Content calendars suck. You hate them. Your clients hate them. Everyone hates them. Somewhere along the way, we forgot how to Tell Stories. Communities love stories. This session will explore new mindsets for creating, disseminating and measuring story telling that move beyond content calendars and into truly actionable data (no, we won’t say Real-Time Marketing, we promise!). If your mind isn’t blown, we’ll even let you buy us a beer!
Questions Answered
New content planning tools and processes
New approaches to managing communities and getting the most value out of them
New ways to report and measure for yourselves and your clients
Tips on how to ensure clients get the value they deserve and FEEL like they’ve gotten the value they deserve
- Lots of other things with big buzz words but, sadly, no twerking
Capstone slidedeck for my capstone project part 2.pdf
Community Management Grows Up: Moving Beyond Content Calendars
1. Community Management Grows Up
Moving Beyond Content Calendars
Created for and presented
at
PodCamp Toronto 2014
@jeremywright / @joncrowley
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3. Today’s Agenda
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Community Management Today
Why It All Sucks
Imagine A World Where…
Your Content Sucks, But You Can Fix It Super Duper Easy
Getting Your Content Out There Like A Boss
Beer For Questions
5. The Process is Broken
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It’s restrictive
It’s messy
Endless revisions, because it’s
treated as 31 separate creative
elements
Last minute changes are
unavoidable
18. How the Client Sees the Calendar
This is kinda like a post from last month?
19. How the Client Sees the Calendar
Wait, I haven’t seen any product posts yet?
20. Client Sends Feedback
“I feel like this is repetitive and off strategy,
please revise.” - client
21. Client Sends Feedback
Wouldn’t it be nice to have a process and
“I feel like this is repetitive and off strategy,
tools that worked for ANYONE, nevermind
please revise.” - client
everyone?
33. Content Planning
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Blocking Charts are your
friend
Creates framework for
future content
Allows you to align (internally
or with client) on priorities
and number of posts per
content pillar
34. Content Writing
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Should be easier to write
Should allow for greater
flexibility
Should be FUN
Should be reusable
Should be responsive
35. The Content Warehouse
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Plan the narrative
Copywriter writes similar
topics (saves 30% of time)
Posts can “expire”
Allows for greater CM
flexibility
Requires less onboarding of
new CMs
36. Building a Narrative
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Content without narrative
is death
Narrative drives engagement
Measure each narrative
across all your channels
MOAR FROM JON!
37. The Content Wind Tunnel
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Funnels limit, tunnels increase
velocity
Get obstacles out of the
way
Abandon the idea of how
far out you’re planning
Focus on constantly
improving your narratives
NOTE: This approach
requires different client
billing structures ;-)
43. The Meaty Middle
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Client approvals still matter
Things change, rapidly
Low latency is expensive
The community manager knows
the pulse of your tribe
49. Narrative Building
• Communities are made of
stories. So are brands.
• Pick 5 key stories, and map out
how they progress each quarter.
• Make posts that reference
events, but create MULTIPLE
options, so that gametime
decisions can be made.
50. Completely Fictional Narrative Progression
Brand X says
“quality matters”
Brand X says “here
is the heritage and
tradition behind our
quality”
Brand X says “This
is our team. Their
craftsmanship and
passion drive us”
Brand X says “this
video will show you
the painstaking
process behind our
product”
51. Building the Puzzle
• Your story needs to be
interconnected, but each piece
needs to stand on its own.
• The narrative you build can be
more important than the specific
order or timing
52. So: how do you do it?
You have a plan of what needs to happen.
You have a warehouse of approved content.
You have a person who knows what will work,
and when.
You don’t NEED anything else. Get out of your
own way.
The ability to adapt to what’s going on in the world and in your community, while using approved contentWouldn’t it be nice if “real time marketing” didn’t require “real time marketing”?If what you thought was a good idea 15 days ago isn’ta good idea, it’s a crisisYou shouldn’t need to see the future to avoid client emergenciesThe most important part of a joke is…. Is… is… timing!
Real Time Marketing is one end of a spectrum, where traditional content calendar planning sits on one end, and just-in-time Oreo-style executions sit on the other.But it’s all about getting to that point, where it’s the right post for the time, the conditions, and the community
Real Time Marketing is one end of a spectrum, where traditional content calendar planning sits on one end, and just-in-time Oreo-style executions sit on the other.But it’s all about getting to that point, where it’s the right post for the time, the conditions, and the community
Get over it. You will almost NEVER have the client who trusts you enough to let you post unapproved. And even if you did, you don’t have the balls to post without sign off.
What was true yesterday might not be true today. Marathon story?
Not every brand will have the money to do everything in real time. Almost none of them need to.
Most posting strategies ignore how close a community manager gets to a community, over time. Data is king, but the gut feel of a community expert is at least an archduke.
Life without cellphones – this is about the freedom to make logical, approved decisions on the fly (when applicable)Judging content in the context of narrative streams makes it clear what’s on strategy, and what’s not.