Brilliant Content Ideas

Many social media marketers have shied away from China, thinking that because mainland Chinese can’t access Facebook and Twitter, Google Plus, Podcasts and Google search, social media doesn’t exist. That view couldn’t be more wrong. China’s social media industry is thriving, and savvy businesses are capitalising on China's platforms-of-choice for the young, hip and wealthy. This episode gives you well-researched and timely tips on how to break into this burgeoning market by using powerful content!

Zippy Courses is a plugin co-created by none other than Derek Halpern from the website Social Triggers. In today's show I share my roadtest of Zippy Courses and give it an honest review. If you want to add online courses and digital products to your content arsenal, listen in as I walk you through the ins and outs of this new WordPress plugin for online courses.

Getting your podcast set up right is vitally important. You don’t necessarily have to have the latest microphone or the fanciest mixing desk but if you can do just one thing from the outset, make sure that you link your podcast to iTunes through podtrac.com. Today’s Brilliant Content Idea is to use podtrac.com to track the stats on your Podcast Show. Podtrac will give you detailed information on your audience and help you build a case for show sponsors. **Highlights From Today's Show** -Podtrac enables you to gather an incredible amount of data on your podcast show. -You can see how many people have downloaded your show, how many people have subscribed to your show, where they come from, which shows are performing best and what the listening stats are over time, what browsers and devices your listeners are using to tune in to your show and you can even use podtrac’s survey function to get even more information on your listeners. -One of the primary reasons to gather stats on your show is so that you can make a case for potential sponsors who may be interested in advertising on your show. The information can also show you what your listeners are most interested in. You can start to pinpoint trends in your show data based on the style of episodes you feature. -There is a right way to do it and it is crucial that it is done before you submit your show to iTunes or Stitcher. -On Soundcloud you need to apply for your RSS feed. You must have at least one active show on your channel. You will probably need a pro account on Soundcloud to store your shows as there are limits on how much you can feature on the free version. -Soundcloud can be a little slow to approve podcast RSS feed applications but there is a work around. Simply join the Soundcloud forum, search for the term Podcast and create a thread asking the Podcasting fairies to approve your feed. -Once you have your feed, you can set up your Podtrac account. Go to Podtrac.com and fill out your publisher information. You can add more than one show so make sure that your publisher website is your primary domain. -Select Enhanced Feed and Podtrac will give you an Enhanced Feed link. You will use this link to submit your show to iTunes. Next, you go to iTunes to submit your feed. -If there are any issues, you may need to do some trouble shooting. One trick is, if your feed is working but not submitting, do a search for your podcast show by title on iTunes. Sometimes that magically reboots iTunes into action. -Once your podcast is approved for iTunes, Podtrac will start collecting stats on your show. Over To You If you need more help with getting set up on your Podcast, please do reach out. Helping business owners get their Podcasts up and running is just one of the many things we do at Brilliant Content. What are some of your brilliant content ideas, apps or plugins you've used? If you’d like to be featured on the show, catch me on Twitter @casmccullough and also, don’t forget to check out my other podcast show, Your Brilliant Un-Career. And, if you like the show, please do leave a review! Every review helps the show reach more listeners! http://bit.ly/ybucpodcast and http://bit.ly/brillcontent

A recent survey by the Content Marketing Institute showed that 63% of marketers thought that live events were more effective than other content marketing methods in terms of a return on investment, including social media. Today's episode digs a little deeper into how you can use live events in your content marketing mix and what the benefits could be for your business.

One of the key sensitivities people have when it comes to product marketing is that feeling of being sold to. Nobody likes feeling like they’re under pressure to buy, and when you’re marketing something, it also doesn’t feel very good to put the hard sell on others. As consumer tolerance shifts away from hard sell techniques, marketers can often be at a loss as to how to effectively promote their products through inbound marketing methods like blogging, podcasts, social media etc. If you are struggling with how to articulate the value of something you sell without coming across like a used car sales guy, today’s episode may be just for you. Today I’m going to give you a step-by-step template for how you can launch a product or service with a blog post.