Notes on how to create an effective content marketing strategy

I know, right? Another post about content marketing, just like the hundreds others out there. Is it though?

Content marketing isn’t new. If you have been around long enough (like me), you probably remember reading a monthly/semester magazine created by a company to engage with their audience, complete with interviews, short stories, facts, great pictures and design. 

So, content marketing in the digital realm is just that, but with tighter deadlines, and perhaps the most important characteristic, besides the different distribution channels and formats, is that you can share content created by others at all times.

Journalism’s values. Why should they matter to you?

Does your audience perceive you as a trusted source of information? A recent study by the American Press Institute concluded that “People who put a higher premium on trust?related factors are more engaged with news… or share and promote news with their friends”. Of course, that doesn’t apply only to media outlets.

Think about it the next time you create or share content. Also; keep in mind that the same study concluded that the reasons people trust and rely on a news source vary by topic; and that people who rely on social media heavily for news are highly skeptical of the news they encounter there, and one of the most important cues to overcome that skepticism, is trust in the original source that produced the content. 

Empowerment. Culture.

Consider this: women ages 18-34 are twice as likely to think highly of a brand that made an empowering ad, according to an article wrote by YouTube’s CEO, Susan Wojcicki. 

I know the subject of the post is content marketing, not digital advertising, but the idea I am trying to convey here is that content should empower your audience. If advertising is somehow aspirational (people want to imagine a better version of themselves in the ads), content marketing should empower people to accomplish this somehow. It really depends on what your audience wants. Maybe they want to be better at their jobs, have a better balance between work and their personal life, mix the best pi?a colada ever, whatever it is, you should know how to empower them to do that, to be a better version of themselves.

For further inspiration watch the videos that made it to YouTube’s Ads Leaderboard.

If you are really into this, also read this Harvard Business Review article; Branding in the Age of Social Media, which explains why content marketing might not be working for everyone and the possibilities that culture marketing present.

How do you know what a “quality” story is?

Well, consider how a media outlet looks at it. German daily Die Welt’s internal grading system to create a daily top 10 rank consists of five criteria: pageviews, time spent on the article page, video views, social shares, and bounce rate. “An article can score up to 10 points for traffic, and up to five in the other four categories, for a maximum score of 30” this article explains.

Of course you should also consider other non-numerical metrics like geography, reference channels, among others, to complete your rank. The important part here is to use this to inform your strategy and to improve the content.

In the same article, Die Welt’s Deputy Online Editor explains that this fuels questions among the journalists such as: “Does the headline work well? Should we have incorporated a video? Is the story designed in such a way that readers read it until the end? Have we added sufficient links to further good content so that users are led to another WELT article?...”

You could also read this short excerpt from MIT Sloan Management Review on how to use “likes” as metrics. Or this article that asks Does the ‘Like’ Mean Anything Anymore?. 

There are of course many other important subjects I could have included in this post, but I didn’t. 

Hope you liked my skills as “curator”. Don’t forget to share, like, subscribe or leave a comment, and good luck with your Content Marketing Strategy.