Succeeding in Platform-Based Marketing Series

“If you identify something of value, and then your internal marketing team takes six months to execute a marketing plan for it, the value may not be there by the time you arrive. So, what kinds of things have value?” – Luis Reyes, executive producer & partner @ Butcher Bird Studios

Luis Reyes’ Succeeding in Platform-Based Marketing series explores:?

• What platform-based marketing is and how brands should leverage it;?
• Why shifts since the dawn of the internet are important for brands to consider when building their content marketing strategies;?
• The unique personalities of the biggest digital platforms and the impact each one of them has on our industry;?
• What a community means and the steps brands should follow for successfully building a persistent presence;
• The role of brands within the community/economy dynamic.

Here are a few excerpts from the series…

PART 1 | What’s Going On?

“So what do we mean when we say ‘platform-based marketing’? Simply put, it means creating content tailored to the idiosyncratic behaviors that characterize a particular platform (or a specific community on a platform, but more on that below).?

On Twitch, live is key, and the ability to interact with a live audience drives more engagement. On YouTube, binge-able playlists do very well. Facebook, over the years, has grown more family-oriented. TikTok has gobbled up Snapchat’s audience, but its audience is young and its content playfully ironic. These are, of course, all broad strokes, but it points already to the variety of content and audiences on these platforms. All of these platforms work direct advertising into their architecture, but the audience is only marginally paying attention. In this series, our goal is for brands to be able to create content that can be the primary focus of platform audiences.”

PART 2 | What Does the New Media Landscape Look Like?

“Consider these achievable goals to benchmark success in new media platforms ??

Create an ecosystem of content

Understand the various platforms and their idiosyncrasies (which we outline in the next article) and build out content specifically suited for numerous types of engagement. It’s akin to creating a kind of universe. Think about Disney, a company that diligently spreads its properties across many different forms of media. They are making the case for brand ubiquity.

Allow for customization

Once you have set the ecosystem in motion, consider constructing a system of customization so that individuals can personalize the way they receive your content. This might include the ability to control email or direct messaging at the outset, or enable users to specify a tier of engagement with your content:

• Just getting updates;
• Watching in real-time;
• Light participation (polls, featured chat, etc.);
• Playing the game (utilizing gamified aspects of the ecosystem);
• Partner with you (influencers opening themselves to us as ambassadors of your brand).

Become a part of their content

As brands loosen the constraints around branding guidelines, it invites core customers to integrate brands into their own content creation. You can even offer media packages specifically designed for free use. If your fans are making content about you, you’ve reached the pinnacle of platform-based marketing.”

PART 3 | What Is Unique to Each Platform?

“Each of these platforms wants to draw audiences away from the others: TikTok upped its cap to 10 minutes, vying for a corner of YouTube’s audience base; Twitch has plans to expand its messaging features to keep social media fiends within the platform; and who knows how the content streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, and HBO Max could integrate into these creator-driven platforms. It is possible that the ultimate aim for any of them would be to mash all features together into one, giant, content platform – but that, of course, would be a mistake. The reason different platforms exist is that different people exist. And the platforms, along with the brands, benefit when the way people receive and interact with content resonates with who they are as individuals.?

Preparing to write this article, we had a company brainstorm, and in that conversation, the following observation emerged:?

‘Twitch is for people who think they’re fun.?

TikTok is for people who think they’re funny.?

Reddit is for people who think they’re smart.?

Instagram is for people who think they’re hot.?

Facebook is for people who think they’re heard.?

LinkedIn is for people who think they’re successful.?

Twitter is for people who think they’re deep.?

YouTube is for people who think they’re bound for greatness.’

Perhaps not an entirely accurate summation (or for that matter entirely fair), but it does speak to the idea that each of these platforms has a distinct personality, which challenges brands to shape content to appeal to those distinct personalities.”

PART 4 | The Community Spirit

“Who is your community?

Let’s step back and look at what has traditionally been the strategic priorities of brand marketing. The demographic question is, “Who are your customers?”. The data analysis question is, “How do your customers behave online?”. Both of those can point you in the right direction, but the platform marketing version of that same question is, “Where do your customers hang out?”. Not physically, but in the digital landscape. And not just the platform, but in which communities on the platform?

Spend some time exploring this. It is a question that might not be answered by the usual analysis metrics, primarily because there is a deep subjectivity in it. Individual people are complex beings, and the communities they form pulse with that individuality. Yes, there are patterns that emerge, and sometimes accurate assumptions can be made about seeing those patterns in demographic data, but you might be surprised by how much of a disparity there could be between the demographic of your target customer and the online communities of which they are a part. The internet has a way of fostering communal blending; the kind of blending that seriously disrupts rigid demographic categorization. And individuals are always in a constant state of flux, changing tastes and behaviors. There is an organic quality to an online community, the kind of quality that can be best understood by being a part of it. So, once you use some quantitative analysis to get to where you want to be, what do you do?”

PART 5 | Where There Is Community, There Is Economy

“So where does the role of the brand operate within the community/economy dynamic? Being a part of the community is the strategy behind your brand’s engagement with platforms. But understanding the economy provides you with the tactical tools you’ll need to do it well.

Essentially, the economy starts with understanding value: what is important to the community? It isn’t always apparent to someone on the outside looking in. To really understand the communal value, you need to be a part of that community, especially because in the age of the internet, social media, memes, virality, and trends, what is deemed valuable – and how value is expressed – is in a constant state of rapid and organic evolution. So, if you identify something of value, and then your internal marketing team takes six months to execute a marketing plan for it, the value may not be there by the time you arrive.”

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