Their posts can reach millions of followers to boost the top celebrities on social media into the realm of celebrity influencers.

Before social, celebrities were restricted to talk shows or interviews to attract attention outside of their careers, but now their social media content carries serious weight. And their personal audience can make a celebrity far more valuable.

For example, once upon a time a film had to grow interest through a trailer. Now, actors can gain instant interest in their latest film trailer directly from their fans on social media platform.

And aside from promoting their day job, celebrities have become creative in developing their side hustles and launching their own brands, turning their engagement into meaningful brand awareness and sales of their own products.

In this article, we’ll be taking a closer look at a handful of celebrities and their brands to see how they’re leveraging social media.

The power of celebrity influencers

Celebrity influencers can be a fantastic asset for bigger marketing campaigns with the budget for them, providing high levels of brand awareness in a short period of time due to their audience size.

The cost of a single post from a celebrity influencer can be incredibly high, depending on the size of the audience they have. For example, Cristiano Ronaldo earns an average of $3.2 million per instagram post.

However, it is worth noting that other influencer types can be more effective depending on what a business is trying to achieve, e.g. micro-influencers can be more cost-effective and better appeal to niche target audiences.

Social media makes celebrities and audiences feel closer

The direct-to-user content that social media offers provides a more personal touch than the professional side of celebrities. Some choose to peel back the curtain and show their home lives, while others showcase their niche hobbies which people might not expect.

While celebrity influencers are still performing a persona, as most of us are on social media, the extra degree of intimacy social media affords means we see celebrities on social media as more authentic.

Video content is sometimes more raw and authentic. Their latest updates can ping notifications to followers within an instant. Comments can create closer connections and feel like those interactions are more meaningful.

This way, celebrities are able to form even closer networks with their fans with their personal pages almost becoming hubs for followers to come together through – although this can evolve into potentially problematic parasocial relationships.

Celebrities are creating their own products to promote

Sponsorships and endorsements are nothing new to the world of celebrities. Neither are celebrity-owned businesses, but the rise of social media and e-commerce platforms has allowed more celebrities to find an audience for their own brands.

From celebrity alcohol brands touting a higher-quality production process, to celebrity make-up brands leveraging an artist’s aesthetic as an achievable result, almost every category has now seen celebrity influencers enter the ring.

More than a third of modern celebrity brands have been launched in 2020 or later, with this wave all benefitting from the popularity of Instagram, TikTok and YouTube, as well as the increased time spent on them.

Rather than promoting a product they’re not invested in, or simply doing for a lucrative deal, celebrities are able to fully endorse their own brands in a way that feels authentic. These brands also typically align with a celebrity’s personal brand too, showcasing something they’re passionate about – which is likely why they’ve chosen to launch a brand in that category.

Now, some of the top brands on social media are celebrity owned, providing great examples of how you can promote products and create greater brand awareness online.

The best celebrity brands on social media

Harry Styles & Pleasing

• Launched: November 2021
• Category: Celebrity beauty and apparel brand

The ex-One Direction star has a flourishing solo career now with an incredibly loyal fanbase. Harry Styles’ aesthetic is one of his big appeals, subverting expectations around heteronormative gender with a more fluid approach to fashion and self-presentation.

This has resonated with younger demographics who have been seen to view gender as less of a binary and more of a spectrum.

As an extension of this attitude, Styles founded the business Pleasing – a gender-neutral beauty and apparel brand. Everything from nail polish to fragrances is aimed at the individual, rather than conforming to the traditional categorisation of products. If you like it, then you can buy it without feeling it ‘isn’t meant for you’.

You can find Pleasing products appearing on Harry Styles’ personal page with 47.9 million followers. These are typically shown through glossy video production which matches his trademark aesthetic, giving his followers a chance to acquire a piece of his personal branding to make their own.

Although Pleasing has been quieter recently, the announcement of their new fragrance line brought online mentions up by over 4,000%, showing it has a strong following across the different social channels.

Logan Paul/KSI & PRIME Hydration

• Launched: January 2022
• Category: Celebrity drinks brand

After several boxing bouts that ignited discussions online, Logan Paul and KSI (real name Olajide William Olatunji) decided to co-launch their own sports drinks brand – PRIME. This harnessed the power of their combined fanbases behind one product, targeted at their younger followers through the pair’s strength as influencers and their network (such as SIDEMEN).

The product regularly sees both Paul and KSI taking to X and other platforms to announce new flavours and variations, drumming up a flurry of engagement and anticipation for the launch date.

When PRIME first launched in the UK with ASDA, shoppers flocked to the store to grab some of the limited stocks of the drink. The two social media stars have employed scarcity marketing as a key strategy, limiting supply to generate demand – so when it becomes available again, their audience is primed and ready to purchase.

Social media clips starring KSI or Paul will usually show a PRIME bottle somewhere within the video, carefully positioned to still feel authentic while being completely unmissable in the frame. This type of product placement can work as the product becomes a luxury lifestyle item, something that the two use in their own lives which their audience can access too.

Additionally, with Logan Paul signing with WWE as a wrestler back in June 2022, PRIME is also featured in product placement and sponsorships within WWE content to boost its brand awareness further.

Jessica Alba & The Honest Company

• Launched: 2012
• Category: Celebrity nursery and beauty brandWhile Jessica Alba starred in many blockbuster movies in the late 2000s and early 2010s, she took a step back from the spotlight to focus on becoming a mum to her daughter.

Inspired by the birth of her firstborn and her own experiences of chronic asthma and allergies as a child, she founded The Honest Company in 2012 after struggling to find safe, natural baby products. The brand started by creating a small range of products that don’t use petrochemicals and synthetic fragrances in their formula.

Honest has since diversified its product offering to also include make-up, skincare and cleaning products that commit to their wider mission and Honest Standard – offering sustainable, well-designed eco-friendly products that work.

As of April 2022, Alba now owns a minority stake in The Honest Company but is employed as their Chief Creative Officer and remains invested in the business. While The Honest Co. has encountered a number of obstacles, Alba continues to promote Honest products via social media.

You can often see these products tastefully featured in Alba’s TikTok content and Instagram Reels that follow the ‘get ready with me’ trend. Seeing that the star uses the products herself reinforces the authenticity behind the business’ mission, showing the results without feeling like direct sales content. She also keep the brand’s social media handles in her bio, tying her profile to the brand and keeping it immediately visible upon visiting her personal page.

Ryan Reynolds & Maximum Effort

• Launched: 2018
• Category: Celebrity production company

With an acting career spanning 30 years, from child actor to rom-com heartthrob through to action movie star, Ryan Reynolds is now also the poster boy for turning an acting career into a mogul empire.

Although we’ve tied him to Maximum Effort, his own production company and marketing agency, Reynolds has embarked on many successful business ventures – all of which have leveraged his personality on social media. These include, but aren’t limited to:

• Aviation Gin – A stake was acquired in February 2018, with part of the business sold to Diageo in August 2020. Reynolds maintains an ongoing ownership interest in the business.
• Mint Mobile – A stake was acquired in November 2019, then sold to T-Mobile in March 2023 but Reynolds remains a spokesperson in a creative role.
• Wrexham AFC – The club was purchased in partnership with Rob McElhenney in November 2020.
• Deadpool – While not brand, the film franchise has been heavily marketed using Reynolds as he has become synonymous with the comic book character.

These three brands have all featured heavily on Reynold’s social media feed, while also appearing within content produced for brand as well. While these are typically high-production quality videos, rather than off-the-cuff recordings, they all showcase Ryan Reynold’s trademark wit as their main selling point all directed straight down the lens.

The exception to this is in the case of Wrexham, where Reynolds and McElhenney’s celebrity status has been leveraged rather than their social media following. While they have produced videos for social media and viral moments of them attending games have generated interest, in addition to the Disney+ documentary, Wrexham’s identity remains separate from the two celebrities.

Ryan Reynolds has elevated each of these brands via his own personal branding and public perception. Because they all feel aligned with Reynolds, the promotion of each business feels like an extension of him – and therefore more authentic despite being more direct than other celebrity brand owners.

Rihanna & Fenty Beauty

• Launched: September 2017
• Category: Celebrity beauty brand

The second-best-selling female artist of all time Rihanna – full name Robyn Rihanna Fenty – started her musical career in the early 2000s and has released numerous acclaimed albums since.

Throughout her career, she has also taken on several business ventures – with her main personal project being Fenty, covering several categories:

• Fenty Beauty – A cosmetic brand launched under LVMH’s Kendo Brands, launched September 2017
• Savage X Fenty – A lingerie brand launched May 2018
• Fenty – A fashion brand developed under LVMH, launched May 2019 and closed in 2021
• Fenty Skin – A skincare brand launched July 2020

The message behind each of these ventures has been one of inclusion. Rihanna’s brands have approached these categories in a way that includes all women, such as Fenty Beauty releasing shades for all skin tones. This has now been dubbed the “Fenty Effect” as major brands have followed suit.

During this period, Rihanna hasn’t released any new music but has continued to create promotional material for her brands, as well as being active on social media.

Rihanna actively chose to use her surname ‘Fenty’ for the branding to keep her business and music careers separate, yet the two still come together within the social content she creates. The image she’s curated during the last two decades acts as a canvas for her products to shine, interspersing behind-the-scenes content and the more personal content with her using Fenty products.

Interestingly, swapping over the Fenty Beauty socials shows a mix of both Rihanna and other users making use of the products. This positions Rihanna as a strong proponent of her own brand, but she also brings in user-generated content as testimonials – adding further authenticity to further the brand’s positive perception around inclusive beauty.

Hila and Ethan Klien & Teddy Fresh

• Launched: October 2017
• Category: Celebrity streetwear brand

While successfully piloting their YouTube channel h3h3 Productions and transitioning into the world of podcasting, Ethan and Hila Klein launched their own apparel line named Teddy Fresh.

Although h3h3 Productions is now defunct, having shifted focus onto The H3 Podcast instead, both have been used to promote the streetwear brand. Inspired by 90s fashion with more colourful, playful designs, Teddy Fresh clothing has become popular among the Kleins’ fanbase.

The shift from a focus on content to a more diverse business portfolio came about when YouTube changed its approach to video monetisation through advertising.

By creating a brand that both creators were invested in, the two were able to organically promote the brand on the podcast. Both Hila and Ethan can also frequently be seen wearing the apparel within their own social posts. This symbiotic relationship between their content and brand serves as a way for fans to support the podcast.

In an interview with Hila Klein, Teddy Fresh’s CEO and Principle Designer, she mentioned how their fanbase gave them the opportunity to make this venture possible. As they grew their audience organically, the authentic connection with them meant that support for Teddy Fresh came naturally.

Its popularity has also allowed them to take on interesting collaborative projects, such as Spongebob Squarepants, Care Bears, Elton John and Godzilla.

Selena Gomez & Rare Beauty

• Launched: September 2020
• Category: Celebrity beauty brand

Having made successful careers as both an actress and musical artist, Selena Gomez has also had a number of business ventures that have excelled. The ex-Disney star has an incredibly high profile online and has claimed the title of the most followed woman on Instagram with 429 million followers.

Gomez launched Rare Beauty after being inspired by her third album, Rare, with the intention of dismantling unrealistic beauty standards. With so many beauty brands appearing flawless, Gomez wanted to change this narrative with her company through a more inclusive approach with shades that suit all ethnicities.

Now one of the fastest-growing celebrity beauty brands out there on social media, Selena Gomez can be seen highlighting Rare products as part of her regular social media content.

Whether it’s attending launch parties or simply using the products as part of her routine, the Rare brand is incorporated into authentic-feeling posts rather than disrupting her feeds with specific sales content.

Things may change if she decides to sell the brand in the future, but she has stated she will remain committed to the company – which will likely involve continued posting on her personal social channels.

The brand also acts as an extension of Gomez’s own philanthropic mission, as Rare Beauty supports a number of mental health initiatives. This is done through Rare Impact – a social impact program aimed at reducing stigma around mental health issues, which also ties into Gomez’s social content.

Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson & Teramana Tequila

• Launched: 2020
• Category: Celebrity drinks brand

The Rock has been well-known in the social media sphere for quite some time, having come up through WWE (WWF at the time) and made a name for himself within the acting world.

His athletic prowess has netted him a number of sponsorships and collaborations over the years, including Under Armour and their Project 1 Sneaker which sold out in 30 minutes. But in 2020, he launched his first personal brand – Teremana Tequila.

This venture into small batch tequila had founder Johnson taking to social media to promote the product’s launch and features heavily in the promotional material for the brand, without detracting from its own identity.

In the years since, The Rock has followed this with the launch of another drinks brand in ZOA Energy. With the strapline ‘Big Dwayne Energy’, The Rock is interwoven with the product’s proposition and has become an integral part of the marketing.

More recently, he’s also moved into celebrity skincare with Papatui which launched March 2024. Like the other products mentioned, The Rock is shown on his socials to be enjoying the personal use of Papatui while also including customer testimonials – as seen more within the beauty social content space.

Things have also now come full-circle for Johnson too, as he has now also received an equity stake in TKO Holdings – now owner of WWE – and serves on their board of directors. The Rock’s return to WWE coincided with this and now appears frequently on his social media pages to promote the different bouts.

Emma Chamberlain & Chamberlain Coffee

• Launched: December 2019
• Category: Celebrity drinks brands

Having become the internet’s It Girl through her YouTube blogs, which started back in June 2016, Emma Chamberlain is now a household name among younger users of social media. Her authenticity shone through across social media, prompting a change in how users respond to influencers that we’re still seeing today.

Despite her age, she’s done a lot in her eight years in the spotlight, having gone from solely producing YouTube content into a more diverse offering – including producing her own podcast, Say Anything, and partnering with innovative brands.

Within this shift, Chamberlain launched her own mail-order coffee brand – Chamberlain Coffee – which carries her personality through into her products. She stars in the brand’s YouTube videos on how to make different drinks, with that same promotional material also being posted on her personal social channels. You can also spy Chamberlain Coffee products in her YouTube videos in a traditional product placement fashion.

While Chamberlain has stated that running a coffee business is something she has regretted before, she’s also shown an aptitude for it after acquiring $14 million in venture capital funding – with $7 million of that for a new ready-to-drink product line.

Mr Beast & Feastables

• Launched: January 2022
• Category: Celebrity food brands

Arguably the most well-known YouTube personality on the internet, Jimmy ‘Mr Beast’ Donaldson has shaped the content on the platform through his popular uploads over the last decade.

As his philanthropic giveaway videos and challenges grew in popularity, as did the advertising revenue associated with them. After doing a number of sponsorships for other businesses, he decided to create his own brand so he could promote his own product instead.

Feastables now brings in $500 million in annual revenue, accounting for 70% of his total revenue, in a completely separate stream to Donaldson’s YouTube content. The ambition behind this is that it will remove the need to promote other company’s products so that his content can be self-sufficient.

Feastables bars are typically incorporated into his Mr Beast videos in some way, such as providing contestants with one as a token prize even if they don’t manage to beat a challenge. This product placement forms a very small portion of each video, but is still key to how Donaldson brings it into his core content.

While YouTube is still Mr Beast’s most dominant platform, you’ll still see Feastables promoted across Instagram and X as well. Due to supply issues caused by the bar’s popularity, Donaldson will typically take to X to inform his audience that they’ve sold out. This further amplifies their market appeal, as more people want to try his take on a well-loved product.

These examples showcase just a few of the ways that celebrity influencers bring their brands into their content on social media as part of a marketing strategy. While some stick with tried and tested methods, such as clear branded posts cross-posted on personal and brand channels, others have tried to be more creative with how they’re shown.

Each one also serves as a great example of how authenticity is constructed within these promotions. Yes, it’s easier in some ways as they own these brands, but their methods still need to be flawless for the brands to not feel like some form of cash-grab.

The key to finding the authenticity sweet spot is consistency, with celebrity influencers making their own products part of their personal brand. This creates a more positive sentiment than a brand simply created as another revenue stream – instead, it’s something that a celebrity is genuinely proud to endorse. Their voices align, as do their values, to create a valuable extension of both brands.

This is something you can carry through into your own work with influencers. While celebrity influencers typically carry a rather large price tag, you can often get better results by working with influencers suited to the size and specific niche of your business. That way, your audience demographics can better align and you can find someone who truly matches the values and voice of your brand.

The post 10 Celebrities Using Social Media for Their Own Brands appeared first on ShellShock Ltd..

The brain is a muscle and the more you flex it, the better it becomes at idea generation. Therefore, the more you do concept work, the more you become used to having ideas. 

I’ve spent a lot of time studying and writing about creativity and idea generation, brainstorming, ideation and the hard truth is that there are no shortcuts to having ideas. 

What I have learned from many, many years in creative industries and simply doing the hard graft is that to get good ideas out, you have to put good ingredients in. 

The ability to create good ideas consistently involves much preparation and research on a constant basis:

• Watching what others are producing
• Reading a diverse range of topics
• Exposing yourself to culture
• Searching through random parts of the internet
• Getting offline and looking at things

I do focus on reading offline books as widely as I can, especially psychology, behaviour and creativity but also random subjects such as sleep, learning languages, biology, business, classical history and biographies. When we work online so much, getting offline has huge benefits in exercising the brain and keeping it agile.

Aside from all the cultural input, keeping up with trends and what others are producing is essential.

If you want to generate ideas, then the first stage is to sit down and spend some time searching for inspiration in order to feed your brain with some ingredients, that it can start to bake its own ideas with. The following are a list of sources that I use on a regular basis.

(If you’re specifically looking for data sets as a starting point for your inspiration then I have a full list of the best free data sources here).

The best sources of inspiration for content marketing ideation/idea generation

User-generated content

Reddit

The sentiment towards Reddit has varied over the years, especially within the marketing sphere. Because practically everything is user-generated on the site (except for when brands enter the ring), both posts and subreddits can be tinged with personal opinion and bias.

That said, provided you’re aware of this and choose your sources carefully, there are a number of data-based subreddits which can be incredibly helpful as springboards for your own ideas.

For content ideas the best subreddits are:

• Dataisbeautiful – A subreddit dedicated to interesting data visualisations which bring to stats and figures to life.
• Datasets – A collection of crowd-sourced datasets you can analyse yourself and harness for your next campaign idea
• MapPorn – Here you can find many maps which demonstrate survey data or statistics via geography, making the points more tangible.
• InternetIsBeautiful – A great place for finding useful websites and niche resources which aren’t necessarily common knowledge online.
• Todayilearned – Here people submit facts and tidbits that they’ve only just learned, sharing them with others so they can also educate themselves.

YouTube

Currently the most popular video-based social media site, YouTube has thrived off of user-generated video content since its release.

Many early users have gone on to create hugely successful channels that produce high-quality content, while some newcomers have innovated on the platform and raised the bar for content creators. Here are a selection of trusted, top-quality YouTube channels to get you started:

• TED-Ed – The well-known nonprofit conference’s youth and education video page, posting ‘lessons worth sharing’ with clear animations and voiceover to support the impactful content.
• Crash Course – John and Hank Green’s venture into high-quality educational content. Although it started with a focus on world history and biology, it is now divided into a wide range of categories so viewers can quickly grasp common topics.
• Big Think – The idea behind Big Think is to help people get smarter, faster. Leading the pack on expert-driven educational content, videos feature reputable and well-known figures exploring big ideas and core skills to help people thrive.
• Kurzgesagt – The team behind Kurzgesagt believe nothing is boring if you tell a good story. They’re trying to explain the universe and the complexity of our universe, one straight-forward video at a time.
• Vsauce – Led by educator Michael Stevens, the Vsauce channel discusses a range of scientific, psychological and philosophical topics while going on tangents to explore questions from different perspectives.

Media Outlets

Newspapers and news outlets are great sources of inspiration, covering current affairs and offering a breadth of content to review. You can find stories which incorporate stats, graphs and infographics too, which can be useful to see how dense information can be conveyed simply.

Listed below are a number of examples which offer prime journalistic content for you to review, as well as checking back in regularly to see what new content as been included.

If you have aspirations of landing placements or coverage from a top-tier media site, then searching each of these sources will give you an idea of the topics, and the level, which you should be aiming for.

Newspapers

• The Economist – British-based newspaper outlet with a focus on in-depth global analysis and opinion within the world of politics, finance, business and technology, supported by clear, visual data.
• Financial Times – Recognised worldwide for its integrity and authority, FT is a leading news organisation that offers fantastic examples of visual storytelling and journalism within its rigorously researched reporting.

News outlets

• Bloomberg – Well-respected global news organisation which aims to show the world in all its complexities as well as cover breaking stories in more depth than other organisations within the industry.
• Entrepreneur – American magazine and site which focuses on business and entrepreneurship. They keep abreast of the biggest trends in the business world while also offering detailed insights you can glean for content ideas.

Other

• TED Talks – The main website for TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) with a huge library of thought-provoking, insightful and interesting talks given by industry experts.

Data-led sites

If you’re solely looking for excellent examples of data visualisation, these sites offer curated collections of online charts and graphs with a wide range of sources.

David McCandless is considered one of the leading data visualisation producers, with his site Information is Beautiful providing a wealth of inspiration for those looking to make data more accessible and aesthetically interesting.

The awards event that he also runs (IIB Awards), is a fantastic source to see some of the best up-and-coming creative minds in data visualisation.

• Information is Beautiful – David McCandless’ website full of visualised datasets for users to explore and take inspiration from, showing how data can be distilled and clarified into something beautiful.
• Flowing Data – A fascinating collection of data visualisations, data art and analysis run by Nathan Yau, exploring how we interact with data and technology daily.
• Cool Infographics – This site is very to the point, playing host to a range of insightful infographics that the website author – Randy Krum – finds to be cool and interesting.
• McKinsey Chart of the Day – Part of McKinsey’s sustainable and inclusive growth section, you can find a new daily chart that helps explain the changes we see to the world around us.
• FiveThirtyEight – Now part of ABC News, 538 is still visualising current data on political and opinion polls, as well as doing data deep dives, which are especially useful when producing reactive content where you need up-to-date stats.
• YouGov – A great source of global public opinion data, including trackers, ratings and surveys that measure general sentiment on practically any popular topic you can think of.

Data Sets

If you’d prefer to visualise your own data but need to track down the right datasets to do so, the following sites can provide you with openly available data to use. You can find more dataset resources here.

• World Bank Open Data – With its wide range of data sets and other helpful resources, The World Bank provides access to global development data through a variety of lenses.
• Kaggle – Sporting a huge library of crowd-sourced data sets, you can filter through many niche sets ranked by usability and size to find ones which are relevant to your interests.
• DataHub – A curated collection of high-quality data sets, helping you to track down useful data categorised by topic.
• Earthdata – For environmentally-focused data, NASA’s Earthdata gives you free and open access to Earth observation data. It’s full of fascinating scientific and geographic data revealing how our planet has changed over time.

General interest

It’s well worth keeping a finger on the pulse of what the internet is finding amusing and interesting at the current moment in time. Content in this area can help you discover more light-hearted ideas or trends that can capture the attention of your audience through sentiment rather than solely statistics.

If you have the agility and resources to create good quality reactive content, then looking at trend data can also reveal quick content ideas you can jump on as people’s attention on those topics grow.

• Colossal – Colossal brings together discourse around new artworks, photography, crafts and interviews with prominent artists and experts to provoke deeper thought within the world of arts and culture.
• Google Trends – Well-known for being able to track interest over time, the wealth of information Google Trends offers is great for diving deeper into any idea you have. Trends also assembles ‘Made with Trends’ visual data explorations for you to take inspiration from for your own campaigns.
• Exploding Topics – A great tool for tracking what search terms are on the rise, indicating new content topics potentially worth exploring. You can see supporting topics to build out an idea, as well as check a forecast to predict if interest will build.
• Glimpse – Asnapshot of the top 100 trending topics across search and social media. For terms you might not be familiar with, you can find a definition, related search terms and where it’s being talked about.

Whether you’re deep into an idea and need an extra push to find the right angle, or are simply looking for your next bit of great inspiration, these resources give you plenty of places to get started.

For those who need some help with the process of idea generation, also read How to Have Ideas gives you access to practical thinking skills and brainstorming techniques so you can start taking your content ideas to the next level.

The post 29 Sources of Inspiration for Content appeared first on ShellShock Ltd..

Curations of data and statistics also make shareable content and can be used in content marketing across all channels including social media.

When writing your content, facts and figures from reliable data sources can elevate whatever topic you’re discussing.

This is where free data sources from trusted and credible sources comes in.

They can provide raw data or pre-sorted datasets from which you can draw interesting conclusions to support your content with.

We’ve created a curated list of the best free data sources that work as a starting point for you to supplement your content production with a focus on UK and U.S. sources.

46 of The Best Data Sources in the UK/US

Government Data Sources

Data collected by governments typically conforms to specific data quality standards, as it is used to inform policy-making and for running services effectively.

Statistic agencies working for governments have a responsibility to provide accurate, timely and credible information.

This can be collected through censuses, surveys, digital services and administrative records available only to the government to create robust data sets of entire countries.

Once collected, much of this data is openly available for the public to view and use, allowing you to use it as a trusted primary source within your content.

Data.gov.uk
Since 2010 data.gov.uk has been helping people to find and use open government data, and supporting government publishers to maintain data.

ons.gov.uk
The UK’s largest independent producer of official statistics and the recognised national statistical institute of the UK.

Data.gov
The home of the U.S. Government’s open data

UK Data Service
A comprehensive resource funded by the ESRC to support researchers, teachers and policymakers who depend on high-quality social and economic data.

European Union Open Data Portal
The European Union Open Data Portal (EU ODP) gives you access to open data published by EU institutions and bodies.

Eurostat
Eurostat is the statistical office of the European Union situated in Luxembourg. Its mission is to provide high quality statistics for Europe.

US Census Bureau
The Census Bureau’s mission is to serve as the leading source of quality data about the nation’s people and economy.

US Bureau of Labor Statistics
The U.S. government’s centralised statistics site which covers employment information, American spending habits, wage data and more.

FBI Crime Data Explorer
For those interested in data around crime statistics, then the Federal Bureau of Investigation has a range of tools and reports to help sort through their data and create visualisations.

CIA World Factbook
The CIA has compiled a compendium of reference information about different countries of the world, covering everything from history and population down to travel facts.

Worldwide Data Sources

Our world is becoming increasingly data-driven. With around 5.35 billion people now using the internet and our lives shifting more online, millions of terabytes of data are created every single day.

Global data is how you can get an idea of what life is like halfway around the world, providing a lens to see different countries through and affording us incredible insights into how humans live their lives.

Global political organisations and technology companies can harness big data that’s passively generated, as well as commissioning large-scale reports using their worldwide reach.

As this data is analysed to help create a better planet or understand the difficulties we face, you can use this to get read on the bigger challenges we face and bring wider perspectives to your content.

Google Public Data
The Google Public Data Explorer makes large datasets easy to explore, visualize and communicate. As the charts and maps animate over time, the changes in the world become easier to understand.

Google trends
Google Trends is a public web facility of Google Inc., based on Google Search, that shows how often a particular search-term is entered relative to the total search-volume across various regions of the world, and in various languages.

UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations based in Paris.

The World Factbook
The World Factbook, also known as the CIA World Factbook, is a reference resource produced by the Central Intelligence Agency with almanac-style information about the countries of the world.

United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime
One of the key tasks of UNODC is to produce and disseminate accurate drugs and crime statistics at the international level. UNODC also works to strengthen national capacity to produce, disseminate and use drugs and crime statistics within the framework of official statistics.

UNData
UNdata is an Internet search engine, retrieving data series from statistical databases provided by the UN System. UNdata was launched in February 2008.

Dataportals.org
A Comprehensive List of Open Data Portals from Around the World

UNICEF Data
Another United Nations agency, UNICEF have their own data portal which monitors data on a range of topics concerning the well-being of children, poverty and water.

Dataportals.org
A comprehensive list of open data portals from around the world you can search through, arranged by country so you can find relevant regional datasets.

Our World in Data
The flagship project launched by the Global Change Data Lab to advance education on global living conditions, making knowledge on big problems both accessible and understandable. It pulls from specialised institutes, research articles, international institutions and official government data into one place.

Earth Data
If you’re interested specifically in earth sciences and a more scientific analysis of the planet around us, then NASA’s publicly available data repository brings together their satellite observation data into one place.

Academic Data Sources

Many people have dedicated themselves to studying niche interests in the world of academia, drilling down into the data and research to produce new and interesting findings.

Not only do academic studies thoroughly investigate topics but they also typically contain their own first-hand data collected for the purpose of the study, along with a detailed methodology and peer-review for validation.

These attributes mean that academic data conforms to a high standard to help academics prove their skills and establish their reputations.

You can turn up academic data on a wide range of topics to support your content, but you will likely need to ensure it’s relevant to what you’re saying – rather than a tenuous link.

Google Scholar
Google Scholar is a freely accessible web search engine that indexes the full text or metadata of scholarly literature across an array of publishing formats and disciplines.

Pew Research Center’s Internet Project
The Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization, provides free data and analysis on the social.

Uk Data Service
The UK’s largest collection of social, economic and population data resources.

CORE
Boasting the world’s largest collection of open access research papers, this not-for-profit aggregator indexes public global research in one place for you to search through.

Economic Data Sources

While economic data is typically used by governments and organisations to make top-level decisions, it can also be used to predict trends and provide an indicator of financial health for countries or specific markets.

This can be useful for content centred around comparative analysis or looking into topics that align with macroeconomics.

International Monetary Fund (IMF)
The IMF publishes a range of time series data on IMF lending, exchange rates and other economic and financial indicators. Manuals, guides, and other material on statistical practices at the IMF, in member countries, and of the statistical community at large are also available.

Google Finance
Google Finance was a website launched on March 21, 2006, by Google. The service featured business and enterprise headlines for many corporations including their financial decisions and major news events.

World Bank Open Data
This site is designed to make World Bank data easy to find, download, and use.

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
With quarterly reports of corporate financials, this U.S. government data resource can be helpful if you’re seeking out financial data from a specific business.

Health Data Sources

Healthcare is a major industry which benefits from data collection and analysis, studying the health of everyone from local populations to the world over.

Many institutions have been gathering and studying health-based data for years to help identify trends that could help prevent diseases or viruses from spreading.

It also enables healthcare institutions to find areas to improve and track the efficiency of different treatments and care.

Searching through these datasets can turn up interesting facts and figures to support your content, or for creating health content around.

NHS Digital
NHS Digital (formerly HSCIC) uses information and technology to improve health and care.

Global Health Observatory (GHO)
Part of WHO, The Global Health Observatory theme pages provide data and analyses on global health priorities.

US Food & Drug Administration (FDA)
The Food and Drug Administration is a federal agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, one of the United States federal executive departments.

HealthData.gov
This site is dedicated to making high value health data more accessible to entrepreneurs, researchers, and policy makers in the hopes of better health outcomes for all.

World Health Organization Data (WHO)
Founded in 1948, WHO is the United Nations agency responsible for promoting health and keeping the world safe. Their data portal has data dashboards and a data hub, as well as an annual report that can be useful for finding key health trends.

Global Health Observatory (GHO)
Part of WHO, The Global Health Observatory theme pages provide data and analyses on global health priorities in a more accessible way.

County Health Rankings & Roadmaps (US)
A program run by the University of Wisconsin Population Heath Institute with the aim of measuring the health of almost every single county across 50 states. Their work is based in the idea of health equality to ensure everyone has the opportunity to improve their health.

Public Opinion Data Sources

Understanding public sentiment on a topic can help you to gauge how to frame your content, as well as revealing unexpected attitudes towards aspects of our societies.

These datasets can be useful when looking at political content, beliefs around global events or writing about how human behaviours and cultures are changing.

In-depth interviews and focus groups are common methods used in acquiring public opinion data, as questions can be more qualitative than quantitative.

YouGov
YouGov is a community of 4 million people around the world who share their views. We analyse this information and publish selected findings every day on our website.

Gallup
We empower you to use data for real transformation. Through analytics and advice, we provide leaders with a road map for understanding and unlocking the full potential of individuals, teams and organizations.

Roper Center for Public Opinion Research
The Roper Center for Public Opinion Research at Cornell University is one of the world’s leading archives of social science data, specializing in data from public opinion surveys.

FiveThirtyEight
Owned by ABC News and originally created by Nate Silver, 538 has data dashboards and forecasts on public opinion and political topics based in the U.S.

Other Data Sources

There are many other data sources out there that bring together datasets on a variety of topics which could be useful for your content.

While these resources may take more effort to sift through in order to find trustworthy, relevant sources, you can uncover valuable niche data.

Kaggle
A community-sourced open dataset hub with cloud-based collaboration for data scientists, with a wide variety of both broad and niche datasets you can assess. You can filter these by user-ranked usability and size to find suitable datasets.

r/datasets (Datasets Subreddit)
Reddit brings together communities within its subreddit pages, with r/datasets being focused on data mining, analytics and knowledge discovery through crowd-sourced insights.

Statista
Find statistics, consumer survey results and industry studies from over 22500 sources on over 60000 topics on the internet’s leading statistics database.

Google Public Data Explorer
Google Public Data Explorer provides public data and forecasts from a range of international organizations and academic institutions including the World Bank, OECD, Eurostat and the University of Denver.

Google Dataset Search
Another Google tool for finding open datasets which you can analyse yourself if you have the means, which you can filter by last updated, usage rights and free data.

Open Data on AWS
Amazon Web Services hosts a repository for public datasets taken from different agencies, businesses and researchers. You can search through it using keywords, with each dataset having a detail page to help you figure out how useful it may be.

With all of these free data sources at your disposal, you can craft content with a competitive edge by weaving in reliable statistics and fascinating figures others may have overlooked.

There are more data sources out there but these are a trustworthy starting block for you to bolster your content with.

Once you’re more comfortable with finding reliable, robust datasets, then you can start carefully searching for your own sources to enhance your content.

If you’re looking for content production support, get in touch with us to see how Shellshock can help with your content and SEO strategy.

The post 46 Best Free Data Sources for content in the UK & US appeared first on ShellShock Ltd..

This is a list of the Sheets formulas I use regularly and couldn’t live without. Each one has countless uses and can be manipulated in so many more ways than I can show here.

What did we do before spreadsheets and VLOOKUP formula?

Basic Sheets formulas for SEO

IFERROR

Example:

=IFERROR(SUM(A1:A10))

Wraps another formula to remove the error #N/A and leaves a cell blank when there isn’t a value
Especially useful in combination with VLOOKUP:

=IFERROR(VLOOKUP($A1,’Spreadsheet’!A:B,2,FALSE))

LEN

Example:

=LEFT(A1,LEN(A1)-10)

Extracts content from another cell and removes/extracts characters from the left or right
Useful for extracting the path or removing https:// from a string:

=RIGHT(B1,LEN(B1)-8)

SPLIT

Example:

=SPLIT(A1, “?”)

Splits the contents of a cell into different columns around a delimiter, eg. a ‘?’ or ‘blog’
Useful for removing the URL parameter on tracking IDs from GS data or splitting the taxonomy of URL structure

=SPLIT(A1, “/”)

SEARCH

Example:

=SEARCH(“blog”, B10)

Searches the content in cells to match a value, such as ‘blog’ or ‘domain’.
Useful in content audits to search for categories, blog pages or for a specific keyword such as ‘boots’. Use in combination with IF:

=IF(SEARCH(“blog”, B10)
=IFERROR(IF(SEARCH(“blog”, B10))

Advanced Sheets formulas for SEO

VLOOKUP

Example:

=VLOOKUP($A1,’Spreadsheet’!A:B,2,FALSE)

Curate data from different sources and sheets into one Sheet, the Swiss Army knife of formulas
Useful for creating a content audit or reporting dashboard. Use with IFERROR to avoid error messages when no data is available

=VLOOKUP($A1,’Spreadsheet’!A:B,2,FALSE)
=IFERROR(VLOOKUP($A1,’Spreadsheet’!A:B,2,FALSE))

IMPORTXML

Example:

=IMPORTXML(“domainname.com”,”//title”)

Import data via XML from another source into a Sheet, scrape links, titles, descriptions, emails or any data with an Xpath tag from a web page
Useful to scrape all titles from a SERP for a KW, drop the SERP url into cell A2 and add this formula:

=IMPORTXML(A2,”//h3″)

IMPORTRANGE

Example:

=IMPORTRANGE(“spreadsheet–URL”, “data-range”)

Import data from another spreadsheet into a new Sheet
Useful to import sales figures, GSC data, URLs, lists of products or any data from another sheet:

=IMPORTRANGE(“spreadsheet–URL”, “Tab!A1:A20”)

QUERY

Example

=QUERY(“range”, “SQL query”)

Import data from another list of data or another Sheet (if used with IMPORTRANGE) with a list of conditions using SQL
Useful in a content audit or to create a dashboard. Pull in URLs that are tagged with a specific intent such as BOFU, have a DA above 60, GSC clicks above 1,000 or all of these combined

=QUERY(ALL!B12:E12, “select B where E ‘BOFU’ “)
=QUERY(ALL!B12:E12, “select B where E <‘10000’ “)

The post Best Google Sheets Formulas for SEO & Content Audits appeared first on ShellShock Ltd..

Everyone in the UK (and pretty much worldwide) were told to #stayathome.

At the beginning of the year, no one could’ve predicted that come March, we would be in lockdown. And no one said the word ‘furlough’ ever.

Brands had worked for months on their marketing campaigns. Start-ups were on the brink of launching their new products.

Then, in one tiny virus, smaller than the eye can see, all plans were wiped out.

Life likes to throw a curve ball now and then.

So, where do we go from here?

Instead of crying into our campaigns, we need to reassess all current marketing strategies and start from scratch.

You might be a brand just trying to survive the next few weeks. Or, you might be a brand that has one eye on how the new landscape will look after the crisis fog lifts.

Right now, brands need to be:

• Responsive
• Resilient
• Risk-averse

What I want to look at today is how to send out the right message and what the message should be in your content.

9 steps to create the right messaging and tone for content during a crisis

1. Be accountable for your actions – what you do now will matter after this is over

More than ever brands are under intense scrutiny for how they navigate and operate. If you get that wrong, then your audience might never forgive you.

There’s a lot of naming and shaming going on across social media. In the UK, Sports Direct, Weatherspoon’s and B&Q have all faced anger for forcing their staff to put themselves at unnecessary risk.

Social accountability is now a critical value and brands must be seen to have a mutual interest in business and society.

Negative PR that will still hurt when this is over:

Ticketmaster is facing massive backlash for not allowing customers to obtain refunds for cancelled and postponed concerts.

Virgin Atlantic forced employees to take 8 weeks of unpaid leave. And then (multi-billionaire) Richard Branson faced backlash for seeking government support to bail out his airline.

Billionaire Jeff Bezos asked the public to donate to a relief fund for Amazon employees despite the excessive wealth of the company. Whole Foods (owned by Amazon and Jeff) were asked to donate their sick leave to other employees.

“Brands are judged less by how they operate when things go right, than by how they handle situations when things go wrong.” Tom Fishburne

2. Your messaging and content should address the 3 basic needs your audience has right now

Audiences respond the most to messages that are emotive ­– especially if the audience share that emotion.

Humanity has 6 basic needs but right now, audiences are predominantly looking for:

• Comfort
• Certainty
• Connection

In the UK, on a Thursday night, we clap for the key workers. The collective effort of a nation coming together in that weekly moment at 8pm meets those 3 basic needs.

We feel connected to something bigger than ourselves. It’s possibly the only certain time slot in our diary. And it gives us comfort to see so many others care.

It helps the people clapping as much as it helps those we clap for.

3. Acknowledge what’s happening but don’t force a connection or try to leverage the pandemic

There are two possible approaches that brands can take right now:

• Pivot quickly and try their best to react
• Do nothing and carrying on business as usual

A brand that ignores the crisis elephant in the room is going to look self-absorbed and out of touch.

But beware, a brand that appears to be exploiting the crisis is going to irreparably damage their reputation.

There is a careful balance to get right.

Sometimes that might be being honest that you are as lost as everyone else but you’re doing the best you can. See what Emily Crisps did below.

Brands that quickly pivoted

• Time out became Time In and started to cover all the events you could live stream at home.
• Local restaurants began offering ready prepared meals and food for delivery.
• Hotel chains offered rooms and beds to be used by the NHS.
• Clothing manufacturers began making scrubs and facemasks for the NHS.
• Personal trainers conducted one-to-one training sessions over Zoom.
• LMVH quickly switched from perfume to hand sanitizer production (which they donated).

Brands that aligned their message

A YouTube campaign in Russia by McDonalds had 210 million views in two weeks. Using unskippable ads, the video showed a person washing their hands for 20 seconds – the recommended time to kill the virus.

Womanizer sex toys hired billboards to tell people to ‘Stay Home’. Respectful, with a dash of risqué humour.

Brands that used humour because they had no other option

After buying up their media space in advance, Emily Crisps were faced with the prospect of empty streets to try outdoor advertising for the first time.

But they embraced the situation with a series of parody adverts. The result was media coverage that put them in a good-humoured positive light.

Even graffiti artists have pivoted to work from home…

“My wife hates it when I work from home” Banksy

4. Be responsive with your messaging and strategy, listen to the current mood

Good marketing is all about your audience and not about you. And that is even more important now than ever.

Don’t broadcast what you’re feeling or thinking. No one cares.

Listen.

The content strategy you had before the pandemic is now redundant. Start again from the current mood and completely rethink your content.

Topics audiences are focused on right now include:

• Financial stability
• Staying healthy
• Exercising solo
• Keeping connected
• Dating at a distance
• How to stay positive
• Remote working
• Finding work in this situation

Topics to avoid that are tone-deaf and crass include:

• Travel, holidays
• Eating out, going out, trips out
• Profiting from the situation
• Complaining about the situation
• Consumerism

Topics that will become important as we come out of this:

• Family and friends bubble
• Social safety
• Socially distanced careers
• Wellness and wellbeing
• Saving and investing
• Pets

Without a clear mission, you’re left scrambling, asking “how can we capitalize on this pandemic” – a dangerous question to ask.  Katie Martell

5. Continue advertising and creating content even if it’s not business as usual, to ensure you’re not forgotten

As the supply chain broke down and the safety of employees was paramount many brands chose to cease trading.

Some brands redirected their entire websites to a home page message.

Big mistake.

That website is probably never going to recover its rankings and traffic without a massive amount of work.

In WWII, because supply chains were affected, many brand products were no longer available for sale to civilians. But, some brands knew that by keeping their brand name circulating, after the war ended they would be in a strong position to resume ‘business as normal’.

Filmo Cameras ran ads telling the story about their cameras were being used by the troops – and that was why they couldn’t sell cameras to the public – but ‘their post-war products would be well worth the wait’.

General Tires ran ads that highlighted their audience to the current ‘tire crisis’ and asked them to preserve their current tires and repair them.  (See the original ads here.)

Neither brand was selling, but both companies were keeping engagement and brand name recollection.

Continuing with communications that are relevant to the current situation keeps a connection with your audience and once we come out of lockdown you’re in a strong position.

The key is providing help to your audience and producing content that supports their needs.

Evans Cycles were quick to respond to the shut down with content about servicing your bike at home and keeping your wheels on the road.

Speedo gave us exercises you can do on dry land to keep your swimming fitness.

Sweaty Betty focused on keeping us positive with 5 things you can do to maintain sanity and calm.

6. Now isn’t the time for a huge marketing campaign that might fail, spend wisely

The impact on the economy and the incomes of many means that overspending or luxury sends out a negative message that’s out of touch.

Any brands that are spending on marketing need to be aware that they aren’t seen to be wasting money on anything frivolous or unnecessary.

Facebook, Uber, Tesco and the NHS have all embraced home-made feel ads compiled from real-life social media videos. I dare you to watch any of them without crying. I can’t.

That ‘budget’ homely feel really hits the current sentiment and sends out the message that we are all in this together.

Times of crisis are always incubators for great creativity. Proving that you don’t need big budgets to do great creativity. You just need a good idea.

 Furloughed creatives from Saatchi London created an Instagram feed called #conceptualboredom as an outlet for their restricted creativity.

Two friends sent each other retro style postcards from quarantine to keep in touch.

#DontVisitWalesChallenge was a thread full of retro styled travel posters telling people to not travel.

There’s a wealth of messaging and content a brand can create right now. Any of these ideas a brand can jump on.

Not knowing what to say is not an excuse.

7. Beware of trying to profit or projecting any image that could be misread

The overriding sentiment for the current climate is ‘we are all in this together’. And that should underline all messaging and marketing (even if you don’t refer to it).

Anyone seen to be profiting from a crisis is not treated favourably.

Sellers on Amazon faced public anger and shaming when they tried to profit on face masks and hand sanitizer. Fortunately, the selling platforms quickly acted against price gougers and even President Putin ordered that any Russian pharmacies that tried to sell face masks at over-inflated prices be shut down immediately.

8. News topic fatigue develops quickly so carefully monitor trends to know when your audience has had enough

When the Coronavirus pandemic started to become a real threat to our daily lives (about the beginning of March) a huge spike in searches for articles on COVID-19 was seen.

As could be expected.

But surprisingly, after only weeks, Coronavirus news fatigue quickly set in as people adapted to the ‘new normal’.

People quickly become bored with a subject. Even a pandemic.

“71% say they need to take breaks from news about the coronavirus, and 43% say the news leaves them feeling worse emotionally.” Pew Research Centre survey, April 2020 (in US)

When a trend hits, people want facts. As people adapt, they want information about anything that will make their life feel more normal and comfortable. After that, they want something good to move towards.

Already people are considering how their life might go back to normal so they search for facemasks.

People don’t want hand sanitizer anymore. They want face masks so they can think about how they can adapt to a new normal of a socially distanced world.

People very quickly adapt to extreme situations.

Agility is key in marketing, and even more in a crisis when long-term planning is not possible.

Your teams must be constantly listening, reviewing and responding to keep ahead of changing sentiment and audience needs.

Google Trends is a valuable tool for monitoring.

9. Be prepared to shift with customer sentiment and embrace new values such as anti-consumerism

Over the last few years, climate change and sustainability have become key values that a growing minority of society was pushing brands to embrace.

Already this year, we felt a simmering of change in the air.

Now the pandemic has burst open the simmering tensions society was feeling that steadily built after the financial crisis of 2009.

Life will never be the same again.

Over the last few weeks, the importance of what really matters is being highlighted to society.

From basic food chain supplies to staying connected with friends and loved ones.

What’s important is protection of health, income and quality of life.

I expect the age of consumerism will begin to decline and the next age will be about staying safe and being resilient.

As we move out of pandemic, we can expect:

• Online business and distance contact-free economy will accelerate.
• Remote working and distance socialising will be new norms.
• More border controls and a drive to locally sourced products.
• Manufacturing channels will be readdressed to protect supply chains.
• Businesses will face far greater scrutiny than ever before.
• Brand messaging will matter more than ever.

All brands need to be ready to embrace the new normal.

Recap: How to create the right messaging and tone for content during the 2020 pandemic

1. Be accountable for your actions – what you do now will matter after this is over
2. Your messaging and content should address the 3 basic needs your audience has right now
3. Acknowledge what’s happening but don’t force a connection or try to leverage the pandemic
4. Be responsive with your messaging and strategy, listen to the current mood
5. Continue advertising and creating content even if it’s not business as usual, to ensure you’re not forgotten
6. Now isn’t the time for a huge marketing campaign that might fail, spend wisely
7. Beware of trying to profit or projecting any image that could be misread
8. News topic fatigue develops quickly so carefully monitor trends to know when your audience has had enough
9. Be prepared to shift with customer sentiment and embrace new values such as anti-consumerism

This article was presented at Turn Digi online conference. You can view the presentation here starting at 1:01:18

If you need help with brand messaging or creating a new content strategy get in touch and we can talk about the best way for you to navigate during challenging times.

Contact us…

The post Message in a crisis: How to find the right tone of voice & create content in the 2020 pandemic appeared first on ShellShock Ltd..

What is a content campaign fail?

There are many ways in which content can fail (depending on your objective) but in this instance, for ‘big campaign’ content, a fail is considered a piece of content that doesn’t obtain links from authority sites or have any mentions and shares.

What is a ‘big content campaign’?

Content that is produced within a strategy to gain awareness for a brand or website, is the essence of a ‘content campaign’.

As links have been the metric for content campaigns to date, what I am focusing on here is content that has the specific aim of gaining links from media or influential hub sites.

The state of content marketing 2017

Content production is not showing any signs of slowing down. In fact, 79% of content marketers in the UK expect to produce more content in 2017 (CMI), but the consensus is that “We’re spending more but struggling with justification and delivery.” (State of Content Marketing 2017)

Even though ‘content shock’ was first cited by Mark Schafer in 2014, ‘brands as publishers’ are forging ahead and churning out content mostly without consideration for objective, strategy or measured results. From my experience, few have the understanding of how to construct a successful content campaign.

Buzzsumo produced a report back in 2015 that highlighted how 50% of content obtains eight shares or fewer and 75% obtain zero links. And still today, many marketers are struggling to define what makes good content. Surveys show that 65% find it a challenge to produce engaging content and 60% say they can’t produce content consistently.

A prescriptive content process

After specialising in the production of content over the past six years and watching who produces what, I have seen a lot of content successes and fails. Being so focused on this space I have a clear insight into why content fails and how prescriptive content production can be.

However, don’t be fooled into thinking it’s an easy formulaic process – no one gets it right every time.

And that brings us to:

Why do content campaigns fail?

From producing many pieces of content over several years and observations working alongside others, I have distilled what I think are the six predominant reasons why campaigns fail. By trying and doing lots of things I have made mistakes (and achieved big wins) to learn and develop the experience to know what makes and breaks content.

1: You didn’t conduct audience research first

The first question you should ask yourself in any campaign is:

Where do I want my content to be placed?

This is the number one mistake: creating content first and then secondly thinking about where and who to outreach to. Know who and where you want to target for exposure and then create content specifically for that influencer or website. This feeds into your objective and your concepts.

Understand your primary and secondary audience

Predominantly, you want the attention of your influencer or journalist but secondary and just as important, is that you understand what their readership consume and want. You can read in-depth about creating personas here.

After identifying the website you want to gain placement on, take the time to go through it by hand to get a feel for titles and themes. Use Buzzsumo to check share counts and links to top pages.

It’s not about you, avoid self-promotion

Another issue I have dealt with is heavy-handed branding and self-promotional pieces that you can guarantee an influencer will not want to share. Big brands have internal policies and style guides to adhere to but this can impact on quality of concept and production. I’ve had awful situations arise from creating bold concepts to gain attention that initially got approval but after due diligence and several rounds of stakeholder intervention, the concept and the piece of content has become so diluted to be rendered useless and the content bombs. This is a waste of time for everyone.

2: You didn’t have an objective or strategy

Secondary to understanding your audience, I consider the objective to be one of the most important factors in content production and yet it’s so often overlooked. The number of times clients say, I want to produce an interactive piece, and my first response is, why?

The starting point for any campaign should be the end:

What do you want to achieve?

Personally, I am a big believer in ‘doing’ and just trying things to see what works. For content campaigns, if you don’t have an aim then you are shooting with a blindfold on and have little chance of hitting the target. Following on from the first fail of not understanding your audience, you want to know who and where you want exposure from – be strategic about this. Reduce your target and produce focused content just for one media/influential site. Establish contact and build a relationship with this influencer first and get them to buy into your content before you create it.

Why am I doing this?

If you churn out content without a strategy and a goal, then you are throwing your budget away. Tie your content production to specific goals. Big content campaigns are predominantly about links but your content should also tie into wider goals and should have a predetermined user journey to capture and retain traffic. My recommendation is to always be capturing email addresses – a database of ‘opted in’ users is the most valuable marketing asset you can have.

Is the tool right for the objective?

In my experience, a lot of clients take the ‘tool first’ approach and want to produce an interactive map, with no consideration for what their audience want or for a concept. They try to retro fit the concept to the tool. When new ‘tools’ become available, such as 360 video, a flurry of producers will benefit from the novelty value, but without strength of concept to add substance to the piece, it will not be sustained. If you are left with a feeling of where’s the value?, then this is more likely to turn people off than engage them with your content and brand.

Example, How to Trust a Website

The objective was to achieve links from high authority sites and to engage the demographic of the brand, which was a 35+ female.

When we researched concepts for this piece, 65% of shoppers claimed they could do more to stay safe online. The concept came out of wanting to empower a shopper with enough knowledge of how to stay safe when Christmas shopping. Directed at a user (35+) with little internet understanding and timed for the pre-Christmas season.

We had very fortunate timing just before launch in the wake of a major data security breach at Talk Talk and this had opened a discussion about the safety of entering data online. The timing enabled us to obtain endorsement from Action Fraud and secure links from the police, Crimestoppers, Get Safe Online and 80 other root domains.

Internet awareness day on the 9th February also offered another window that we tapped into.

3: Your concept wasn’t useful, surprising or emotional

Made to Stick, by Chip and Dan Heath, is a book about what makes ideas ‘sticky’ and is well known in my circles for offering insight into how to generate ideas for content campaigns. The premise of the book centres around their acronym of SUCCES:

• Simple: distilling to the most important idea at the core.
• Unexpected: the brain is a self-organising pattern maker and something that disrupts that pattern stands out and gets attention.
• Concrete: to make something be easily described or detected by the human senses.
• Credible: statistics, testimonials, real life examples and testable credentials.
• Emotional: make people care and inspire them to act.
• Stories: it’s proven that it’s easier to retain information delivered as a story.

For content idea generation, I have a simpler acronym of USE:

• Useful: offer real value to the audience of what they are interested in. For example, ‘how to’ or a curation of niche information.
• Surprising: disrupting patterns and offering something unexpected will help to get attention. For example, how the information is visually delivered or a twist in the concept.
• Emotional: recognising and addressing the pain points and the challenges of the audience is most likely to make a connection. For example, what keeps your audience awake at 3am?

Without a strong concept, content has neither anything to offer nor value to an audience or a journalist during outreach. This is a vast subject, so you can read a more in-depth piece about how to generate ideas here.

Creating concepts that will attract and engage your audience is not an easy task. Consider that YouTube alone has 300 hours of video uploaded every minute! We are drowning in the stuff and the probability of having an original idea sits somewhere between slim and not a chance.

My favourite process for creating a unique idea is to combine two random ideas to create a new one. I always cite one of the best combinations of all time: the camera phone. When I was growing up, the notion that a phone would fit in your pocket and combine with a (then film) camera was too remote to imagine. Someone somewhere had the idea that combining the two would be a gimmick to sell more phones. And sell more phones it did!

Example, Steps in the City

While researching for an idea, I came across an article in the Guardian about how walking was the new jogging. At the time, the craze for fitness bands was in full peak and users were embracing the goal of hitting 10,000 steps a day. Also, I love niche curated walking tours such as graffiti street art walks and all these ideas then began to connect.

The concept that came together from these three random ideas was based on having a ‘fun’ day out whilst at the same time being healthy and achieving a 10,000 steps goal as a side result.

Steps achieved placement on Heart.org.uk (amongst others) and as an evergreen piece of content, can benefit from rounds of promotion annually.

4: You didn’t have a reason for journalists to share

Outreach to journalists is very different to contacting a blogger and it’s taking a while for the SEO industry to catch up with how to work with journalists. I’m not going to go into detail here about how to contact a journalist, as there is so much to say but the main points are:

What’s the story?

The overriding motivation for any journalist is that they want a story for their readers – that’s their job. They don’t care about Buzzfeed-style listicles or quirky quizzes and they don’t care about you or your brand. Simply, they want something unique and newsworthy.

Consider their position and think about how your piece of content can be turned into a story in their media publication. What do you have of unique value to offer?

A journalist will respond to:

• Unique data and research
• Surveys that show insights
• Ground-breaking news (exclusivity)

Once I understood this, it changed my whole approach to generating content ideas.

Email approach

A journalist has little time and is constantly pitched to. They can see through your approach of ‘I read your publication all the time and I think you’re great. Would you share my piece of content all about how great bathrooms are?’. That might seem a little basic but there are a lot of people who simply don’t know how to write outreach emails.

The right topic.

Do your homework on what a journalist covers. Imagine this: you cover sports for a newspaper and get an email pitch to share content about weddings. It might seem obvious but again, writing emails takes time, research and attention to detail.

Blanket emails

If you think sending 200 emails to a list with the only variation being {name} then your outreach approach has a serious problem. Do not blanket email journalists.

Endorsement

If you can gain endorsement for your content, such as the Cats Protection League for a pet-based piece, this can significantly raise the credibility of what you offer and have far more appeal. The endorsement from the police site, Action fraud, significantly helped the ‘How to trust a website’ piece (see example).

Example, Food allergy

Health is a topic known to be popular for outreach to certain media sites, so we settled on a niche target audience of food allergy sufferers – one in five people have a level of food insensitivity in the UK. The concept was inspired by my own issues with a restricted diet and pre-checking a menu before visiting a restaurant is mandatory for me, to ensure that I can eat something.

In 2014, legislation came into effect that required food businesses to provide allergy information on all food sold unpackaged. We tapped into this information to provide both an allergen food count for brand restaurants in the UK and a resource for anyone with food allergy and diet restrictions.

We fed the campaign with a unique survey conducted from a wide database of the brands and through feedback on social media. This fed into the piece and supported the coverage we achieved.

The objective was to target media links and we secured coverage in the Daily Mail who cited the survey information.

5: You underestimated how much promotion is needed

A content campaign is probably 80/20 – promotion/content – and in my experience, a lot of marketers think it is the other way around. You can have the best piece of content in the world but if you don’t put the investment and effort into the promotion and do it right then you will fail – completely.

From experience, I found that promotion is best delivered on a tiered basis, starting with:

• Exclusive offering to top-level publications and journalists.
• Outreach to other influential hub sites.
• Outreach to mid-level sites.
• Start social media promotion (non-paid).
• Start syndication on sites such as Reddit.
• Start paid social ads and continue rounds when traffic/mentions slow.
• Outreach to bloggers.
• Search to pick up non-linking citations and placements.

The rule of promotion is that persistence pays off. Investing in one or two days of outreach on an isolated basis is only going to deliver limited results. Outreach needs to be conducted over weeks and months to keep picking up links and to sustain momentum. An evergreen piece of content can have renewed outreach seasonally and when relevant awareness days are due. A good piece can be outreached over several years to get real value. On this basis, I always think it is best for outreach to be conducted inhouse or a dedicated digital PR person who is constantly monitoring for new opportunities as these can arise all the time.

Note, anyone who offers a placement on their website will most likely want a graphic to use. If you have produced an interactive infographic then supplement production with a static graphic that can be used with outreach.

6: The right content at the wrong time

Ultimately, you can follow all the processes and formulas, and still your content can still fail. This usually happens because of timing:

• Too much competition from other content
• You missed the slot for an awareness day
• A major news event just happened and knocked you out of the schedule
• A similar idea has just been launched

I have also found that offering seasonal content is not the best approach to take. You are competing against countless other content offerings and also, influencers and journalists will be inundated at peak seasonal times, such as Christmas or the World Cup.

Awareness days however, are a valuable boost to tie into your concept if timed correctly. Keep note of key dates, as these can help to promote content and enable you to revisit evergreen pieces. You can find a useful PR event calendar resource here.

Example, Sport bluff

At the time, Sportbluff was one of my favourite combinations of two random ideas. After searching for ideas around the theme ‘rugby’ I found an article titled ‘Fat lads who played rugby once in school to talk s**t for next six weeks, warns barman’.

This fired off a thought I had, that rugby is a complicated game and for the average person watching in the pub, it’s difficult to follow and to enjoy. A high profile tournament such as the Rugby World Cup raises popular interest and as a result, more people want to watch the game.

The second thought to connect was from one of my favourite episodes in the IT Crowd about a website called ‘Bluffball’, which was all about football parlance.

The focus was to deliver a basic but comprehensive level of the rules of the game, so that a total novice could refer to the site in a pub and follow a game (or just enough to bluff your way through a game).

Unfortunately, the fail was missing the window of opportunity of outreach for the World Cup and therefore not achieving the success the piece could potentially have had. That said, it is an evergreen idea and it can benefit from subsequent rounds of outreach before key tournaments and seasons.

Hopefully, you now have a better understanding of why content campaigns can fail and have a useful input into how you can improve your concepts and approach for greater content success.

Why content campaigns fail takeaways:

• Understand your audience
• Know your objective and ask why?
• Make a ‘sticky’ concept with USE
• Create a ‘story’ for journalists
• Be persistent with promotion
• The right timing

Listen to a full podcast of this article on Site Visibility

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