The Content Strategist

How Top Brands Create Content that Works [VIDEO]

Daniel Ellis-Ferris — Fri, 17 May 2013 14:37:04 +0000

You know content is important. You know you want to create it. To use it. To drive engagement with it.

But, how do you choose which content to create, and then how do you know if you are doing the right things with it?

Agencies fret over this question, publishers ask it every day, and it is integral to the brands themselves. It is the leaping off point for any successful campaign.

Panel 1v4 from Contently on Vimeo.

To find some answers, Contently brought together brand representatives and digital executives from leading brands last month at Contently’s Social Content Summit. This is the first in a series of video excerpts from the summit that The Content Strategist will be posting in the coming weeks.

Three expert panelists in this video were quick to answer, each with their own take. Take a peek inside for opinions from OPEN Forum’s Scott Roen, The Adrenalist’s Lauren Passero and Ebay’s Jeannie Reath.

The Content Strategist is a daily magazine for forward-thinking publishers and content marketers, sponsored and created by Contently

UX Wins at Pitchfork, Tight Marketing Budgets, End Writer’s Block

Ritika Puri — Fri, 17 May 2013 12:57:45 +0000

The Strategist picks the day’s most interesting stories for the content aficionados who love the backstory and reading between the lines. Here are the gems you need to kickstart your Friday:

Pitchfork Opts Out of the Pageview Rat Trace (Digiday)
User experience and revenue are two equal forces that are sometimes at odds.

Is it your profits that tell you whether you’re cultivating a great multimedia experience? Here’s one brand that’s putting its foot down in favor of its readers.

How We Grew Crazy Egg to 100,000 Users with a $10,000 Marketing Budget (Neil Patel)
When you’re just starting up, you need to make the most out of a shoestring budget. The key to growing your business on a small budget?

Press, SEO, business partnerships, and conference presentations. The key to growth is distribution through content, people, and technology. Here is Crazy Egg’s amazing story.

3 Ways to Come Up with Popular Blog Topics (TOFU Marketing)
Blogging is your most powerful customer acquisition tool. If you’re not writing as often as you can, you may be missing out on a powerful networking opportunity.

There’s a powerful force, however, that holds even the smartest business leaders back — writer’s block. Here’s TOFU Marketing’s guide to brainstorming better blog topics.

What You Need to Know About Marketing Automation (Search Engine Watch)
In the audience engagement world, email marketing is a powerful tool — but are you leveraging this resource as much as you can?

Marketing automation is key for reaching your segmenting demographic groups, targeting the right users, and sending emails at just the right time. Be data-driven and as efficient as you possibly can. Automation is key.

The Content Strategist is a daily magazine for forward-thinking publishers and content marketers, sponsored and created by Contently

Confessions of a Newsletter Writer

Ella Riley-Adams — Thu, 16 May 2013 16:59:53 +0000

This post is part of the Content Q&A Series, featuring interviews with top content strategists and bloggers about their work and insights about the industry.

While working in PR for Vitro, a bi-coastal creative agency, Matt Van Hoven authored a daily email newsletter known as the Nerdletter. From January 2012 to April 2013, Van Hoven combed through countless cat photos, news articles, and media buzz to compile the daily digest.

With subscribers from firms such as Fast Company, Rackspace, and Mediabistro, Van Hoven’s Nerdletter tapped into the marketing, tech, and media scenes. Aesthetically, the Nerdletter reflected a simplified version of Vitro’s usual “sexy” look, with white text on a black background, and no images.

A bold white “VITRO” headed the email, with a quippy Van Hoven-penned greeting — “What are you passionate about? Have you done that lately?” — below. Then a weather report from Vitro’s homes — New York and San Diego — and finally the list of links. Each newsletter contained roughly 10 items ranging from the redesign of the hallowed red cup to an app that will tweet for you after you’re dead.

“We decided to do this really raw, almost Web 1.0-style, html thing.”

Vitro began the Nerdletter with a core list of 50 emails, and by the time Van Hoven left, the Nerdletter reached 550. “People are extremely reluctant to subscribe to anything that comes into their email,” Van Hoven said. “That was the one piece of feedback I consistently got from people, like ‘Yours is the only one I read,’”

Those who did make the commitment found a valuable resource.

“The best feedback I got was from Fast Company,” Van Hoven said. “There were five reporters and editors from Fast Company that read it, and half the development team at Rackspace. What I would find is that groups of people that knew and talked to each other, they were like, ‘Oh, did you see…?’ They would start turning to the newsletter more than their own feeds of stuff, to find those important stories of the day.”

“The Nerdletter was perfect both in content and tone,” James Adams, CEO of BeeAudio, said. “So often newsletters take themselves far too seriously and are boring. The Nerdletter had the right balance of information and fun. Every day I found something new I wanted to learn about and every day I had a laugh.”

This spring, Van Hoven moved to Vayner Media and the newsletter is on hiatus. Looking back on more than a year of sending daily emails, he developed his own list of best practices in aggregation and distribution.

Be a Part of People’s Lives

Vitro started the Nerdletter as a way to maximize its PR and “be a part of people’s lives in a valuable way,” Van Hoven said. They knew any regular contribution they made had to be smart, useful, and different from other agencies’ efforts.

Van Hoven said he’d never been particularly drawn to any other agency’s newsletter, likely because they were too polished. To fit into a subscriber’s life on a daily basis, Vitro wanted to flow into the daily stream of water cooler conversation, both in terms of voice and design.

“We decided to do this really raw, almost Web 1.0-style, html thing,” Van Hoven said of the design.

In his approach to copy, Van Hoven wanted to be as efficient as his readers. While many web publications use titles as enticing invitations for a larger story, the Nerdletter was less concerned with click rates.

“In a case where I could sum up a story in the headline, I would, because I don’t want you to have to click,” Van Hoven said. “I want you to get the main thing out of this so you can go about your day. Speed is kind of key.”

Rather than pushing a larger agenda, Van Hoven aimed to maximize the value of the Nerdletter without asking his readers to do anything.

Measure and Adjust

Van Hoven measured all clicks using bit.ly, briefly launching a podcast to discuss the top links of the week.

“What I learned from this is that there’s a hierarchy of things people will click on,” he said. At the top of the chart, unsurprisingly, were cute animals and similarly light content. Videos were close behind, followed by whatever was relevant to a subscriber’s profession. Van Hoven adjusted the Nerdletter accordingly:

“At the top was the biggest, most showstopping news of the day, stuff that people have to know. From there, it was all the media and tech, like stuff that people should know, but they wouldn’t necessarily all be interested in,” he said.

“And at the bottom was all the light, fluffy, awesome stuff. I’d force them to sort of like go to the bottom of the page to get what they wanted. There was some sneakiness to it. What I found was that when we did that, overall everything else got better traffic. All of the click rates went up when we put the fun stuff at the bottom of the page.”

Appreciate the Smaller Circles

The Nerdletter grew glacially, something Van Hoven partially attributes to the “best-kept secret” effect. The list of links kept fast-moving people tapped into their industry and the world in general, and if they shared their source they might no longer be the most informed men and women in the room.

“It’s like, ‘I don’t want to tell anyone about this, because then they’ll [have it],’” he said.

But best-kept secrets have a way of getting out, and a newsletter without grand intentions is perhaps even more likely to end up in inboxes around the world. The Nerdletter may not have lasted long enough to gain much notoriety, but it reached influencers and, Van Hoven hopes, left a legacy to build on.

The Content Strategist is a daily magazine for forward-thinking publishers and content marketers, sponsored and created by Contently

Wrecked Brands, Better Brands, Demographic Misses

Ritika Puri — Thu, 16 May 2013 13:00:55 +0000

The Strategist picks the day’s most interesting stories for the content aficionados who love the backstory and reading between the lines. Here are the gems you need to kickstart your Thursday:

How a CEO Can Wreck a Brand in One Interview (Forbes)
You’ve probably already noticed, but Abercombie & Fitch has been at the center of a major media fail.

An offensive Salon Magazine interview from 2006 has resurfaced in the form of a full-blown-frenzy. The statement in question? Something about A&F being a selective club for ‘cool’ and ‘skinny’ kids. Sometimes, it’s valuable for brands to speak their minds. Sometimes, it’s best to keep quiet. Here’s one of those situations with words that should have never been thought or said.

8 Tech Execs Whose Trash-Talking Blew Up in Their Faces (Business Insider)
Hate your rivals? If so, you’re better off keeping your anger to yourself.

Business is a sport, and if you’re rowdy? Well, people will judge you. No excuses. Here are the reasons you need to always hold your head high.

What to Do if You Hate Your Brand (Entrepreneur)
It’s more common than you think. Even with loyal customers, an awesome team, and profits, something just doesn’t feel right.

Just listen to your gut and do what you need to do to make the changes you need. This article will walk you through the process of a seamless transition. No reason for bumpy roads.

Nearly Half of Second-Gen Hispanics Feel Like Ads Don’t Target Them (AdWeek)
This article’s headline just screams ‘opportunity.’

Here’s a powerful demographic segment that’s feeling disconnected to brand messaging. Here’s why your brand should step up to build that valuable rapport.

The Content Strategist is a daily magazine for forward-thinking publishers and content marketers, sponsored and created by Contently

The Good and the Bad of How Digital Media Affects Children [INFOGRAPHIC]

Ritika Puri — Wed, 15 May 2013 09:54:43 +0000

Remember when you were a kid — before Facebook, Twitter, high speed Internet, smartphones, and online video? Times are different now and digital media is cultivating a new generation of kids.

You’ve seen it — the 2-years-olds who are master photographers with their parents’ smartphone cameras and the 6-year-olds who can already type faster than most developers.

Kids these days have bedrooms jam-backed with TVs, video game consoles, and computers — they’re spending less time outside exercising and more time hanging out on the couch playing Call of Duty. But is multimedia all bad?

The following infographic from Now Sourcing explores two important sides of this question. Is media bad or good for kids? Well, yes and no.

Is Media Making Kids Stagnate?

For good reason, 73% of parents like to limit their kids’ TV time, and 66% talk to their kids about the dangers of social media sites. Surprisingly, only a small proportion of respondents actively monitor their kids’ social presences and privacy settings — despite concerns.

Then there’s the perspective that media harms intelligence — 42% of Americans agree that in 2020, young technology users will have major cognitive problems including an inability to focus, lack of long-term foresight, and limited critical thinking ability.

Ouch.

Is Media Making Kids Smarter?

In the classrooms, teachers perceive media and technology as invaluable teaching tools. Only a small proportion of respondents — 26% — feel that incorporating tablets in the classroom would be a distraction to learning. The rest? Well, they think tablets are just what the classroom needs.

Where teachers agree with parents is in the areas of attention span — without checks and balances, online media can really hurt a kid’s ability to focus.

As with all great things in life (junk food, play dates, and study-time), what kids need most is balance. Too much, too little — there is a fine line. To say that digital media’s kids are going to grow into lackluster adults, however? That may be a stretch.

Hats off to today’s brilliant, media-savvy kids who will inevitable pioneer tomorrow’s technology.

How is Media Affecting Kids? infographic by NowSourcing.

Top image courtesy of Tom Wang/shutterstock

The Content Strategist is a daily magazine for forward-thinking publishers and content marketers, sponsored and created by Contently

Facebook Don’ts, Social’s Analytical Edge, Geospatial Meets Digital

Ritika Puri — Wed, 15 May 2013 09:33:04 +0000

The Strategist picks the day’s most interesting stories for the content aficionados who love the backstory and reading between the lines. Here are the gems you need to kickstart your Wednesday:

Dislike: How Not to Treat Your Customers on Facebook (Inc)
Social media positions customer service as the heart and soul of your organization. Don’t muck it up.

The Internet is literally all-knowing, and if you’re slacking off, the community at large will know, and guess what? You’ll lose business. Here are key mistakes from one company’s blunders.

Let’s Talk about that 500 Startups Video (TechCrunch)
CEOs, marketers, and money-makers: listen up. If you mean business, you need to unwind. Be human, be hilarious, and don’t be afraid to put yourself ‘out there.’

The public at large will love you for it, as this 500 Startups video showcases. Remember that behind great brand strategies are exceptionally awesome people.

Twitter Buys Another Analytical Startup (The Verge)
Online, conversations happen fast. That’s why Luckysort developed a product called TopicWatch, a text-mining application that pinpoints patterns in volumes of text data.

Twitter thinks that this technology is exactly what they need to help advertisers target users in real-time. Here’s one way that data overload is actually an information gold mine.

“Remember to Buy Milk”: Sends Texts Triggered by Location with LocoText (Tech Cocktail)
The digital and physical worlds are blurring. The culprit? Mobile.

Connections are infite and data is boundless. Here’s a geo-communications app that is mashing together two beautiful art forms: SMS and GPS for a new way to send messages.

Image courtesy of sofiabudapest/flickr

The Content Strategist is a daily magazine for forward-thinking publishers and content marketers, sponsored and created by Contently

Tech Disrupt: What to Expect from Internet Week New York

Ella Riley-Adams — Tue, 14 May 2013 10:46:39 +0000

New York represents the ultimate convergence of cultures, ideals, and industries. On the Internet, the city’s collective fire is all the more evident.

The #MadeinNY list steadily grows, and companies are hiring. Internet Week New York aims to celebrate progress, examine problems, and present new possibilities when innovative technology meets established industry in this city.

The event, May 20-27, will host speakers, such as Jonah Peritti’s keynote address on Buzzfeed’s “humble beginnings,” panels, such as Vice on “Conflict Journalism in the Social Media Age,” activities, and parties for over 45,000 attendees.

Festival Director Caroline Waxler gives us a preview of the event from HQ:

How did you decide the themes of this year’s Internet Week New York?

So some of the things we’re thinking about is what’s bubbling up in the bigger conversations, and also what’s important to New York. So some of the bigger themes that we’re tackling are education – and we know as we work closely with the mayor’s office that that is something they’re really concentrating on, crossing the digital divide, as it were.

So that is one aspect, and we’re also huge on making sure everyone gets online. So whether it’s small business owners who run a dry cleaner in Queens, or somebody who’s thinking of starting their own business, just how to become more fluent in technology.

What aspect of this year’s Internet Week are you most excited about?

IWNY director Caroline Waxler

I’m most excited about getting different types of content into the headquarters. Prior, it’s been advertising, media, and marketing, which is awesome and I come from that world.

But New York is a bigger place than that, and I feel like there are so many conferences serving that segment. And different niches have different conferences, but how about a place in New York where everyone can come together?

We’re going to have talks focusing on healthcare, some on sports, some on food, some on fashion, all industries very important to New York. But people can learn together. A lot of the same lessons adapt.

And everyone coming together with the purpose of being online, and focused on technology.

Exactly, and everything that’s getting disrupted. So the person who’s coming as a doctor to learn about what’s going on in healthcare may also go to the food panel and find out some things on health that they didn’t know before.

Why do you think New York is such a center for technological growth right now?

I think we’re in a phase where brands are focusing a lot on content, and marketing and distribution, and that’s what New York does so well.

As startups are focusing and interfacing with these different industries, then that’s why New York is really charging ahead.

What startup are you most excited about this year?

I love Makerbot, and Bre Pettis is speaking at Internet Week, so that’s great. He’s actually speaking about an education initiative; he’s involved with Mouse, and he’s being honored this year. He’s going to talk a little bit about Makerbot, but also about how he gives back, and that’s really important to me.

Do you have any advice for making the most of all the options Internet Week has to offer?

If you can work on getting time off from being in the office and [instead] coming there and holding your meetings during Internet Week, it’s a great place to meet people.

I would just go there and kind of camp out. Bring your laptop and do your work from there, and then pick and choose the different panels that are of interest. There’s going to be a few things per day that are of interest to everybody.

Even if you’re not a fashion and beauty person, you’re going to want to hear Neil [Blumenthal] from Warby Parker speak at the end of the day. It’s a great place, it’s in Chelsea, it’s central, and there’s going to be something for everyone every single day.

I think our opening party is going to be really fun. Lots of DJs, lots of things happening. That’s a great way to kick off the week.

The Content Strategist is a daily magazine for forward-thinking publishers and content marketers, sponsored and created by Contently

Cruddy Mission Statements, Authentic Leadership, Ads that Actually Work

Ritika Puri — Tue, 14 May 2013 10:10:19 +0000

The Strategist picks the day’s most interesting stories for the content aficionados who love the backstory and reading between the lines. Here are the gems you need to kickstart your Tuesday:

Compared to This, Your Mission Statement Sucks (Inc)
Worried that your mission statement is missing the mark? You’re probably right in thinking you’re veering off-course.

Mission statements are hand-crafted with the best of intentions, but most of the time, they fall flat. Here’s some inspiration from one that totally rocks.

What Is Authentic Leadership (Forbes)
Content marketing helps position your brand as a thought leader. A core component to your strategy? Authenticity.

So what exactly is authentic leadership? It’s about being true to your team, vulnerabilities, ideals, and actions. Authentic leadership is what gives your brand boundless influence. Don’t abuse it. Here’s how to get it right.

Is Native Advertising Just Another Term for ‘Good Advertising?’ (Mashable)

Mashable’s Todd Wasserman may be on to something here.

Historically, advertising and user experience have been perpetually at odds. Digital media is truly switching things up to help marketers realize that brands and audiences can harmoniously co-exist. And truly respect one another.

7 Company Blogs that Build Community (Crazy Egg)
For your reading pleasure, Grasshopper Group’s Emma Siemasko rounds up some of the best company blogs online.

She points out that a good blog is more than just an SEO tool or ‘nice to have’ for users. It’s a community-builder, resource for users, and invaluable platform for sparking partnerships. If you’re not seeing results from your blog, you need to put more muscle behind it. Here are 7 brands that are getting it right.

The Content Strategist is a daily magazine for forward-thinking publishers and content marketers, sponsored and created by Contently

How a Nonprofit Empowers with Content

Anna Sternoff — Mon, 13 May 2013 13:25:11 +0000

There are two fundamental questions every nonprofit grapples with: How to make people care? And, how to turn caring into action?

For upstart organization Empower Generation, where I serve as the co-communications director, the answer needs to be as dynamic as the approach we take to our work on the ground. Which is why we’ve bypassed traditional fundraising for a content-based approach.

Fundamental to our work is the idea that people take ownership of issues when there is a financial investment. In our programming this translates into fueling the renewable energy economy by investing in women-led solar businesses in Nepal. The businesses are run and operated by entrepreneurs who serve people currently living in energy poverty (a staggering 60% of Nepali people lack access to reliable electricity, a fact that inhibits earning and scholastic potential).

We’re creating a loop of giving a damn, with discrete, actionable steps.

Our work is modeled as a revolving loan where entrepreneurs start solar energy businesses — solar replaces dirty, unsafe and unreliable kerosene lamps — and are ultimately responsible for repaying the loan so that we can later invest in another woman. In other words, by putting money on the line, we encourage entrepreneurs to have a stake in not only their own futures, but in other women, in ending energy poverty in Nepal, and in the grand scheme, in the expansion of the renewable energy economy.

We’re creating a loop of giving a damn, with discrete, actionable steps for women in Nepal to make a material impact on a whole host of ills.

It’s my job to sort out how EG accomplishes the same loop with our fundraising base. That’s where content comes in.

We are not an organization that’s looking for “give and go” donations. While we understand the value “individual donor” strategies where organization court a few high dollar funders, EG is equally focused on reaching a more democratic group. This is because we believe that tackling big problems — the trafficking of women into slavery, about the millions of people who die from respiratory infections caused by kerosene smoke inhalation — requires people to be personally invested.

And how to do you promote personal investment? Well, things like the 2012 election point to donations. The Obama campaign raised small amounts from lots of people, the Romney campaign large amounts from just a few. Who turned out at the ballot box? Taking a note from Obama, you can see why we’re focused on getting whole bunch of smaller financial commitments from a larger number of people — we want to increase ownership of the problems we’re tackling.

Historically getting lots of donors has meant dumping tons of dollars into traditional communications models — advertising, PR campaigns, and the like. It’s also meant adopting singular umbrella messages that you blast out to demographically targeted groups. That’s not an approach that was available to EG; it’s not only beyond our budgetary realities to run a costly media campaign, it’s also too limited in terms of the many groups we need to talk to.

We believe that tackling big problems requires people to be personally invested.

We’re looking to impact change among diverse groups, from those interested in developing world gender politics to small-scale renewable energy buffs. Can you imagine creating an umbrella message that hits all of those? It would end up watered down sludge that said nothing compelling.

So what does EG’s board — a group of ambitious under 35s who’ve decided to take on the traditional model of forging change for women in the developing world, not to mention combat climate change one solar lamp at a time — do? Well, obviously they come up with a communications plan that addresses the most unique opportunities available in today’s information-sharing world.

In EG’s case that means content-based storytelling that spreads organically through our target audiences’ peer groups. In researching getting our message out there, we took a note from other orgs who’ve done content marketing, pulling from the best practices out there. What we’ve landed on is things like our most recent “Give One, Get One” campaign that takes place entirely on Facebook, and is reliant on the organic spread of statistics that tell part of the EG story.

Each stat uses a piece of information already in our back pocket, packaged in a way to appeal to a micro-audience: a stat about the power of small-scale investments speaks to finance types, while another on the risks of kerosene appeals to those sympathetic to challenges facing the world’s poor. By putting an audience-specific lens on our communications, we overcome what we at EG call “over there” syndrome — the tendency to look at the Third World as being irrelevant to our Western lives.

Using content — in this case the combination of pressing statistics and poignant imagery — we’ve made a reality about life in Nepal and the potential that donating to EG can have on Nepali people a very real, relatable thing.

It’s just the beginning for us and content.

Sternoff leads the Creative Strategy team at Captains of Industry, a boutique content marketing studio in Boston where she mashes up consumer insights with brand perspectives. She sits on the Board of Directors for the NGO Empower Generation. She’s a mean letterpress printer, sometimes designer and always Golden Girls fan.

The Content Strategist is a daily magazine for forward-thinking publishers and content marketers, sponsored and created by Contently

The Onion Counters Hack, Twitter’s Media Power, 9 Predictions

Ritika Puri — Mon, 13 May 2013 10:05:10 +0000

The Strategist picks the day’s most interesting stories for the content aficionados who love the backstory and reading between the lines. Here are the gems you need to kickstart your Monday:

Why the Onion Is Awesome for Publishing Details of Its Twitter Hack (AllThingsD)
By now, you’ve probably heard that the Onion’s Twitter account was hijacked by a Syrian hacker group last week. What did they do about it? Leverage the attack as a public service opportunity.

In a detailed post, the website’s tech team released a thorough report on how the attack happened. In a world where most companies keep their vulnerabilities quiet, the Onion owned it in a way that helps the public at large. That’s awesome.

News Flash: Twitter doesn’t Have to Hire Journalists to Be a Powerful Media Competitor (PaidContent)
There’s no question that Twitter is a powerful media entity. The key value proposition? Communication and distribution — not journalism.

So what happens when Twitter posts a req for ‘head of news?’ Twitter says it’s not a media operation but has become a powerful counterpart in journalism. The argument of this article is that Twitter is a media partner but also a competitor.

What Happens Next in Media? 9 Predictions (AdAge)
Key highlights: Larry Page will rethink privacy settings, conspiracy theorists will launch countless websites and forums to try to fixate on Obama’s HuffPo use, and the next generation of Groupon will make its debut for “frictionless” shopping.

Email and Social Media: Why Marketers Need Both (Social Media Examiner)
If you’re not coupling your social media and email marketing efforts, you may be missing out on customer acquisition.

It all comes down to retention. The key claim is that it’s easier to convert users via email than social. You need to move your most active social users to email. Here’s how.

The Content Strategist is a daily magazine for forward-thinking publishers and content marketers, sponsored and created by Contently