Content marketing is the big ticket these days, with how integrated the internet is into our daily lives, and with how immune to older marketing styles people have become. Everyone’s used to some level of this, but you may find yourselves wanting to craft a smarter content marketing plan to take better advantage of the information age. Content marketing isn’t old. In fact, many popular magazines were basically content marketing vehicles as were some theatrical serials and radio dramas. But, in modern times, an effective content marketing plan is all about the social sphere and the exploding world of digital multimedia. If you want to use content marketing to its fullest, you need to consider some things, and do some planning before you just jump right in. Let’s take a look at it. #1 – Build a Team First of all, this isn’t something for a lone wolf to do. You need to build a team of competent experts who know all about the various platforms you can reach out on, and in the arts of publishing and being creative. You’ll need people who can use blogs, people who can use video sites, people who can use social networks, and several things in between. And you’ll need an extra set of people who are just creative, clever minds that can work up material to publish content from. Organize a team, and know all their strengths. #2 – Choosing an Infrastructure Since it’s a team effort with a mixed set of technologies and platforms, you need a good system to share work, documents and to collaborate over from a myriad of devices and platforms. Be sure above all else that you have strong collaborative functionality in this, and that everyone accesses properly and knows how to use. #3 – Incorporate More Now, I’ve hinted at video, but I want to make a point of this. Everyone tends to think of this as mainly blogs and social networks, but there is so much more out there. There is the blossoming field of internet video, which is also a social experience nowadays. Along with this, there are also other new social mediums such as social sandbox games and the like as well, which also are prime for this kind of use. #4 – Track Your Metrics Finally, take regular metrics on your campaign. Use business intelligence software to track mentions of your product or service, or your brand etc. Track search trends of keywords relevant to you, and gather intel on what others are saying about you and how many shares and likes you are getting. Knowing how effective your current strategy is grants you the ability to change and react to various conditions and stimuli. Only content marketing grants you that dynamic, live, on the fly change to be made to a campaign, where others completely stall first.