Do your social media, content, and SEO teams work as one?

For your content marketing program to produce the best results possible, you need your teams to work together. If you have everyone in silos or they don’t interact on a regular basis, you will not see the same level of success you will if they’re all in it together. Content Marketing, SEO, and Social Media should be one unified team, working together to achieve common goals.

We frequently see businesses that are siloed where the teams don’t interact regularly. When teams work together from the beginning, great success happens. If you have a siloed organization, it’s past time to break down the silos and get the teams working together.

How Your New Content Team Works Together

In the new, more successful setup, your content, social, and SEO teams combine and work as one. On each project, they're a unified front.  From the very beginning, they’re together and seeing how they can complement each other in the process. All three areas need to be involved in the strategy process. They are all working to serve the same audience. They should be working towards the same goals.

Content Brainstorming Sessions

A great way to get the teams on board and create a more prosperous plan is to start at the very beginning and work as a group. Have all members of the team join a group brainstorm session. Talk through the business or client goals, the audience’s needs, the business priorities, and work to agree on a strategy. I find it’s best if this session can be in person but if that’s not possible, a video chat works well. I try to avoid telephone only formats because you run a risk of people multi-tasking and not participating. This step is important to your success and works the best when the team is together somehow. If you have an internal team or creative agency they should participate in this brainstorm session.

Allowing the teams to work together from the beginning lets them get to know each other better, and when people feel comfortable with one another, they’re more likely to share. Building trust within the team is key. Encourage participation and try to bring the quieter members of the team into the conversation, if necessary.

Laying out the Content Marketing Plan

The main reason you should start with all team members working together is that content, SEO, and social needs to work together to be successful. Content is a key element of SEO. You could just as easily say SEO is a key element of content marketing. All three of these areas are closely intertwined. Bringing the teams together early on creates more opportunity for success.

Content – creates an idea for a blog post or webpage, picture, infographic, or video that helps tell a story your customers care about.

SEO- ensures the search engines can find and rank the content. They make sure the right terms are targeted in the copy and optimization elements.

Social – identifies opportunities to partner with influencers for quotes or input, and determines the distribution plan for the content piece.

As you can see, all three are deeply involved in the process. It’s important they all work together from the very beginning. No one piece of the puzzle is more important than another. If your content marketing program isn’t working, the structure could be part of the issue. If you have multiple agencies working on your content, it might be time to consider consolidating. Bringing everyone together is critical to your program’s success. If you’re curious about how to achieve better content marketing, SEO, or social media results for your business, contact us today for a free program review and customized success plan.