Three Key Rules of Successful Content Marketing

21 May

Content sharing platforms such as Facebook, Pinterest, Tumblr and Twitter are proving ever more popular, but is the sheer volume of sources at risk of becoming overwhelming for digital marketing professionals? How do we manage these communities best, and how can content be created and proliferated effectively?

Todd Defren, who writes for PR Squared, recently posted the ‘Seven Principles of Content Marketing’, a blog that covers the essential principles behind planning content marketing campaigns. In his post, Defren suggests a 70/30 split between content curation and branding. He also focuses on ‘shareworthy-ness’ and bite-sized portions with homage paid to credible sources. Tactically, Defren encourages curators to distribute their content synchronously across social outposts, ensuring the posts are optimised as search engines favour enabled results. If you need good examples, we enjoyed looking through The Content Marketing Institute’s ‘100 Content Marketing Examples’. Is there anything they missed?

In his blog post Defren notes there are more than seven principles, and we can offer three simple key rules you can follow to create a great content-based campaign.

The first is CREDIBILITY; ensure content has had thorough research before creation. Defren suggests credibility comes from third-party influences and from peers. Craig Pearce reinstated the argument for third-party credibility in his Marketing Mag post. Pearce examines how credibility is something earned, but that organisations require credibility in so many aspects – especially by enhancing its content creation.

The second is CREATIVITY. This doesn’t just apply to the creative aspect of the content itself, this applies to the methods in which the content is researched, shared and enabled for sharing. Content has provided marketers with the opportunity to distribute interesting, valuable information in the most creative method. If anything, think outside the box, but don’t alienate your audience.

The third rule is OPTIMISATION; if content is not strategically shared through the most appropriate mediums and best times of the day or week, it may be missed by linchpins in the social communities you are aiming to reach. You should never under-estimate the power of SEO and its importance to an organisation’s successful online presence.

We like these three key rules and plan to use them in the future. Are there any other guidelines or rules you think digital marketing professionals should use?

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Champion Engage

11 May

New Media Age published an article yesterday, PR agencies increasingly challenge search specialists for SEO work, detailing many of the reasons we deemed it necessary to integrate an SEO strategy into our digital offering Champion Engage. As search engines’ algorithms deliver increasingly selective and organic results, clients are clocking on to the fact that building quality backlinks through meaningful content and engagement is the best way to optimise search.

Champion Engage can work alone or alongside a traditional PR campaign as part of an integrated digital strategy. If you’d like to find out more, get in touch or visit the Digital Integration page of our website.

PEER 1 Hosting’s praise for Champion

19 Apr

PEER 1 Hosting’s praise for Champion

Client PEER 1 Hosting sung our praises in this blog post in 2010 – our relationship remains as mutually inspirational as ever!

It’s not what you know; it’s who links to it…

21 Mar

At its heart, PR is all about inspiring audiences to change their behavior by presenting them with compelling, relevant content via third party channels. Historically this has been achieved through journalists, analysts and other editorial outlets.

In recent years the rise of social media has created an industry of specialists who know the ins and outs of Google Analytics and have sold this expertise as a form of high-tech PR.

In fact, technical skill is only part of the issue. The most important element is the understanding of content – knowing what makes something interesting and what is needed to inspire action amongst the decision makers who can impact your business goals.

Having said that, the most exciting web content created becomes obsolete if nobody is visiting your site. Using content to attract audiences is a critical part of the PR strategy. Getting other sites to link to your site and your content will drive traffic to your site, elevating your page’s ranking and getting the attention of target audiences, resulting in lead generation.

It is at this point that the PR skill of creating compelling content can and should be used to maximum effect. Here are 7 tips to ensure that the content you have on your site is optimised to encourage others to link to you.

1. What’s in it for them?

Just because you think your content is wonderful does not automatically mean the rest of the world will. Even if your infographic or blog is incredible and shows you to be brilliant in your field, this does not necessarily mean that others will want to link to it.

There has to be an incentive for them to link to you and promote your content. People link to content for basic human reasons. It might be that it makes them look clever, funny, informed or connected. It may simply be that it supports their own content.

Whatever the reason, as the creator of content you want people to link to, you must run the “why would they want to link to it?” test. The fact that the content is interesting to you or is about you may not be enough. If it enriches their online presence then you may be onto something.

It goes without saying the content should be exclusive to you in order to get the most out of it.

2. It’s a two way street

If you want to get people linking to you, link to them. Simple, easy and straightforward. By linking to other site’s content, you are endorsing them. They are more likely to return the favour at a later date.

3. Do your homework

This third point is where I believe PR professionals can really come into their own. Generating content that people want to link to means creating content they are interested in and will respond to; content they want to share and be associated with.

In essence the content should say something about them. This can fall into two categories; Mirror or Halo.

Mirrored content talks directly about the audience – either now, in the future or even the past. An infographic about a UK CIO’s typical working day is going to resonate more with UK CIOs than it will US Chefs. If you do this, it is important not to insult or patronise your audience in order to get their attention. The more insightful the content, the more likely it will be to work amongst your target audience.

Halo’d content is harder to nail but essentially is the type of content that people want to link to because doing so makes them look clever, funny, informed, connected etc. This is the stuff people want to share because it makes them look good.

The important thing to remember about each of these is the need to add something. Chances are that most ideas you come up with will have been done before. Don’t let this put you off, but make sure you are adding something to what has gone previously. Can the content be localised, can a detail be developed? Is there an update or a trend that has not been spotted?

By injecting and developing further insight and data into a topic you can inspire debate people want to get involved in. Be warned though, not all debate will necessarily be flattering to your brand, and the more authentic a forum you create, the more likely it is to engage audiences.

4. Know when to stop

Nothing can kill a great piece of content than too much waffle. If you have made your point, stop.

5. Keep it pretty

Use the flexibility of the web to make your content exciting – pictures, video and infographics will make your content stand out amongst the masses of text we are bombarded with on a daily basis.

Don’t forget to tag any images with key words, with a view to what your decision makers are looking for rather than your company strap line.

6. Make it work on Twitter

First of all make sure your blog allows visitors to access and then post a micro URL from your site. Then make sure that when they do, the headline they generate in the 140 characters will mean something to people reading it. It should make them want to click on the link and retweet it. If it is full of hash tags and other such nonsense then it becomes harder for them to read and connect with. 

7. Keep it simple

The quicker and easier it is for people to react to your content, the more likely it is they will. Don’t get carried away adding extra bits or detail. To really work it’s got to be powerful, immediate and fresh.

Over the coming weeks, Champion will be updating this blog with examples of link building content we create for our clients.

If you want to get in touch to discuss, then please click here

Bewildered UK media are way behind the times with Pirate Bay ruling

23 Feb

In their coverage of the Pirate Bay story on Monday, the Metro included this sentence in isolation: “The music industry currently loses billions every year as a result of music piracy.” It is this kind of misinformed, lazy journalism that keeps the majority of consumers in the dark about copyright and piracy. Like the greedy copyright bigwigs, too many people are simply failing to comprehend that a freely downloaded album or movie does not equate to a lost sale. In fact, in what I would say is most cases; someone who downloads something ‘illegally’ would not necessarily have gone out and paid full-whack for the product if that was their only option.

There is nothing the governments of the world can do to stop people sharing copyright material freely online. Instead, companies need to start offering alternatives to rival the convenience free downloads provide. Imagine this scenario – you want to watch a certain movie one night, or get some new music for a long drive. Do you travel to HMV, pay £12 for a CD or DVD (with most of that money going to anyone but the artist), order from Amazon and wait three days, or do you pop onto Pirate Bay and have it ready to go within the hour? Even iTunes makes the process of buying music far more difficult and inconvenient than it needs to be – locking your legitimately bought files to use with only their own products in Apple’s typically paranoid style.

The Pirate Bay is the most popular ‘BitTorrent’ site in the world – hosting millions of links to freely download any music, movie, video game or software you could ever hope for. Now one of the top 100 visited sites in the world, it is a glorious example of human freedom and sharing. So predictably, along came the High Court to attempt to block UK internet users from accessing the site by June. Exasperatingly, this is the kind of action they and the major label bosses still believe will actually curb piracy and revive the music industry. They are wrong, of course; the following day Pirate Bay revealed plans to change the way it operates to escape this ruling having any effect.

Emerging from these recent debates is the idea that in this digital age we as consumers now hold the power – a few corporate bigwigs can no longer bully and control us into paying over the odds for a product the artist sees a minimal return from. Major music labels are rightly very worried, but their haphazard thought processes in combating piracy are only making things worse.

Throughout society there remains a devastating ignorance on the subject of piracy, thanks largely to consumers being brainwashed by poor journalism such as the Metro’s on Monday. If more people can realise this, and not just assume that breaking copyright law is inherently ‘wrong’, we can speed up this shift in power. It is time to start celebrating freedom, sort out the messy legalities in a mature and reasonable way and stop the corporate bullies’ wallets growing ever fatter.

Your Facebook followers don’t like you, even if they do…

21 Feb

Facebook. How many followers do you have? How many should you have? Do they Like you? Does it matter?

I am not talking about your personal page. Of course your best friend from school who you haven’t seen for years and wouldn’t recognise if they bumped into you in the street Likes you, and hangs on your every post. I am talking about your brand.

Whilst Facebook doesn’t normally share a lot of data about user behaviour (perhaps there is a reason for that), there are many consultancies out there making a lot of money from offering insight into the world of Facebook.

Thankfully, a helpful journalist has gathered all of the available and most reliable stats and complied a list of the 50 most important stats everyone should know. You can see the full list by following the link below, but in an attempt to keep you on our blog for a bit longer, here are the ones that are most relevant to B2B digital, media and technology brands, according to me.

624= the average number of fans a Facebook page has.

1-3= recommended daily page posts for brands to avoid being viewed as spam.

Worst offenders of ‘spamming’ fans include Sapo Portugal, Asos Fashion and Forever21, who posted averages of 13, 5 and 3 daily posts respectively with low corresponding engagement rates (ERs) of 0.06%, 0.02% and 0.002% (SocialBakers.com).

49% of American consumers give the ‘Like’ to brands on Facebook to gain information, but over half of them say they never visit the page afterwards.

38% of users hide page updates from the brands they ‘Like’. (Exact Target, Subscribers, Fans and Followers Report).

So, even if they like you, your job is not done.

What do we do with this information? Abandon Facebook? Put our resources elsewhere?

Well maybe, but not so fast. It’s worth bearing in mind the following:

In a recent study, users who ‘Liked’ a Houston-based coffee chain made 36% more visits to the brick-and-mortar business than their non-‘Liking’ counterparts and claimed to have 41% greater loyalty to the brand (Rice University and Dessert Gallery research).

The U.S. is not represented in the top 5 global cities with the most Facebook users. They are in order: Jakarta (Indonesia), Istanbul (Turkey), Mexico City (Mexico), London (U.K.) and Bangkok (Thailand) (SocialBakers.com).

Facebook recently trumped Google as the top source of traffic routed to other major portals.

According to a recent Facebook survey, 49% of users say they feel better about brands that have a presence on the social networking site.

There are many different ways for a brand to use Facebook, but there seems to be three things that would apply to most brands:

  • Focus on engagement rates - Likes are not the end result.
  • Integrate Facebook into your communications programme – it is another channel but should not replace the other communications efforts
  • Keep it fresh - think about the quality of your updates. Do they matter and make a difference to the lives of your audience. If not, don’t post.

You can read the full article here:

http://tiny.cc/716ls

PEER 1 Hosting gets quizzical

20 Feb

Last Thursday the Champion Communications quiz-machine rumbled to life for another legendary battle of brains with over 40 journalists from across an array of technology titles including The Register, ZDNet and Information Age.

The evening, commissioned by our client PEER 1 Hosting and held at the Glassblower Pub in London, was a resounding success, with everyone getting in to the swing of things and enjoying the many unique quiz rounds. Who else can say they’ve managed to get a senior male journalist to put on a Lady Gaga facemask?

It was different type of ‘hosting’ to the one we usually help PEER 1 out with, but we loved every minute of it and can’t wait to get the next one in the diary.

To see photographs from the evening check out our flickr album.

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