The great content marketing discussion

An imaginary conversation…

Firstly what do you mean by the term content marketing?

The term has been increasing in its usage for the last year and  especially over the last few months… but content marketing is usually known as the use of content (such as text and imagery) across an organisation’s owned channels (website, social networking page, etc.) to get users to a site and build engagement.

Isn’t this search engine optimisation?

No, SEO is about optimising a site (code, configuration, links AND content) to get a higher placement in search engines. Although content markers do need to consider SEO factors such as keywords, they aren’t really bothered about how sites are set up or algorithms for ranking.

So how do you get traffic via content?

You build up user traffic by being useful and relevant to the reader. This therefore makes your content more sticky (readable) and social (sharable).

So content marketing is a sub-set of SEO?

Well, not really. Content marketing also deals with topics such as internal linking to other content around a site to encourage the user to complete a specific goal. For example: to purchase a product or to sign-up for a service. 

So it’s about writing link bait then!

It’s all about producing quality content, not rubbish articles that pander to the lowest common denominator and get instant traffic based on sensationalistic headlines. The modern web user is very savvy and they tune out things they are not interested in any more, it’s an attention economy out there.

Then it’s about getting eyeballs to look at your page?

Yes, that’s right, you should write good and free content, which then allows it to be shared so it can work harder and reach a bigger audience for your brand.

But isn’t that syndication?

No, however the content that is written can be syndicated out, such as via an RSS feed.

So what Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) should a Content Marketing person measure?

Although usual website metrics, such as visitors, visits and subsequent conversions should obviously be measured, one important measurement of content marketing success is repeat visits from the same visitor. You should be able to find this information in your website analytics package and further segment it by the content areas on your site. As a rough guide, the more users come back, the more they’re engaged.

But doesn’t this affect conversion rate for an eCommerce site?
Yes, repeat visitors could affect your ‘look to book’ ratio, because just increasing the number of ‘looks’ to your site will make your site look like it is less effective. It is therefore just as important to look at how your content pushes users to convert (book).

So how will this area evolve?
Content Marketing Optimisation (CMO) is not a term currently well known, but a lot of people jumping on the content marketing bandwagon right now will quickly be asked to justify their investment of time, 3^rd party copywriting, etc.  So just as SEO took a while to emerge as a longer-term disciple that observes, learns and improves the bottom line; so content marketing optimisation by using insight gleaned from analytics packages will tell website owners what content is working and what is not.

Why buttons are helping sites

You will have seen social media sharing buttons crop up all over the web recently, with sites only too keen to encourage you to click, share and show your appreciation.

This is happening more and more, but why has everyone gone button mad?

As I see it… for one key reason… Share-ability (or in other words the pull & push of social media)

Buttons are now a very useful way to encourage visitors to share their content. When once it was all about content.... “content is King” we used to cry. Content is what search engines love and these same search engines are what get you traffic & recognition.... and therefore attention & advertising space or sales.
But now it is all about content sharing, your site content is far more valuable if it is read, shared and then re-read by others. There’s still the reassuring need to make money from content… but if you can use the power of social media platforms to share this content to a wider audience (whilst still retaining your revenue from all these disparate channels) then you are clearly onto a good thing.

Your site has to work as hard a possible. By providing buttons and the means to share this content beyond your current readership, you are using social platforms & their users as a means of free syndication.

Portable content - more considerations

Although I've previously covered making your company content and assets portable, based on recent feedback, I thought I'd provide some additional information about how to do this.

1. Put your corporate videos up on YouTube
This allows you to still embed the video clips you want into your own site, saves you expensive bandwidth and instantly makes your company video available to a new selection of people. Caveat: All YouTube users will be able to comment on your video, so be prepared to engage in any accompanying dialogue your video creates

2. Put your company photos up on Flickr (Note: Other photo sharing sites are available)
Aside from the potential bandwidth-saving achieved from delivering high quality images to your users from an alternative host, there are other benefits to placing any company photos on one the popular image sharing websites:

• These sites provide easy integration with other Web2.0 sites (e.g. Blogging tools, etc.)
• By using proper descriptions and tagging your photos, you make your official photos easier to be searched for and used
• Links from your photos and profile back to your company website could improve your Search Engine Optimisation efforts

Caveat: Users to these sites, like video sites, will be able to comment on your content. Expect the level of conversation you need to participate in to increase.

3. Extend your audio coverage
Assuming you already provide downloadable audio files such as interviews on your site (hopefully in the ubiquitous MP3 format) then you can easily raise your content's profile further.

• Add an RSS feed and allow subscription via podcasting software
• Syndicate your podcasts via a large/popular podcasting syndication network

Caveat: This whole subject can by quite complex, so it is probably best that I cover this topic in more detail subsequently.

Ways to make content more portable

Distributing your media across the web can be a beneficial way of providing your users and extended target audience with the assets that you want to provide them with (more examples of use and mis-use here)

The immediate and instant delivery of your content and media to numerous people across the web is not the stuff of the future or something so cutting edge that it requries a bespoke multi-million pound Media Distribution System.... it can be achieved easily over time, as part of your corporate site's evolution and just used combinations of several known & standard technologies & practices already out there.

So... what are they?

Content/Media Management System:
Including:categorisation (tagging & meta info), reformatting, versioning, workflow, etc. to manage the content you want to 'push'

Admin function:
This manages the permissions / rights / subscription / personalisation process

Syndication:
RSS is by far the most preferred method of distribution and updating content. Other methods of syndication can be used but RSS is now becoming a common standard for pulling content thanks to podcasts and widget technology gaining widespread usage.

Widgets :
These can be used and are just self-contained HTML components that deliver text and media. There are several standards for these and also some bespoke work may be required to fit it into some frameworks / templates. However, sometimes just the media is sent or referring URL is called.

Hosting:
It is also important that this service has an adaptive hosting facility that that can react to large fluctuations in demand across a potential global footprint, especially if streaming of audio or video is required.