You are not alone. Collaborate for even greater content.

social media training at Sands Beach Resort

No one can whistle a symphony. It takes a whole orchestra to play it.” —H.E. Luccock

Tough this content generation game isn’t it?  With increasing numbers cottoning on to content marketing there’s a need for ever more, ever better content to rise above the roar. Don’t lose heart. You do not have to have a corporate-sized marketing budget to win at this game. Look wider and collaborate on what you create and you can produce some awesome content that customers will love you for.

Sands Beach understands the value of working together

A couple of weeks ago Sharon and I were invited to Lanzarote to work with the fantastic Sands Beach Resort and its partners from across the island (see – it wasn’t all just paddleboarding!). Collaboration was the aim – motivating the resort’s staff and their business partners to work together to create really valuable content and continually share this across social media. We talked co-creation, cross-promotion and constant communication – for far wider reach and even better content.

This is a wise and generous approach. Hats off to Sands Beach’s online community manager John Beckley and the team and their wonderful business partners on Lanzarote – we were delighted to be able to contribute, and learned so much too.

Collaboration has built our business

Our Lanzarote trip really inspired us. It has also made us think about the content we have produced over the years here at Valuable Content and the power that a collaborative approach brings. A lot of our most successful content has been the result of wider collaboration. We have reached out for ideas and input from others who inspire us and created even greater content than we could have by ourselves. Examples include:

Collaboration relies on trusted relationships

In 2013 the most valuable coin of the business realm will be the ability to collaborate, trust, and play together nicely in the sandbox with other human beings.” – Charles H Green, Trusted Advisor

Collaborating means building relationships with others in your field, sometimes even with competitors. This relies on trusting, helping, reaching out to other like-minded people – a far more generous philosophy than the old divide and conquer approach to commerce. But if you widen it out, and work together wonderful things happen.

Sharing the load

Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.” —Helen Keller

So when it comes to creating content, remember you are not alone. Share the load, get a bunch of great people to work on something together – other experts, suppliers, even your customers. Your readers will appreciate a wider view, a new voice, different perspectives. Do this and you’ll make your content more valuable, with even better results.

The content creation challenge is hard but you don’t have to do it by yourself. Collaborate and everybody wins.

Who is in your content collective?

We are indebted to these collaborators for all the help they’ve given over the years:

That’s our content collective, our ecosystem if you like and we’re so grateful for their involvement.

They help us, we help them – everybody gives a bit and all of us grow.

How about you? Who is in your content collective? Can you collaborate to produce content that helps you all?

Some collaborative content you might like:

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7 Comments

  1. John Beckley

    Great post Sonja …thank you for all your support. At times it’s difficult to get people to ‘change their chip’ but with article’s like this arriving in their inbox it is only helping to reinforce the principle of working together.

    We’ll keep you posted on our progress 🙂

    Reply
  2. Sonja Jefferson

    Morning John, and thanks for the comment. Hope it helps too.

    I really believe that the business world is changing but I know it’s tough if people have grown up with the notion that to do business you have to keep your ideas close to your chest. Collaboration does not come easily to everyone but it’s a great way to play.

    What you are doing at Sands Beach is fantastic – and comes at the right time. You live the predictions that Charles Green and Tim LeRoy shared for 2013 in this post: https://www.valuablecontent.co.uk/12-valuable-marketing-predictions-for-2013/.

    New values for a more open world.

    Reply
  3. Juan Carlos Albuixech

    Sonja, thank you for your time and support, it helps us to continue in this direction!

    Reply
  4. Sonja Jefferson

    You are welcome Juan Carlos. Great to work with you all.

    Reply
  5. Rosemary McManus

    This is a brilliant post. Thank you. You have an amazing gift of putting the right words together to remind us of so much important content we have forgotten and take for granted. Well done girls!

    Reply
  6. Henneke

    I love content marketers like you. You help and inspire others. And thank you to Sharon for contributing to the first ever Enchanting podcast!

    Reply
  7. Sharon Tanton

    Thanks Rosemary – we’re looking at the sunny weather in Lanzarote with envy this week!
    And thanks Henneke – I enjoyed podcasting with you. Hope to meet you in the real world one day soon.

    Reply

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