The 10 Key Elements of Audience Building Content Strategy
1. THE 10 KEY ELEMENTS OF
AUDIENCE BUILDING
CONTENT STRATEGY
2. ABOUT ME
Carson Content
I run a consultancy called
Carson Content.
I was Head of Digital Marketing
at Bauer Media.
We offer services in Content
Strategy & Planning /
Relaunches / Social Media and
SEO strategy.
@mrjamescarson
http://uk.linkedin.com/in/jacarson85
www.carsoncontent.com
3. THE 10 ELEMENTS
#1 PERSONA RESEARCH
#2 MESSAGE ARCHITECTURE
#3 DEFINING AN IA
#4 STOCK, FLOW AND CURATION
#5 TEAM WORKFLOW
#6 GENUINELY GOOD IDEAS
#7 HEADLINES
#8 FORMATTING
#9 USING MULTIMEDIA
#10 CONSTANT REVIEW
8. British – from London, Manchester or Leeds
100 followers on Twitter
More active on Facebook than Twitter
Creative type that likes music and design
Mean age: 21
10. ESSENCE
CORE VALUES
HOW IT
MAKES ME
FEEL
WHAT IT
SAYS ABOUT
ME
FUNCTIONAL
BENEFITS
FACTS/ICONS
TRUTHS/BELIEFS
PERSONALITY
PRODUCT
11. • PRIMARY: The most important thing you
want your user to know or feel after viewing
your content.
• SECONDARY: a group of messages that
support the primary message and provide
further context
12. • UK Thought Leader in Digital Content Strategy
– Direct and to the point
– We deal with matters of fact and logical explanation
• Satirical
– Sense of humour is dry and usually derived from criticism
– We have a point of view that we aren’t afraid to express
• The Antihype
– We view trends with a long term view
– We believe in marketing’s history
15. • CATEGORIES – topics that can
exist in a hierarchy. Generally
fill menus.
• TAGS – grouping of content
that mentions a particular
entity, most often proper
nouns.
16. Category 1 Category 2 Category 3
Content Content
Content
Content
Tag 1
Tag 2
Tag 1
Tag 1
Tag 2
Tag 2
17. HOW NOT TO DO IT
Lifestyle
Fashion Weddings
News Advice
Categories
Top Level
Get Involved
2nd Level
3rd Level
Designers
Page Types
19. STOCK AND FLOW
Flow is the feed. It’s the posts and the
tweets. It’s the stream of daily and sub-daily
updates that remind people that you exist.
Stock is the durable stuff. It’s the content
you produce that’s as interesting in two
months (or two years) as it is today. It’s what
people discover via search. It’s what spreads
slowly but surely, building fans over time.
20. STOCK FLOW
• Guides
• How to
• Category pages
• Infographics
• Applications
• News
• Social updates
• Opportunities
21. CURATION
• Referencing things that aren’t yours
• Getting your community to contribute
• Harnessing social to create content
22. 70/20/10
• 70% of the content should be low
risk, bread and butter marketing
• 20% should innovate off what works
• 10% should be high risk ideas that will
be tomorrow's 70% or 20%
26. • FORMAT
– Writing, graphics, photography, video etc
• COMMUNITY
– To whom are your team connected?
• CAPACITY
– How much can your team produce?
– 2k words a day
WHAT, FOR WHO AND HOW MUCH?
28. • S imple
• U nexpected
• C oncrete
• C redible
• E motional
• S tory
• s
FORMULA
29.
30.
31. #7
HEADLINES
What do people see of advertising?
Headlines! What do you yourself see of
advertising as you glance through a
newspaper or magazine? Headlines!
What decides whether or not you stop a
moment and look at an advertisement, or
even read a little of it? The headline!
32. “On average , five times more people read the headline as read
the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have
spent 80 cents out of your dollar.”
33. Do you make these mistakes
in English?
Are you afraid of making
mistakes in English?
34. THE THREE CLASSES OF
SUCCESFUL HEADLINES:
• Self interest
– ‘How You Can Get a Job at FHM Magazine’
• News
– ‘Government Unveils New Apprenticeship Scheme’
• Curiosity*
– ‘Do You Make These Interview Mistakes?’
– ‘Wanted: £1 billion to Tackle Youth Unemployment’
*Curiosity is rarely enough on its own…
“The effectiveness of the average curiosity headline is doubtful. For every
curiosity headline that succeeds in getting results, a dozen will fail.”
35. • Quick, easy way
• Short active verbs
Greeks gain entry to Troy and win
Greeks seize Troy
• Eliminate negativity
THREE MORE THINGS…
36. COMMON SENSE SEO HEADLINES
• Make onpage headlines as long as you like.
• Use full versions of proper nouns.
• Think of how people will search to come
across your headline.
• Use one headline for robots, another for
humans.
• Continue to apply the concepts explained.
38. HOW USERS
READ ON THE WEB
THEY DON’T
WELL ACTUALLY THEY DO, KIND OF
http://content-science.com/expertise/content-insights/yes-users-read-on-the-web/
39. People rarely read Web pages word by word;
Instead, they scan the page, picking out
individual words and sentences. In research on
how people read websites we found that 79
percent of our test users always scanned any
new page they came across; only 16 percent
read word-by-word.
40. SINCE USERS DON’T READ
• Short words, short
sentences, short paragraphs.
• One idea per paragraph.
• Break things up with lists and
images.
41. <h2>Subtitle Stuff</h2>
NOT <strong> OR <b>
CENTER STUFF
LIKE IMAGES
LIST STUFF
<ul>
<li>LIST</li>
<li>LIST</li>
<li>LIST</li>
</ul>
<blockquote>
‚Blockquote interesting stuff‛
</blockquote>
45. VISUALISATION
Are youth unemployment statistics black and white?
Nathan Atiko, 24, said: "Sometimes I have in the back of my mind that employers see my
surname, see it's African and write my CV off straight away. I think about changing it
because I wonder if they immediately think I might be trouble or I might be lying."
47.4%
52.6%
20.8%
79.2%
% People Aged 16-24 Unemployed by Race:
white
Unemployed
Employed
black
52. Q & A
#1 PERSONA RESEARCH
#2 MESSAGE ARCHITECTURE
#3 DEFINING AN IA
#4 STOCK, FLOW AND CURATION
#5 TEAM WORKFLOW
#6 GENUINELY GOOD IDEAS
#7 HEADLINES
#8 FORMATTING
#9 USING MULTIMEDIA
#10 CONSTANT REVIEW
www.carsoncontent.com
@mrjamescarson