27. Looking Ahead at Content Strategy
Mobile and tablets
Locations
Recommendation engines
Cutting edge commonplace
28. Thank You and Questions
CaraRousseau@gmail.com
@CaraRousseau
cararousseau.tumblr.com
Hinweis der Redaktion
Content strategy is a buzz term all of a sudden in social media; but, it’s nothing new. Our ancestors’ ancestors drew pictures in caves. Music has been created since the beginning of time. The ways that we share content are changing. The platforms are growing and new channels crop up every day.
Any presentation on content needs to bring up the cliché term that content is king. So, we’ll just get it out of the way now. Content is king and will continue to be the way brands and businesses relate to their communities and drive customer loyalty.BUT, the consumers of content are changing their preferences. There is so much noise, that the way they filter and receive content is changing and social media tools plays a big role in how to effectively deliver content to customers in this changing world.
Why do we care about content? Because it builds relationships with our audience. Customers who are considering purchasing something are often evaluating many competing products or services. What will put them over the edge to buy one item over another is a testimonial, an interaction that reinforces the best purchase decision.Social media gives businesses a place to make that interaction happen and make that interaction as positive as possible. Got married last December – almost every decision I made was based on referrals from Martha Stewart’s social media channels and used sites like Etsy to find creative, unique inspiration.
Let’s define content marketing quickly. Using content for marketing is really just anything your company creates and shares about your brand. Content should be based around stories, and those stories should be created in different formats for the different channels where they will be shared. When it comes to social media, every tweet, Facebook comment, Flickr photo, YouTube video and blog post is content – and content should give people a reason to stay engaged with your community. Content strategy provides a framework for ensuring content is meaningful, appropriate, and valued by your community.
Engaging content must be remarkable. If the content isn’t worth talking about, it will fizzle fast. Think about content like the initiator of conversation within an online community. There needs to be a topic to discuss or a story to generate opinions for a community to thrive and then return for more. When thinking about voice and tone, most successful online content is either educational or entertaining. This goes back to the remarkable aspect of content. Let’s look at some examples.The first one is the Dove Evolution video, released in 2006, a video created for the Dove Real Beauty Campaign. The video shows a woman transformed, through makeup and airbrushing, from ordinary to perfect. What it does well is it got people talking about the subject Dove is marketing their products around – improving women’s self-esteem.Dove evolutionhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbb8D-u8ues&feature=player_embeddedThe second one is Kyle Gets Buckets 2.0. This is the second video in a two-part series highlighting Duke mens’ basketball player Kyle Singler getting “buckets” all over campus. The shots he makes are ridiculous, including making shots from the top of the Duke Chapel. But the video is entertaining, went viral with almost a million views, and got people talking not just about Duke Basketball, but the beauty and spirit of the campus. It’s a great recruiting tool.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBSQf0wWiKw
Engaging content must be remarkable. If the content isn’t worth talking about, it will fizzle fast. Think about content like the initiator of conversation within an online community. There needs to be a topic to discuss or a story to generate opinions for a community to thrive and then return for more. When thinking about voice and tone, most successful online content is either educational or entertaining. This goes back to the remarkable aspect of content. Let’s look at some examples.The first one is the Dove Evolution video, released in 2006, a video created for the Dove Real Beauty Campaign. The video shows a woman transformed, through makeup and airbrushing, from ordinary to perfect. What it does well is it got people talking about the subject Dove is marketing their products around – improving women’s self-esteem.Dove evolutionhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbb8D-u8ues&feature=player_embeddedThe second one is Kyle Gets Buckets 2.0. This is the second video in a two-part series highlighting Duke mens’ basketball player Kyle Singler getting “buckets” all over campus. The shots he makes are ridiculous, including making shots from the top of the Duke Chapel. But the video is entertaining, went viral with almost a million views, and got people talking not just about Duke Basketball, but the beauty and spirit of the campus. It’s a great recruiting tool.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBSQf0wWiKw
Engaging content must be remarkable. If the content isn’t worth talking about, it will fizzle fast. Think about content like the initiator of conversation within an online community. There needs to be a topic to discuss or a story to generate opinions for a community to thrive and then return for more. When thinking about voice and tone, most successful online content is either educational or entertaining. This goes back to the remarkable aspect of content. Let’s look at some examples.The first one is the Dove Evolution video, released in 2006, a video created for the Dove Real Beauty Campaign. The video shows a woman transformed, through makeup and airbrushing, from ordinary to perfect. What it does well is it got people talking about the subject Dove is marketing their products around – improving women’s self-esteem.Dove evolutionhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbb8D-u8ues&feature=player_embeddedThe second one is Kyle Gets Buckets 2.0. This is the second video in a two-part series highlighting Duke mens’ basketball player Kyle Singler getting “buckets” all over campus. The shots he makes are ridiculous, including making shots from the top of the Duke Chapel. But the video is entertaining, went viral with almost a million views, and got people talking not just about Duke Basketball, but the beauty and spirit of the campus. It’s a great recruiting tool.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBSQf0wWiKw
Let’s look at some more examples of companies that know their voice and understand the tone to use with their viewers. Cascadian Farm is a leading brand of organic foods, but it’s also a real, working farm. They understand that their consumers want to be educated about organic farms and food that’s better for the planet. So, they post informative articles, recipes and tips on gardening, shopping smart, and healthy eating. Because they understand their community wants to learn from them, they don’t use social media for commerce and selling.30 Rock uses social media as a platform for their characters. They know that they are expected to use humor. They have a light and funny tone on all of their channels, consistently. There is a Kenneth the Page tab on their FB page where you can watch videos of Kenneth talking to 30 Rock fans. Tracy Jordan posts to Twitter encouraging followers to purchase his merchandise. At the end of the day, this is all promotional for the show and extends the life and impact of the characters.
Knowing your audience means knowing the voice to use with them, but also the right conversations to have with them. Social media is social and the content that is distributed with these channels should initiate conversations and stimulate some conversation. Otherwise, you should be driving traffic to your website.Burts Bees does a really good job of appealing to their audiences – mostly by knowing who they are talking to and running run campaigns around their core principles. Right now they are running a tacky sweater part contest to benefit One Warm Coat – a national organization that provides those in need with a warm coat. Wrapped this all in with the theme of Bee Merry and Bright to bring awareness for their products as gifts this holiday season. Burts Bees uses their website mostly for ecommerce, and facebook for interaction.Aveeno does some things well with social media. But, in contrast to Burt’s Bees, you don’t want to jump into their Facebook page and post comments and pictures. They have similar products with a focus on natural beauty, but Aveeno doesn’t play this up as much in their social media presence as they could.
Don’t inundate your followers with content. Use tools like Google Trends to jump on topics that are trending. Be targeted in the timing of your posts – think about whether you’re doing a wide sweeping content push on all channels, or a drip campaign using certain channels in a specific approach.
Skittles talks about their brand using a Skittles voice – little pieces of colorful candy are what posts feel like.
Threadlesscrowdsources their product to deliver what their customers want. They use forums and message boards with artists to deliver the feedback and direction straight to customers.
Importance of planning ahead with content. You know your business cycle. Things will come up, so you also need to be nimble.At Duke admissions, for example, we detail what is happening in the admissions process through the year and map the content of the website, blogs and social media channels to what is happening in that cycle. For example, when early decision binding is let out, we’ll highlight Durham on our website to show the students where their new home is.
Yelp – high level users create locations and ratingsMakers Mark ambassadorsDuke – student voices for ecruitment.
It’s important to select a CMS tool to plan content. Review changes and versions, check links are active, allow for multiple users, and encourage team collaboration.
It’s important to have someone own content strategy on social media channels – great to have a team, but one person should be the aggregator of the planning and efforts.
Decide on your hub and that’s where you drive traffic to in the bulk of tweets, posts, comments, etc. Think of the hub as an aggregator of this content.
Tools to filter content by keywords, categories, users, geography. Google reader and news alerts for keywords especially in the newsHootsuite and Twitter lists help you see the posts from specific groupsFacebook stream – use account settings tools to decide who shows in your streamsAllTop lists top stories from around the web on hot topicsPaper.li allows people and companies to customize a daily “newspaper” just by aggregating posts from others
903 campaign as an example of gathering content from key audiences and allowing the community to crowdsource content.Getty imagesCNNireportersFunny or dieLate night TVXM radio
Keeping it new, fresh, and filtering the information with limited resources.
Mobile and tablets present an opportunity for people to absorb content as they have experiences – not just sitting at a desk or at home on their couch. Implications are that content begins to be designed around the user experience in many different places and spaces.People expect an experience around a place. Is place a content type? How does content contribute to an experience at a place? Example: The History Channel on Foursquare