USF Fall 2014 Digital Marketing guest speaker presentation

1. Don’t Write for Spiders
Content Creation, Blogs
& Syndication

2. Hi! I’m Autumn.
I’m a content strategist. And a person.
@theautumnstar

3. Agenda:
Strategy
• The basics
• Content audit
• Style guide
• Content plan & calendar
• Strategy step-by-step
• ROI
• Customer journey
Creation
• Brainstorming
• Writing
• SEO
• Visuals
• Teamwork & management
Distribution
• Blog
• Native advertising
• Sponsored content
• Syndication
• Social media
Inspiration
• Marketing manifesto
• Words to live by
• Resources
• Questions

4. Before we get into strategy … what is content?
Articles
Slideshows
Quizzes
Videos
Graphics
Tweets, pins, posts
… Yes, but also ...

5. Before we get into strategy … what is content?
At its heart, content is…
Content is the stuff people want.
Content is the conversation people have with
your brand.
Content ATTRACTS, CONVERTS, and BUILDS.

6. Strategy
Coca-Cola chose
to publish its
content strategy
online. Content
2020 is a
ambitious plan,
and publishing it
online helps
Coke stay true to
the promises
within.

7. Strategy: The basics
The questions you absolutely have to answer.
1. Why? Why are we doing this?
2. What stories are we going to tell?
3. What’s in it for the reader?
4. Who is the target audience for our content?
*Hint: It’s not necessarily your customers.
5. What are the stories we want them to share?
6. How does our target audience find and consume
content?
7. How will the content support our brand?
8. How will we define success?
Ideas happen when expertise
brushes up against life
experience.
@jasonkeath, Social Fresh

8. Strategy
How to answers those questions.
1. Why are we doing this?
Ask your stakeholders, “Why?” Listen to their answer. Now ask it again. And again.
2. What stories are we going to tell?
If your brand were a person at a dinner party, what would she talk about?
3. What’s in it for the reader?
Be a good guest at that party. Listen to what the other guests are saying.
4. Who is the target audience for our content?
B2B company? Your audience still may be B2C. Who influences conversion?
5. What are the stories we want them to share?
See #3. What circles of conversation are already happening relevant to your brand?
6. How does our target audience find and consume content?
Where is similar content? What do people do with it? (Share, Like, Comment)
7. How will this content support our brand’s mission?
Ask this instead, “How will this support our audience’s need?” If it educates, it drives engagement. If it
delights, it drives affinity.
8. How will we define success?
Define your KPIs, but please please PLEASE think beyond ROI.

9. Strategy
This is all you need to do. Simple, right?
Give them something they will really CHERISH,
something they’ll genuinely want to talk about
for weeks. Something they’ll SHARE and
something that will be AWESOME.
@EricaCampbell, Homes.com

10. Strategy: Content audit
Use what you have.
The Content Audit
1. Create an inventory. Of Everything.
2. Commercials, design assets, FAQs and product info are not content.
But they could be!
3. Include user-generated commentary.
What are people already creating around the brand? Include negative feedback to address in
content.
4. Include competitive examples.
5. Performance metrics is only the beginning.

11. Strategy
Use what you have. Content Audit: What to Include
1. Text
2. Video
3. Images
4. Data
5. Brand narratives
6. Brand assets
7. Brand guidelines
8. Content channels
9. Conversations about your brand
(Good and bad)
10. Conversations in area of interest
1. Understand the context.
What are our goals? What are the audience needs?
2. Evaluate the landscape.
Your own site, competitive & comparative.
Read ALL the text. Look at ALL the pictures.
3. Check your current vocabulary.
What is your existing content saying about you?
4. Match content to an audience and a moment in time.
Who is this for? What is its purpose?
5. Assess the situation.
What does your audience want?
What aren’t your competitors doing?
Where is the opportunity?
6. Perform an audit, deliver a strategy.
Create an inventory. Rate the content, then add in
metrics. Build strategy from insights.

12. Strategy
Use what you have.
Do this. Deliver this.
Sources: (1) Discovery: Content Audits, Inventories and
Interviews Oh My!, Andrew Kaufman; (2) Content Auditing:
Unearthing Your Brand, Rachel Lovinger

13. Strategy
Classification scheme.
• Content needs a system of classification, or taxonomy.
• This is handled through metadata tags.
• This content taxonomy enables:
Content management
Navigation
Search
Personalization (back-end controlled)
Customization (user-controlled changes)
Sources: Strategic Content, http://strategiccontent.com/how-taxonomy-is-used/

14. Style guide
Sound like no one but yourself.
1. Decide who you are going to be.
2. Audit your current vocabulary.
What is your content saying about you?
3. Create a tone of voice guide.
4. Write the guide in your voice.
5. Include good and bad examples.
6. Pick three base notes.
One can’t be human.
Ex. Silly, Friendly, Simple.
7. Tune for audience, medium and situation.
Same brand can speak differently at different
times.
8. Embrace good jargon because these are your
people.
The best marketing doesn’t feel
like marketing.
@tomfishburne, Marketoon Studios

15. Content plan & calendar
Make a plan. Forget the plan.
1. How much of your content will be Original, Curated, User-Generated?
2. How often will you refresh content?
3. Does your content have seasonal relevance?
Do your audience’s needs & interests have seasonal relevance?
4. The calendar is a schedule.
The plan is assignments, sources, distribution channels, etc.
5. Include the “Why.”
6. Be nimble to change.
7. Leave time for spontaneous content.

16. Content plan & calendar
Make a plan. Forget the plan.
Type Purpose Medium Source Writer Due Notes
Behind the lens: belly
dancing studio shoot
Education YouTube, Blog Original Holly 11/12 Extra
photography
“BtS” teaser Promotion Snapchat / Vine Video Holly 11/10
Fabulous Friday quote Affinity Twitter,
Facebook,
Pinterest
Multiple Autumn 11/14 UGC quote, our
photography
Content plan

17. Strategy
Step-by-step.
1. Listen.
Clients will often tell you everything you need to
know, if you can surrender your right to speak
and become an active listener.
2. Read. Research.
Content audit // Competitive analysis
// Insights // Audience profiles
3. Plan.
Pain of audience // Goal of content
4. Schedule.
Content platforms // Content types // Calendar
5. Assess.
KPIs // Benchmarks for success & failure
Note:
You haven’t brainstormed a thing yet.
That’s good. We’re getting to that.

18. Strategy
ROI is NBD.
Numbers can be wrong. Impressions are fairy tales.
@Jay Baer, Convince & Convert
1.3 page views
H/T @unmarketing
Blocks all ads on all web pages, even Facebook, YouTube and Hulu.

19. Strategy
The customer journey.
It’s not this. It’s this.
@Jay Baer, Convince & Convert

20. Creation
Duluth Trading
crafts all its copy,
from catalog to
confirmation emails,
to create a cohesive
experience for the
customer at every
touch point.

21. Creation: Brainstorming
You’re doing it wrong.
1. Creativity is WORK.
Never stop thinking.
2. Brainstorming is NOT a bullet point.
Ideas require time, freedom and work.
3. Gather clouds before the storm.
Walk in with ideas.
Spend the ‘storm building & refining.
4. Gather LOTS of clouds.
Get the bad ideas out.
Create 50 ideas, bring 5 to the table.
5. Teams affect change more than individuals.
Find your power players, your big idea people,
your decision makers. Bring them to the table.
6. Surrender your right to be right.
Stop walking in with THE solution.
7. Creativity isn’t taught …
… but it is highly desired by companies.
H/T @JasonKeath

22. Creation: Writing
Don’t be a good writer, be a great writer.
1. Write with an unforgettable voice.
The unforgettable voice of your brand.
KNOW IT.
2. Intentional word choice. “Best words,
best order.”
3. Speak from the deeper story.
Calling branded content “story” doesn’t
make it a tale worth telling.
4. Craft micro-copy.
5. Become story connoisseurs.
Read more. Write more.

23. Creation: SEO
Don’t write for spiders, robots or hummingbirds.
1. Spiders search; people read.
2. Yes, SEO still matters. But not the way you think.
3. Write for people. Optimize for the robot spiders.
4. What others say about you is more important than
what you say about yourself.
Link anchor text and social shares matter to
Hummingbird’s algorithim.

24. Creation: Visuals
The visual is the headline ... sort of.
1. Images attract; stories captivate.
Average human attention span is 8
seconds … 1 second less than a goldfish.
2. Sometimes the image IS the story.
Go beyond stock photography for the one
image that says it all.
3. Your fans are your photographers.
Source fan generated images for ad &
content imagery for deep loyalty.
4. An image is worth 81 words, not 1,000.
Words still tell the story.
H/T @JasonMillerCA

25. Creation: Teamwork
Playing doubles with your team.
1. Who will you be? Content team roles:
Story
Strategy
Technology
Innovation
2. This is not a one-man show.
It’s better to create something amazing as
a team than something lackluster alone.
3. You are the advocate of your own future.
Look the part. Sit at the table. Lean in.
Speak up.

26. Creation: Management
Managing writers, salespeople, designers & other creatures.
1. Be Superman.
A leader owns every project, but doesn’t do it alone.
2. Create your Justice League.
Build a team of the best from every department.
3. Communicate to collaborate.
15-min meetings and email CC
4. Speak alien languages.
Know their words to communicate better.
5. Remember they’re only human.
Empathize. Be the leader who listens, become the
leader who is listened to.

27. Distribution
Dunkin Donuts wins with social by giving
the keys to customers, and creates true
engagement with reply content.
Century21’s blog turns the
pain point of house-hunting
on its head with fun and
relevant content.
Purina reaches their most loyal
customers with a members-only
content distribution: email.

28. Distribution
Your blog is everything.
1. Blogs are not diaries; they’re libraries.
Create content for specific channels, archive
everything in one place. Your blog.
2. Be the librarian and author and critic.
Create; curate; moderate.
3. Best in class: PetFlow Blog
Original content
Curated content
UGC content
2 to 4MM page views a day
98% of site’s traffic* visits the blog
*50MM monthly visitors

29. Distribution
Native advertising stinks.
To me, the difference between native advertising and
sponsored content is in their names.
And also in their intents.

30. Distribution
Native advertising stinks.
• Content is created by and for the brand.
• All quotes within article are from the
company.
• Customer expectation = objective
information. Receives = advertising.
• The content is affected by the
sponsorship.

31. Distribution
Native advertising stinks.
What is this? It’s deceitful, dishonest and
disgraceful.

32. Distribution
This message is brought to you
by Sponsored Content.
• Content is for the reader, not the
brand.
• Subtle introduction copy makes
sponsorship relevant.
• Social inclusion offers reader a way to
connect without conversion.
• The content is unaffected by the
sponsorship placements.

33. Distribution
Success with syndication.
• Grow website and blog traffic
• How it works:
o Syndicated publisher creates original content
o Content lives in syndicating publisher
website within widget
o When reader clicks content, the syndicating
publisher makes incremental revenue
o Syndicated publisher site receives traffic

34. Distribution
Social media & the shotgun.
• Content has nine lives, or
more.
One piece of content can have
many iterations.
• One theme to rule them all.
• Don’t recycle, upcycle!
Revise and repurpose
content for specific
formats and audiences.
Themes create
cohesive storytelling
across multiple
platforms. Which is more effective: the
rifle, or the shotgun?
@Jay Baer, Convince & Convert

35. Distribution
Content is fire.
Content is a hearth fire.
Social media is the torch you use to
share the flame with the village.
@theautumnstar
Content is fire.
Social media is gasoline.
@Jay Baer, Convince & Convert

36. Distribution
Be everywhere your audience expects you.
How many contacts does it
take before conversion?
“Research suggests that
three touches are needed;
or is it five, or eight, or
twelve? The only right
answer is ‘it depends.’”
- Business Insider
@Jay Baer, Convince & Convert

37. Distribution
Content is fire.
How can we be seen as an accepted meddler
instead of a pernicious intruder to be removed?
@theautumnstar
Your brand is an interloper, tolerated
because it keeps social media free for
the rest of us.
@Jay Baer, Convince & Convert

38. Inspiration

39. Inspiration
Modern marketing manifesto.
• Strategy: Marketers should sit at the board table and help set strategy.
• Brand: The internet has forced transparency upon brands and businesses.
• Experience: Improving the customer experience must be the relentless focus of modern marketing.
• Data: Data must be turned into insight and action.
• Digital: Digital thinking should be embedded in marketing strategies as a matter of course.
• Personalization: Offer the greatest opportunity to transform what customers currently get.
• Technology: Modern marketers must be comfortable and adept at procuring and using technology.
• Creative: We need creativity just as much as we need technology.
• Content: Content reinforces a brand’s credibility and authenticity in what it stands for, believes in and cares about.
• Multi-screen: See beyond ‘mobile’. TVs, books, in-store kiosks, billboards, etc.
• Social: Recognize that everything we do happens in an environment where customers can, and will, talk about it and
share it with the world.
• Commercial: Sales and marketing must be more closely aligned and have common points of accountability
- H/T Econsultancy

40. Inspiration
Words to live by.
Creativity is intelligence
having fun. –Albert
Einstein
Stories aren’t about
products. That’s a
brochure. –Jay Baer
People don’t buy what
you do, they buy why
you do it. –Simon Sinek
Sell your ideas, but
never sell out your
idealism. –Me

41. Inspiration
In conclusion ….
• Thirst for knowledge.
• Thirst for meaning.
• Thirst for stories.
“Stay thirsty, my friends.”

42. Inspiration
Reading & listening list
Books on writing
Best American Writing series
Best Words, Best Order, Stephen Dobyns
Elements of Style, Strunk & White
On Writing, Stephen King
On Writing Well, Zissner.
Books on marketing
Content Rules, Anna Handley
Unmarketing, Scott Stratten
Youtility, Jay Baer
Websites to check out
Content Marketing Institute
Convince & Convert
Copyblogger
Introducing the Modern Marketing Manifesto
Podcasts
Marketplace, American Public Media
This Old Marketing Podcast, CMI
Unpodcast, Scott Stratten

43. Thank you!
Questions?
theautumnstar.com
@theautumnstar