. Use a program like Keywords Everywhere for a quick view of keyword rankings.
• Seek insights from your sales team. Ask them three questions: what are they telling prospects, what’s been their biggest win lately, and why have they heard “no” recently.
• Use surveys on website thank-you pages to find out what prompted your customers to buy. Then integrate that language into marketing collateral, such as blog article and landing pages.

Greg details all these techniques in Winbound’s post, “Four Strategies to Learn Your Customer’s Language.”

Step Three: Discover How to Collaborate on Content

Look for collaborators, specifically influencers, who can help you solve problems for your followers. Interview them and integrate their insights into your content. Besides providing valuable information that will improve your content, you’ll also be accessing the social networks of connected individuals.

And as a bonus, many of your “experts” will link back to your site. As your inbound links increase, it’s likely your Google rankings will improve.

Don’t Forget the End Game: Increase Sales

These collaborative efforts don’t matter much if they’re not yielding results.  Use analytics that break down results to the specific piece of content.  That way you can react quickly to underperforming content.

Break free from your independent existence and reach out to the world. The more interdependent you become with other experts, the more effective your marketing will be.

Special thanks to Greg Mischio for offering his insights. You can check out his presentation here.

See you next month at “Running Social Media Takeovers to Engage and Grow Awareness” at Full Compass.

This post was written by Leslie Blaize on behalf of Winbound, a content marketing firm. Winbound provides an all-in-one content marketing and conversion optimization package specifically designed for small marketing departments.