Guest post by Beth Hrusch

As you may know by now, article marketing is an effective way to gain credibility and establish yourself as an expert in your field.  By writing articles about topics of interest to your readers, and distributing them on article directories, you can give your content the kind of exposure that would be hard to get anywhere else.  But, what many people don’t realize is that article marketing isn’t just for directories anymore.

Social media has become an effective vehicle for content distribution, and articles are no exception.  According to the Small Business Success Index, sponsored by Network Solutions (2010), one in five small businesses are now actively using social media.  About 75% of those surveyed have a company page on a social networking site.  What makes social media so effective for marketing purposes?  The simple answer is that it gives your content massive exposure across a wide range of platforms.

Articles can easily be distributed using social media news and bookmarking sites, for example.  Each of these sites has strengths and weaknesses, and some will suit certain goals better than others.  Here are 5 of the most popular:

1. Facebook- With over 250 million members, it’s got tremendous reach.  Generate interest with fans and friends by talking about topics related to your industry then link to your articles on your fan page.  Ping articles and blogs automatically, so your groups can see your latest posts.

2. Twitter- Similar to Facebook, Twitter allows you to market your articles automatically and in real time.  As a micro-blogging service, it allows businesses to communicate and share the latest information with customers, and link to articles and other content using a url shortener.

3. LinkedIn- For professional networking, setting up a profile in LinkedIn allows you to share your expertise with others in your group.  Market your articles by sending them to your account or have them pulled from another social media account, to show up under your updates.

4. Digg- A really popular news/bookmarking site that can bring your articles massive exposure.  Submitting your article to Digg takes interested readers directly to your article and your site, where they can also browse archived articles and check you out.

5. YouTube- What do videos have to do with article marketing?  Both are content, just in different formats.  Turn your articles into videos, using your text as a script.  This can be done inexpensively, so almost any budget can handle it.  YouTube is the 4th most popular website in the world, and videos consistently rank high in the search engines, so the potential to go viral is huge.

There are many more social media sites that lend themselves to article marketing.  Check out the handy chart put together by the folks at Seomoz.com for more tips on how to use each site to market your business.

Article marketing has the power to establish you as an authority and give interested consumers a way to access your business through links to your site.  Social media supercharges your articles by giving them wide and deep distribution throughout the web.  Together, they help you reach a large, targeted audience without the need for an expensive marketing campaign.  Be sure, though, that you research the social media sites- how they work and what their terms of service are.  Some will work better for you than others.

Also, remember that article marketing is only effective if you commit to creating and distributing fresh content every week or so.  Maintain both aspects of your marketing strategy and you’ll see results.

Beth Hrusch is Senior Editor at Interact Media, a content marketing software company.

Many social media experts believe a blog should be the core of a social media strategy, as the key vehicle for sharing thought leadership content which can then be promoted using Twitter, social networking and other tools. No question, there are many compelling reasons why blogs are important for business. But what if you simply don’t have the time or resources to commit to maintaining a blog with regular posts, or at least you’re not ready to make the commitment yet? Here are six other ways to share your thought leadership content without committing to the demands of regular blog posting.

Your Website

Create an area for articles on your website. This allows you to write and post articles as time permits, rather than committing to a regular once, twice or more per week posting schedule. This also allows you to write fewer but more in-depth articles less suited to the blogging format. You can still promote this articles using social media and SEO just as you would with blog posts, and even add an RSS feed (yes, it’s possible to add an RSS feed to any web page, though it is likely to attract fewer readers than regular blog posting).

Industry Publications

Many online trade publications will accept (and are actually hungry for) bylined articles, as long as they are true thought leadership pieces that address industry issues rather than blatant product or service promotion. Most will permit one or more links back to your site as part of the “about the author” section, which is helpful for both direct traffic and SEO.

Article Publication Sites

For a little more creative freedom (including the ability to add text links within the article to specific pages on your site), try publishing an article through article publication sites. Many of these articles appear well in search on their own (particularly EzineArticles) as well as being great sources of links for SEO.

Guest Blogging

If you have an article that’s most suitable as a blog post, try contacting influential bloggers in your industry about providing a guest post for their blog. Again, as long as the post is suitable for their readers and focused on thought leadership rather than promotion, many bloggers will appreciate getting a “day off” from writing their own content, and will permit a link or two back to your site, at least in the “about the author” section and possibly within the content as well. Be sure to link to other authoritative sources within your copy as well to maximize value to the readers as well as appearing truly helpful, not just self serving.

Google Knol

Google Knol unfortunately uses the insidious no-follow tag, so you won’t get any SEO benefit from posting there, but the articles themselves often show up well in search. So, you can still include links to your site from your article; while these won’t supply any SEO link juice, they often provide relevant direct traffic.

Directory Sites

Many industry-focused and general web directory sites, such as Qondio, allow you to post articles as well as standard directory listings. Requirements tend to be similar to those for article publication sites. These are sort of the reverse of Google Knol; while articles on these sites may not show up highly in search listings themselves, they do pass link juice and so are helpful for the SEO on your own website.

A regularly updated and properly promoted blog is still the best way to socially share thought leadership content. But if you’ve got some content, but not enough for regular blog posting, these alternative avenues can still be helpful and supportive for content marketing, social media and SEO objectives.

What does 2010 hold for content marketing? ClickPredictions: Key Content Marketing Trends and Predictions for 2010, an intriguing ebook just released by Marketo and ClickDocuments, attempts to provide some answers. To compile the ebook, the sponsors asked 38 of the world’s top b2b marketers (and me) to offer insights on key marketing trends and predictions for the coming year.

Content marketing is, in many ways, the new advertising. Prospects, particularly for complex b2b products, don’t care about marketing copy, they care about solving their problems. A carefully crafted content marketing strategy begins with positioning your company as the helpful and knowledgeable experts in your industry, and flows through content that illustrates why your product or service is uniquely the best choice to fix a critical issue for a particular type of company.

The ClickPredictions ebook includes prescient commentary from an impressive array of experts, including Mike Stelzner, Rebel Brown, Ian Lurie, Patsi Krakoff, Michele Linn, Steve Woods, Galen De Young, Jon Miller, Stephanie Tilton and more. Each author also provides a list of their favorite resources for further reading.

If your company is using content to attract prospects and help guide them through the buying process to ultimately select your offering, check out what these very smart b2b marketing pros view as the Key Content Marketing Trends and Predictions for 2010.