An introduction to content marketing, from text to video, to infographics and beyond. How to share. planning for success and the golden rules for publication.
Wikipedia defines content marketing as – ‘an umbrella term encompassing all marketing formats that involve the creation or sharing of content for the purpose of engaging current and potential consumer bases’ The following presentation aims at explaining the whys, whats and wherefores of content marketing.
The web is now about web presence not websites The greatest investment of any project is in the content creation, not maximising that content is absolutely criminal. When creating campaigns make sure you’re thinking about how the content you’re creating can be used over and over and over. You need to maximise your web presence by ensuring it appears in as many places as possible across that web and especially in those place. We talk increasingly about our clients acting like publishers. It’s time to build the organisation around content.
Create flexibly . It’s important that when you’re creating content, you consider all the places that that could reside. Could it be a blog, could it be posted elsewhere, would it be better as a video. Can you write it so that it can be posted 3 or 4 times to create a series, does the information you have suit an infographic format.
Text is now often seen as the graphic interface – Mark Boulton design is a classic example In a content rich environment you’re increasingly seeing the text as the key interface rather than imagery. Web 2.0 has spawned a plethora of these sites and blogging platforms such as Wordpress and Typepad have made the creation of beautiful text interfaces far easier. The web (or at least Google) still loves text best. There are a number of reasons for this: It's scannable SEO The workplace Mobile Devices Distribution
Text is now often seen as the graphic interface Another example of a beautiful text interface
Video is highly effective content. We’ve all seen how YouTube and BBC has changed the expectations consumers have about the way they are going to consume content, but increasingly video is being used as the entire interface. For a consumer brand like Wrangler this is ideal. However remember that video is still not an SEO darling, it’s getting there but partnering video with complementary text gives your content higher visibility for Search Engines
Consider infographics A picture speaks a thousand words as they say and it’s amazing how much attention you can grab by using data smartly. This is where writing flexibly pays dividends because providing one piece of data in one way is great, but if you can turn it into something more engaging visually even better. This is from Emily Schwartzman – who recently won the GOOD contest to design an infographic about the earthquake impact to Haiti. Also check out David McCandless for me who for me is the undisputed king of the infographic.
Better still make your infographics interactive New York Times are consistent winners of this form of infographic Click on for actual site.
Make cool stuff with data mashups Think about how the information you already hold can be used in innovative ways. The Zappos shoe map is basically just cool but it actually very smartly takes you directly to sale by mashing up Google maps with their real-time sales data. Click on for actual site.
Then think about how you bring the whole lot together. Still my favourite web experience Uniqlo Try combines Video, text, animation, music and data to come up with a thing of ultimate loveliness. They consistently come up with new innovations – also check out Uniqlock Click on for actual site.
So creating content in a flexible and shareable way is absolutely key and identifying the places to actually put it is key and you can work that out, but when you create content you need to ensure that it spreads as quickly as possible.
One button publishing Ensures that your generic content can be placed in as many different places as possible. Ensuring users can pick it up wherever they exist. This obviously will need to be tailored to each client (planning is everything)
Make your content shareable In addition you should always offer the option for users to share the content through the channel of their choice.
And there are plenty of them
Thinking like a publisher isn’t just about developing content. It’s about planning and structuring your narrative. Your content publishing success lives and dies by planning. Too many social media failures are down to the programme running out of steam
Plan, plan, plan Your clients need to have an editorial board that editorial board will plan, what, where and when. By outlining the backbone with a consistent theme you can hang as much off that spine without the need to deviate from the central theme.
Organise content appropriately for the real-time world - curate effectively When brands begin to engage in this type of publishing model and begin to gain a more engaged audience it’s important that they are able to feed that audience with information as the audience ask for it. Marketing and PR departments are experts at creating content, often that content is archived in a way that simply doesn’t make sense in a world based on sharing. Information that will aid a potential customers day has to be at a community manager’s finger tips if it isn’t then opportunities for connections will be lost.
Five rules I think it’s worth following
Pass the ‘so what’ factor One of the most common mistakes is not taking time to think whether what you’re about to publish is in the slightest bit interesting. No one will watch a boring Youtube video
Don’t be vanilla Make your content razor sharp, provoke others opinions.
Headlines have to grab people by the balls If you want people to read then make it compelling. Twitter’s actually where great copywriters come into their own.
Make your content scanable It’s a myth that people don’t read long form content on the web but you’ve only got 2.1 seconds to make them do it. So not only do you have to make sure your content grabs people by the balls but you have to make it scannable. Short soundbites sentences are a key. If your content is scannable people will get drawn in to read deeper content.
Don’t make it perfect In fact strive to be flawed. If you spend too time refining you’ll be bland and won’t provoke conversation. Of course this is when we talk about opinion not if it’s stats. Stats must be solid gold
Make your content scanable It’s a myth that people don’t read long form content on the web but you’ve only got 2.1 seconds to make them do it. So not only do you have to make sure your content grabs people by the balls but you have to make it scannable. Short soundbites sentences are a key. If your content is scannable people will get drawn in to read deeper content.