At Hammock we work with clients to create content that works–content that solves specific business challenges. But how do we know what content will work for each client? There are some universal content marketing rules to follow, as Rex points out in his “Content That Works” series, but sometimes learning what not to do is just as helpful to guiding strategy decisions.
Here are five areas where Targetmarketingmag.com sees marketers make mistakes when it comes to their content marketing plans:
While it’s important in your content marketing to spread your message across multiple social media platforms, it’s also helpful to have a good idea of what the users of those platforms are looking for so you can tailor your message.
According to this recent article on Mashable.com, “Twitterers mostly consume news, MySpace users want games and entertainment, Facebookers are into both news and community and Digg’s audience has a mixed bag of interests.”
That’s not to say you shouldn’t post tweets that show a more personal, community oriented side of your business on Twitter and discount putting any business postings on Facebook, but it’s always helpful to understand how a particular audience interacts with information.
Head over to Mashable to check out the breakdown of what users are interested in on the various social media sites.
I’ve been a fan of the Good organization since it launched in 2006. It continues to post content that I want to see, read and experience.
It seems small business owners are mixed on the value of social media for business. Those who love it have seen an uptick in sales that they can tie directly to their social media efforts. Those who aren’t impressed say the time investment isn’t worth the effort, according to the Wall Street Journal.
But what effort were these businesses making? The article mentioned a few ways in which these companies used social media (customer service, direct sales leads). But nowhere was social media mentioned as a way to push out content.
At Hammock, we believe content plays an integral role in retaining and recruiting customers. But we’re not talking about just any old content. We’re talking about engaging content that people actually look forward to reading and experiencing. We call that content that works!
Do you know how well your content is working for you? If you can’t answer this question with confidence, you aren’t alone. Most marketers today lack a clear idea of how their content is helping them meet their business objectives. But with all of the money and resources invested toward this content, they can’t afford to be in the dark about how it’s helping them meet their goals.
Enter the content audit. At Hammock, we understand how important such an audit can be. That’s why we provide services to evaluate how clients’ current use of media and other content is working for them. Immediately after starting a relationship with a client, we conduct a Hammock Content Marketing Intelligence Report, a comprehensive look at which content is currently working and what changes are needed. This report involves an intake assessment, in which we collect all relevant information from the client for our research. (We provide a simple checklist of what we need so it’s a pretty painless process.)
If you’ve heard it once, you’ve heard it a million times. To compete in today’s global economy, you need a Web presence with a blog, a Twitter account, a Facebook page … the list goes on and on. But with all the time and energy you put into these social media efforts, how do you make sure you’re getting a return on your investment? Here are the top three ways to make your social media efforts pay off, from John Jantsch’s Duct Tape Marketing blog.
1. Follow up. Use networking sites to follow up with prospects you meet in the real world. Instead of meeting someone at a Chamber of Commerce mixer and following up with a phone call, send that person a LinkedIn invitation and, once you’re connected, pass along an article with tips about the very topic you discussed when you met.
2. Stay top of mind. Use social media to stay in front of your customers and educate them about what you have to offer. Share practical tools and tips and success stories through a blog that you encourage customers to subscribe to so you can engage with them. Upload video testimonials to YouTube and embed them on your site, or create a Facebook fan page with information about promotions and events.
3. Keep tabs on your industry. Subscribe to blogs written by industry leaders, competitors and journalists to stay informed about what’s going on in your market. Scan the day’s industry-related stories with a Google News Reader or set up Google Alerts to track industry terms and the news they create.
[Part 4 of a Series: See: Introduction. See: Links to other posts in this series.]
Journalists and librarians are each, in their own ways, devoted to the recording and dissemination of information (or, more precisely, those things we all hope result from such activities: wisdom, insight, knowledge, understanding, truth). However, at the same time, journalists and librarians are quite different in the ways they approach the craft and science of organizing information so the rest of us can access it. Indeed, thinking of what they do as a craft or as a science is one of the ways in which they differ.
Everywhere you turn today companies are encouraging you to follow them on Twitter. And it’s not just the big national players like CNN who promote themselves on the social media tool–it’s local small businesses too, which I was reminded of just last week. At a fundraiser I struck up a conversation with caterers from Sweet 16th, my favorite bakery in Nashville. During our quick chat they explained how they are making bread now and chimed in, “Follow us on Twitter so you can find out which breads are available each day.”
My first content marketing job failed, based on the measurements for success I established. I made my first magazine at the age of 10. It was a fanzine related to my enthusiasm for the Washington Diplomats, part of the long defunct North America Soccer League (NASL), and owner of the least poetic of all team nicknames, the Dips.
I hand made the magazines and complied statistics about the teams, players and games of the NASL. My mother, who was a teacher, allowed me to use the mimeograph machine at her office to make a dozen slightly wet and purple copies, which were stapled. I brought the issues to school, and offered them for sale in a unit of my class that was devoted to helping us understand economics. We reserved two hours at the end of the day each Friday to buy and sell to our classmates.
A guy named Sunil Chitra sold erasers with staples pushed in that could be used in our games of racecar before school. Sam Fowler made some sort of kettle popcorn. They met their goals. I know I bought from both of them. My foray into magazine publishing ended with two magazines sold. By the standards of how success could be measured in that situation, it was clearly a failure.
Creating content today can be a pure passion (like fanzines about NASL soccer) for fun, or it can be used to drive business aims, in which case it must be measured for its effectiveness. Content today is just as critical to the growth of a business as capital or access to credit. But content has to move the needle, and we need marks to tell how far the needle has moved.
At Hammock, we create custom content strategy based on our client’s goals and we benchmark and measure those things that we can influence and which drive the business goals. We then create and source the best content for the job. But that’s not enough. We set the marks with our clients, and track the movement of the needle every month, using custom reports to show how it’s working, and when necessary, make a course adjustment.
It’s still great fun to be in a business of creating content. But you can’t buy popcorn or little eraser cars unless you can create content that works.
When crafting your content marketing strategy, it’s imperative that you know what your customers want (and simplifying it to “my product” isn’t good enough). To better understand what your customers are searching for in an experience and a product, DesignDamage suggests researching your customers “natural behaviors,” and asking several questions, including: