Where can brands start with good content?

What can marketers do to jump-start quality ideas?

We sat down with Allison Casey, Senior Art Director at Likeable Media, to talk about what puts the "quality" in quality content.

In your opinion, what's the best way to start an idea? A brainstorm? A list? How do you get started?

I think the most important thing is really understanding the goal we are trying to accomplish. Briefs are a great thought starter. The research and thought that’s put into them really gets you into the head of your consumer and makes you understand what they want out of it. If you don’t understand your audience, you’re never going to come up with a great idea. I like to go about it as a problem-solving exercise. We want these people to do these things. How can we make that happen?

When dreaming up big ideas, do you start with tactics or concepts first?

You always need to start with the concept. A big idea should be able to be executed a million different ways. So if you start with the tactics first, you are setting yourself up for a bad strategy. Tactics are a vessel for the message, but coming up with the message is more important.

Which is more important: copy or design?

Great content happens when good design and good copy come together.

We keep hearing that video will be even bigger in 2017. What is your hope for video content?

I’m really interested to see where low-fi video content lives. With Instagram stories and live video, I think there are a lot of interesting things that can be done. For years advertising was all about high production value video, with months of planning. But now with these instant video options, brands need to be creative with their content.

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What is LIVE Streaming?

Presidential debates. Car chases. Sketch comedy TV shows. What do they all have in common? They’re all best enjoyed live.

The first televised live broadcast took place in 1951, when then-U.S. president Harry Truman made a speech at the Japanese Peace Treaty Conference in San Francisco. Since then, we’ve seen countless political events, breaking news, and, of course, popular entertainment shows like Saturday Night Live, all in real-time.

A lot of trends have gained—and lost—momentum in the intervening time, but the popularity of live video has endured. Reinvigorated by new technologies, we’ve now moved beyond social video into a world of live social video.

And where better to stream your live broadcasts than the biggest social network of all? No social network is used more—or by more people—than Facebook. The social giant introduced its own live video feature, called Facebook Live, at the end of 2015 and the prominence of video streaming on the platform has only grown from there.

What is Facebook Live?

Facebook Live is the social network’s live-streaming video functionality. Users can broadcast live videos using only their smartphones. It’s available to all Pages and profiles on Facebook for iOS, Android, and the Facebook Mentions app. Additionally, live broadcasts can be streamed in Facebook groups and events.

Facebook explained the appeal of Live video thusly: “Broadcast to the largest audience in the world with the camera in your pocket.”

Image via Facebook.

When the network first introduced live video in August 2015, the feature was limited to Facebook Mentions, an app available to public figures such as celebrities, athletes, musicians, politicians, and other influencers.

Then in December 2015, Facebook began to make the feature public, releasing it to a small subset of users in the U.S. and verified Pages, then to the rest of the country at the end of January 2016. It became available outside the U.S. at the end of February 2016. Facebook has since introduced a number of Live video features.

Why is live video a big deal for marketers? 

Before we dive into why live video matters, let’s back up a bit. To truly understand why live video is a big deal, you have to look at the ever-increasing prominence of social video.

While video has always been popular online, the dominance of social media and the rise of mobile usage has all but ensured social video’s position as the reigning monarch of content. Users continue to produce—and watch—more video at greater rates than ever before.

What you should know about social video:  

What you should know about Facebook video: 

Beyond the popularity of social video in general, Live video brings with it specific benefits.

What you should know about Facebook Live:

 

 

And of course, when it comes to that most critical of Facebook marketing elements—organic reach—live video can be a huge help.

Facebook considers Live video a distinct content type from other video shared on the platform. This distinction is important for brands because it means that the Facebook algorithm treats native video and Live video differently, with Live videos more likely to appear higher in News Feed while they’re live. After the broadcast, the video can still be discovered and viewed, but once it’s no longer live, Facebook will treat it like any other video.

Facebook Live video also has its own notification system. The network explained that when someone goes Live: “People who frequently engage with or have recently interacted with a person or Page going Live may receive a notification.” This feature gives greater prominence to Live videos and helps keep brands who broadcast top-of-mind.

And let’s not forget expectations for Live video. While viewers expect social video to be polished, audiences often enjoy the opposite in Live video. Production value tends to be less professional and more raw, which many viewers perceive as more authentic, a trait that an increasing number of consumers are looking for in brands.

In other words, there are plenty of good reasons to give Facebook Live video a try.

Difference between Facebook Live and other live-streaming options on social media

Facebook Live is far from the only option out there. Here’s a look at the other platforms offering live-streaming options.

YouTube

YouTube has been offering live-streaming since 2011. In 2016, the video giant added 360-degree streaming and the ability to stream directly from its mobile app.

Image via YouTube.

Users have two streaming options:

Stream Now

Stream Now is the simplest way for users to share live video on YouTube because the platform automatically detects the stream resolution and frame rate. During the broadcast, users can interact with their audience via live chat, view real-time analytics, and monitor the stream. Users can choose to archive the footage to save it for later.

Events

The Events option gives users more control over their broadcast. YouTubers can select privacy options, set a start time for their broadcast, and enable a backup stream (for redundancy). They can also create multiple live events and stream them simultaneously.

YouTube live-streaming is the best fit for people or brands whose audience is primarily on YouTube. It can also work well for brands who’d like to share their broadcast across several platforms, as the link can easily be shared on the network of their choosing.

Periscope

Periscope is a live streaming app owned by Twitter and integrated into the platform. It debuted in March 2015 and fought a brief battle with Meerkat for social streaming supremacy.

Image via Periscope.

Users can tag their location and respond to audience comments in real-time. Recent updates to the app give Periscope users the option to live-stream directly from a GoPro camera, save their broadcast, and embed it directly in Tweets. Viewers can also replay highlights. To learn more about how to use the platform, check out our Periscope guide for business.

The primary difference between Periscope and Facebook Live is the network. Periscope is the live-streaming option for Twitter users while Facebook Live, of course, lives on Facebook.

Facebook Live features

Not only does Facebook Live give brands access to an immense audience—potentially the entirety of Facebook, which currently boasts 1.13 daily active users—it also offers a range of features.

Notifications

Because Facebook Live is considered a distinct content type (and one that Facebook is actively encouraging), it has its own notification system. By default, users’ Live video notifications are set to ‘on’.

The network explained that when someone goes Live: “People who frequently engage with or have recently interacted with a person or Page going Live may receive a notification.”

If a user is particularly interested in Live video from a particular broadcaster, they can choose to subscribe, which means they’ll be notified any time that broadcaster goes Live.

Invite friends

When a user is watching a broadcast, they can choose to send an invitation to a friendto watch with them. This option is available from within the Live video. To send an invite, simply tap on the invite icon and select the friend you’d like to invite. That person will receive a push notification.

Image via Facebook.

Maps

For users interested in discovering new content, there’s the Facebook Live Map, which is available on desktop. Facebook users in more than 60 countries have the ability to begin a live broadcast, so the Facebook Live Map provides a way for people to discover those videos more easily.

Image via Facebook.

The map displays all live broadcasts currently happening around the world, each one represented by a blue dot, with larger dots indicating more popular broadcasts. Hovering over a dot pulls up a preview of the stream, including a counter showing how many people are currently watching it, and a timer showing how long the broadcast has been playing. Users can choose to zoom in to explore broadcasts in more specific areas.

Image via Facebook Live Map.

Additionally, a panel to on the left side of the screen features a list of the most popular current live broadcasts. As with the dots, hovering over one shows both where the broadcast originated and where people are streaming it from.

Image via Facebook Live Map.

Live Reactions

Facebook users can, of course, react to any post on the platform using the six emoji-like Reactions to highlight their response. But Facebook Live takes things one step further by allowing a broadcast’s audience to react to the video stream in real-time, with Reactions appearing on the video itself as they’re clicked by the audience.

Image via Facebook.

Filters

Broadcasters have the option to add a filter to their live stream. There are five options to choose from. While Facebook announced on April 6, 2016—the same day they introduced filters—that they would soon add the ability for broadcasters to draw or doodle on their video while live, this feature is not yet available.

Image via Facebook.

How to add a filter to live video

  1. Begin recording a broadcast
  2. Tap the magic wand icon
  3. Scroll left to view all filter options
  4. Tap a filter to select it

It’s important to note that you will be live while selecting a filter.

Masks

In addition to filters, broadcasters can now also experiment with Snapchat-like masksduring their live-stream. Introduced on October 27, 2016, masks are available on iOS to broadcasters in the U.S., U.K., and New Zealand.

Image via Facebook.

How to use a mask in Live video

  1. Tap the Live video icon to begin recording a broadcast
  2. Once live, tap the magic wand icon
  3. Select the masks icon in the creative tools tray at the bottom of the screen
  4. Scroll through the options and tap on masks to have them automatically appear on your face
  5. To remove the mask, scroll to the far left and tap the no mask option

It’s important to note that you will be live while selecting a mask.

Facebook Live API

The Facebook Live API allows broadcasters to “seamlessly incorporate Live into their existing broadcast setup.” This means that publishers who have more sophisticated equipment have the option to broadcast from a professional camera and audio setup rather than streaming Live video from a mobile device.

The Live API also enables features like camera switching, instant replay, on-screen graphics, and special effects. Using the API, publishers also have the ability to stream other sources, like games or screencasts.

For example, video game company Blizzard Entertainment used the Live API to enable gamers to live-stream their gameplay directly to Facebook from within the game.

Continuous Live streaming

Through the Facebook Live API, it’s possible to broadcast continuous live video. This is a tad more complex to set up than the average Live video broadcast, but offers a great option for users who may want to showcase a constant Live feed, such as a museum or zoo.

Schedule Live broadcasts

Using the Facebook Live API, publishers can schedule Live broadcasts in order to build up an audience before they begin streaming. When a publisher schedules a Live video, an announcement will be posted to News Feed letting their fans know the broadcast is coming.

Image via Facebook.

Users who see the post can choose to receive a one-time notification that will remind them shortly before the broadcast begins. Fans can then join a pre-broadcast lobby where they can connect and interact with other viewers before the Live video starts.

Image via Facebook.

Publishers can schedule Live broadcasts up to one week in advance and audiences can join a lobby three minutes prior to the start of the broadcast. Another bonus? Once publishers have scheduled a Live video, they’re able to share a link to the broadcast or embed it in other places, such as websites or blogs.

Facebook announced scheduling and lobby functionality on October 18, 2016. It was made available to Verified Pages later that week and Facebook said they planned to open it up to all Pages in the following weeks.

Ability to share in a group or event

Facebook Live video can be broadcast from a Facebook profile and Pages. It can also be shared directly in a Facebook group or event, giving users plenty of live-streaming options.

Metrics

For Pages, Facebook offers several different metrics to measure the success of their live video broadcasts.

In addition to the metrics available for video through Facebook Insights—video views, 30-second views, top videos, demographic breakdown of minutes viewed, viewer engagement, and more—Facebook provides two Live video-specific metrics:

Peak concurrent viewers

The highest number of viewers who were watching the video while it was live.

Viewers during live broadcast

A visual representation of the number of viewers during each moment of the live broadcast.

 

Ads

In August 2016, Facebook began testing mid-roll video ads in Facebook Live. Facebook told AdAge: “We’re running a small test where a group of publishers have the option to insert a short ad break in their Facebook Live videos.”

It’s not clear at this time whether Facebook will move ahead with implementing this more widely.

How to use Facebook Live

Live broadcasts can be identified by the red icon in the top left-hand corner of the video. The word “Live” will be written next to the icon, along with the number of current viewers.

How to start a Facebook Live broadcast:

  1. Tap on Update Status
  2. Select the Live Video icon
  3. Write a description
  4. Choose the audience you’d like to share with
  5. Go live

During the broadcast, you’ll see the number of live viewers, the names of any friends who are tuning in, and a real-time stream of comments. Once you’ve ended your broadcast, the post will save to your Timeline like any video.

Image via Facebook.

Live broadcasts can be up to 90 minutes long.

How to schedule a Facebook Live broadcast

  1. On your Page, go to Publishing Tools
  2. Select Video Library and then Live
  3. Copy stream credentials, such as stream key and server URL
  4. Write your announcement post
  5. Finalize your scheduled Live broadcast
  6. Click Schedule

Image via Facebook.

For more information and detailed step-by-step instructions, check out Facebook’s guide to scheduling a Live video.

Where to find Facebook Live broadcasts to watch

There are several ways to discover Facebook Live videos. The simplest is, of course, clicking on one in your News Feed. If there’s a particular broadcaster you enjoy, you can tap the Follow button while watching one of their videos to receive a notification next time they go live.

Image via Facebook.

You can also choose to receive notifications from Pages you follow. By default, this setting is set to on.

How to turn notifications on or off

  1. Click the drop-down arrow in the upper right-hand corner of the screen
  2. Select Settings
  3. Click Notifications on the left-hand side of the screen
  4. Click On Facebook
  5. Scroll down to Live videos, then choose your desired setting from the three options in the dropdown: On, Suggestions off, and All off

Image via Facebook.

Another way to find live broadcasts to watch is via the Facebook Live Map, which displays all Live broadcasts currently happening around the world.

Tips for using Facebook Live

Facebook offers several tips and best practices for using Facebook Live on their media site.

1. Plan your broadcast

Broadcasting live, by its very nature, means you can’t plan precisely what’s going to happen. But that doesn’t mean you should just wing it. Like any type of content online, Facebook Live broadcasts should have a purpose.

Before you begin streaming, ensure that you’ve taken some time to think about what your broadcast’s about, what you want to say (or do) in it, and why it makes sense as a Live stream as opposed to some other format of content.

2. Let people know when you’re going to broadcast

You wouldn’t hold a party and not invite anyone, would you? Your Facebook Live broadcast is like any other event: if you want anyone to show up, you’ve got to let them know it’s happening.

 

Hotel company Outrigger Resorts does an excellent job of this, creating 10 to 15 second long mini-trailers for their Live videos, which they share in advance of their broadcasts.

 

Obviously you’ll want to post about your upcoming broadcast on Facebook, where you can encourage people to subscribe to your Live videos. But you can also promote your stream on your other social channels. Just make sure you’re clear about where and when people can tune in!

 

The Facebook Live API makes this even easier by giving publishers the option to schedule broadcasts and share a link to their stream ahead of time.

3. Make sure you have a strong connection

It’s important to make sure you have a strong signal before you begin broadcasting. While WiFi is ideal, if it’s unavailable, a 4G connection works well.

For best results, check your internet speed prior to beginning your broadcast using the Speedtest app, available in the App Store and Google Play.

4. Write a compelling description before going live

Your description tells people what your video is about. A good one captures the audience’s attention and a bad one—or worse, none at all—makes it all the more likely they’ll keep on scrolling.

Use your description to tell a story. Give context about what your broadcast is about and be sure to make it clear why people would want to watch.

5. Tag your location

Add your location to your Live video so it shows up on the Facebook Live Map and gives you a greater chance of having it discovered by new viewers.

6. Ask viewers to follow you

Getting audience members to subscribe to your Live videos is the simplest way to ensure future viewers, because subscribers receive notifications every time you go Live. While broadcasting, take a second to let viewers know about the feature and tell them how they can subscribe to your videos.

7. Respond to comments

As with any kind of social content, engagement is key on Facebook Live video. Facebook recommends saying hello to commenters by name, then responding to their comments.

8. Broadcast for longer periods of time

The longer you continue your broadcast, the more time people have to discover your stream, watch it, and invite their friends to join in.

Facebook recommends going Live for at least 10 minutes. The maximum time limit for a broadcast is 90 minutes, so beyond that, the length is up to you.

9. Show exclusively Live content

While it’s possible using the Facebook Live API to insert previously recorded video into your live stream, Facebook recommends showing exclusively live content during Live videos.

10. Be creative

The more often you go Live, the more likely you are to stay top-of-mind. Try out different types of broadcasts to see what resonates with your audience. And don’t be afraid to get creative with your stream.

Ideas for Facebook Live content

Facebook suggest a number of different ways to use Live. These are a few of the ones that are most relevant for brands.

1. Hot topics

When something’s on everyone’s minds, it can be worthwhile for your brand to dive into the conversation. Though, as with any kind of trendjacking—whether it’s the holidays or the latest craze—it’s crucial to only hop on board if what you have to say is relevant and useful.

At the height of back-to-school season in August 2016, Target took to Facebook Live to chat about dorm room style.

 

The moderator read out questions from commenters, which were then displayed on the screen. The panel of college stylists dished out advice and discussed solutions. The stream has accumulated more than 38,000 views since its debut.

2. Interviews and Q&As

The interactive nature of Facebook Live means the platform was practically made for Q&As.

All brands need to try out this format is a host, a willing and interesting guest, and a mobile phone or camera to broadcast with. The audience can join in and ask questions in the comments, making the experience interactive.

Harry Potter prequel film Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them took to Facebook Live in October 2016 for a Global Fan Event. The Page streamed exclusive footage from the upcoming film alongside a Q&A with members of the cast.

 

It received more than 1.3 million views.

3. Breaking news

If you’re a journalist, publisher, or other media organization, then you already know when and how to live-stream breaking news. But for brands, it’s a little different.

Southwest Airlines used Facebook Live during winter storm Jonas to give a look behind-the-scenes at Operations Control, showing how they were coping with the weather and explaining what they were doing to help passengers whose travel plans were disrupted.

 

The notable thing about this stream is how Southwest approached the management of a PR crisis on social media by focusing on transparency and customer service. The video has accrued more than 89,000 views and over 2,700 likes.

4. Performances and live events

Whether it’s a conference or concert, Facebook Live is a good home for events. It opens up the experience to a wider audience, broadening the scope of your event.

In July 2016, Target live-streamed the launch party for their new children’s clothing line Cat & Jack. The broadcast was hosted by Zanna Roberts Rassi, senior fashion editor of Marie Claire and NBC Today show fashion contributor.

 

The stream racked up over 1.2 million views.

5. Behind-the-scenes

Behind-the-scenes content is popular on a number of social channels, particularly when it comes to social video. Facebook Live takes things one step further by giving the audience the opportunity to interact, ask questions, and influence the direction of the broadcast in real-time.

One brand that made good use of the Live format was the Smithsonian, broadcasting a series of six videos, each hosted by a different museum. The broadcasts explored various exhibits within the National Museum of African American History and Culture before its public opening.

 

Another brand that does a good job of behind-the-scenes content is Callaway Golf. In June 2016, the brand broadcast an exclusive tour of golf legend Arnold Palmer’s home, led by the golfer’s longtime friend Doc.

 

What sets Callaway’s livestream apart was the camera operator’s efforts to engage viewers throughout the stream. Around the five minute mark, he thanks the audience for tuning in and puts out a call for questions or requests for what the audience would like to see. Later on, about 20 minutes in, he reintroduces Doc and his relationship to Palmer for viewers who had just tuned in.

6. Demo

Live can be a great way to show off your products and how to use them.

Martha Stewart was one of the earliest adopters of Facebook Live, gaining access to the feature a month before most celebrities. She’s shown that demo-style videos—whether they’re cooking shows or a stream on how to properly iron a shirt—work well on the platform.

 

The broadcasts regularly rack up more than 150,000 views. As Business Insider noted, that’s more eyeballs than some episodes of “The Martha Stewart Show” after its move to the Hallmark Channel.

A recent stream, featuring actor Jesse Tyler Ferguson, in which Stewart demonstrates how to make a rhubarb-strawberry lattice pie, accumulated nearly 20,000 interactions, setting a new record for Stewart’s Facebook Page.

Her success on the platform recently prompted Adweek to proclaim that she’s “conquered Facebook Live.”

7. Announcements and campaign launches

Going Live for a big announcement or the launch of a campaign can be a good way to build anticipation for whatever it is you plan to tell your audience. Be sure to tease the live-stream in advance and let fans know to tune in for some big news.

Dunkin’ Donuts became one of the earliest brands to try out Facebook Live when they broadcast a behind-the-scenes look into their kitchen for a Valentine’s Day promotion in February 2016. The stream featured the team preparing a cake made from heart-shaped donuts and introduced a contest.

 

Dunkin’ Donuts’ social media manager, Melanie Cohn, told Marketing Land that the session racked up 21,000 viewers in only 13 minutes. She said the company saw one of their highest average view times ever on their Live video as compared to pre-recorded video.

8. Series

If you have an engaged audience and it fits your marketing goals, one option to consider is creating a T.V. show-style broadcast that you run on a regular basis.

Benefit Cosmetics has done this with their series Tipsy Tricks with Benefit. Tipsy Tricks is a weekly live show featuring a host and a guest chatting about beauty topics (often chosen by the audience), sharing advice, demonstrating products and techniques, and answering viewer questions. And, of course, drinking wine. (This is still the internet, after all.)

 

The show debuted in March 2016 and the first two streams accrued 42,000 and 59,000 live viewers respectively, with an average of 2,000 people tuning in at any given time, according to Digiday. A September 2016 episode featuring special guest and brow expert Jared Bailey racked up more than 189,000 views.

Claudia Allwood, Benefit’s senior director of U.S. digital marketing, explained the appeal to Internet Retailer: “Our Live videos are a great way to showcase our brand and to educate our consumers.”

“It is utility-meets-fun-meets-GF banter. We have a talk-show vibe, but we’re talking to you, not at you,” she told Digiday

Another brand that’s gone the show-route is Outrigger Resorts. The tourism brand streams an #AlohaFridayLive broadcast every Friday, taking viewers to a different resort in the chain, showing off the locales, introducing them to employees, and answering audience questions.

Frequently asked questions about Facebook Live

How do you broadcast live video on Facebook?

To start a live broadcast on Facebook:

  1. Tap on Update Status
  2. Select the Live Video icon
  3. Write a description
  4. Choose the audience you’d like to share with
  5. Go live

How do I get Facebook Live?

Facebook Live video is available to all Pages and profiles on Facebook for iOS, Android, and the Facebook Mentions app. Additionally, Facebook Live broadcasts can be streamed in Facebook groups and events.

How long does a Facebook Live video last?

Facebook Live broadcasts can last up to 90 minutes.

What is going live on Facebook?

Going live on Facebook means beginning a live broadcast that can be viewed by Facebook users around the world.

Why Your Social Media Posts Are More Popular Than You Think: Inside the Invisible Audience

Awesome news: 490 people saw a tweet I sent out this week! Awesomer still, 16 people either clicked the link, left a reply, or favorited the tweet.

And as for the other 474 people?

I couldn’t tell you.

Did they enjoy the tweet? Did they notice it? Did it delight them? Did it—eep!—offend them? And perhaps most importantly, what can I learn from these quiet observers so that, when I send my next tweet, those 474 followers find a reason to click, reply, retweet, or favorite?

Meet social media’s invisible audience—and the inevitable questions that this crowd elicits.

The invisible audience among my Twitter crowd and the invisible audiences on Buffer’s social media accounts (and even on this blog) offer a unique opportunity for us to consider how we craft our updates and our content. I’ll be happy to share how I think about this silent majority as well as some interesting research and rules about this topic.

Is this a demographic you consider in your social media marketing? Share in the comments, and read ahead for some insights, stats, and tips.

Your audience is 4x larger than you think

Posting to a social network site is like speaking to an audience from behind a curtain. The audience remains invisible to the user.

While the invitation list is known, the final attendance is not.

– Dr. Michael Bernstein, Stanford

How many people do you think see your updates on Facebook?

Chances are that your actual audience is much larger than you think.

A joint research project by Stanford and Facebook studied the perceived vs. actual audience sizes of 220,000 Facebook users. Each user was asked what they believed to be the size of their audience, then the research team compared this perceived size to an actual size, using server logs to gauge the true scope of a post’s audience.

The result: Your actual audience size is four times larger per post than what you think.

 

Also of note is how these users came to gauge the size of their perceived audience. Researchers classified survey responses into eight different categories, and none of the eight involved a specific audience-size metric like impressions or reach. The top way we gauge our audience size: Guessing.

 

Takeaway: Our posts reach a much greater number of people than we think. And we haven’t quite figured out how to measure our audience size.

Participation inequality: The 90-9-1 Rule

Back in 2006, bloggers Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba coined a term to describe the ratio of activity in online forums: The 1% Rule, also known as the 90-9-1 Rule.

  • 1 percent of users are creators
  • 9 percent of users are commenters
  • 90 percent of users are observers

This image from Christopher Allen sums it up nicely:

The rule has since been adopted across a wide range of Internet interactions, including social media. If you picture yourself in a group of 100 people, you are the creator, nine of the 100 people engage with your content, and the other 90 are just there to observe, read, and lurk.

Here’s the thing with this rule, though: It’s not going to be 100 percent accurate for your audience.

Paul Schneider tested the theory on his audience, finding a 70-20-10 ratio.

The Community Roundtable noticed a split of 55-30-15 among their community.

You’ll have your own ratio.

For instance, in the example that I used to start this article, my Twitter ratio of participation inequality was closer to 95-4-1. Across our Buffer social profiles, I’ve noticed a similar split—4 to 5 percent engagement rate is fairly standard.

So instead of taking the 90-9-1 rule as gospel truth, it’s best to think of it as a reminder that lurkers are in the majority, engagement is the minority. And this tends to be the norm for online communication.

How large is your silent majority?

To come up with your own ratio of participation inequality—and to see how many people truly view each of your updates and posts—you simply need to look at the numbers. Here’s how I found our ratio for Buffer’s social accounts and the Buffer blog.

How to find your invisible audience on Twitter

To check out your stats on Twitter, you can navigate to the new analytics dashboard for publishers, developers, and advertisers at analytics.twitter.com. It’s quite beautiful, and super informative. (If you’ve yet to get analytics access, you can try a tool like TweetReach.) From the main dashboard you can see your tweet impressions: the number of times users saw your tweet. Next to that is tweet engagements: all clicks anywhere on the tweet (including avatar, username, hashtags, links, and tweet expansion), retweets, replies, favorites, and follows.

Then Twitter will even do the math for you with engagement rate: engagements divided by impressions. Your invisible audience is the difference between impressions and engagements, or the inverse of engagement rate.

Here is a sample post from our Buffer analytics:

 

 How to find your invisible audience on Facebook

You can grab your ratio from Facebook in a similar way to Twitter. Go to your page insights (click on Insights at the top of any page you manage), and total up the Reach from your recent posts and the Engagement from your recent posts. Then divide engagement by reach to arrive at your engagement rate.

You can also peek at an individual post to see its reach and then total up the likes and comments to gauge engagement.

 

How to find your invisible audience on your blog

Hop into your analytics dashboard and look for the unique visits to each post (in Google Analytics, you’ll find this under Behavior > Site Content). Then find the total comments on each post, divide comments by visitors, and you’ll get the comment rate.

One of our most popular recent posts, Courtney’s list of free image sources, has brought a whopping 147,000 visitors to the blog and a whopping 116 comments. Interesting, the comment rate on this post—even with over 100 comments—is 0.08 percent. If we were to split up the 90-9-1 rule of participation according to this post’s comment numbers, the ratio might look like this: one creator, the big toe of a commenter, and the rest lurkers (and clickers and sharers)!

In our experience, blogs have an even greater invisible audience than on social.

5 ways to respond to your invisible audience

OK, back to the question that started out this article: What does your invisible audience think of your content? There’s no way to really know, yet that shouldn’t stop you from supporting this large group and thinking outside the box on ways to reach them. Here are five different ways I’ve found to do just that.

1. Go where your invisible audience is

Have you heard of the phrase “dark social”?

It’s a term that describes the sharing that happens outside the traditional bounds of social media. For instance, people may share via email or via IM, and these interactions are seldom included in traditional share numbers. A 2012 study from The Atlantic and Charbeat found that 69 percent of social referrals were from dark social—i.e., not Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, etc.

If your invisible audience wishes to stay invisible on social media, could there be another place to find them?

We’ve recently began looking deeper at email. Our stats show that the invisible audience size on email is smaller than it is on social. We can reach 27 to 40 percent of our email list of 35,000 each time we press send.

Another interesting take on this is the most-used apps by this year’s high school graduates. Texting is the far-and-away winner, with other interesting apps like Pandora and Netflix among the top ten.

 

2. Keep a consistent schedule

One of the conclusions from the Stanford-Facebook study mentioned above was that a misperception about audience size could have a direct effect on one’s social media marketing.

The mismatch between the size of perceived audience and the actual audience may be impacting users’ behavior, ranging from the type of content they post, how often they post, and their motivations to share content.

The reasoning here is that a smaller perceived audience might cause sharers to decrease their volume of updates. If few people are listening, the temptation might be to post less often.

Heidi Cohen advises to withstand the temptation. Keep a consistent schedule (a scheduling app like Buffer can help with this). Your invisible audience is likely much larger than you think, and they’re primed to keep hearing from you.

3. Invite participation

Dan Zarrella’s popular social media research often references a consistent trend: If you ask for participation, you’re more likely to get it.

This might look a number of different ways. For instance, Zarrella found that asking for a retweet actually increases one’s odds of getting retweeted—by up to 39 percent.

 

4. Stick to your guns (or your bio)

How might you know what kind of content your invisible audience wants?

One of my theories is that they’re likely to want what you’ve promised them—either via your social media bio, your blog mission statement, or your company/position/tagline.

For instance, I’ve mentioned that you can expect tweets from me about writing as well as a handful of fun, curated links. I’ve likely gained a silent majority of followers who understand (and appreciate) that this is the type of content I’ll be sharing.

 

5. Rely on accurate metrics

It’s tempting to look at clicks, shares, comments, and favorites and assume that those are the people reading and viewing your content. Remember, it’s likely that your audience is much, much larger.

I’ve come to rely on a handful of different metrics to gauge the success of a piece of content. Above, I outlined how to view reach or impressions via Facebook or Twitter. Here are a few other social media and blog stats that I tend to focus on.

  • Relative engagement rate – average conversations happening per post, per follower
  • Follower/fan growth, week-over-week and month-over-month
  • Time on site
  • Social shares

Over to you: How might you respond to your invisible audience?

It’s clear that the silent majority on social media makes up a huge amount of the people seeing our tweets, posts, and updates.

How might this invisible audience impact the way you share?

I’ve found it’s important to stay on topic, post consistently, and track these silent impressions as accurately as possible. You may even find value in seeking out new places to find these quiet followers: email, direct message, forums, or even SMS.

My one big thing: Keep this invisible audience in mind when you’re posting. Be their voice by remembering that they’re out there, reading, observing, lurking, and following—and doing so in much greater droves than we might think.

Stop Ads That Follow You on Facebook, Google and the Web

Enabling privacy settings will stop advertisers from targeting you with your browsing history

ByJOANNA STERN Nov. 4, 2016 

Yesterday you searched for Planters nuts on Amazon. Today, there he is, Mr. Peanut—monocle, top hat and all—smack in the middle. 

Enable these privacy settings to keep Facebook and other digital overlords from using your web browsing history, says WSJ's Joanna Stern.

Facebook and other websites use your web browsing history (or more technically, your web browser’s cookies) to target ads at you. It is often referred to as “interest-based advertising” although I prefer the term “stalking.” Here’s how to stop the ads from following you on different services.

 

On Facebook

In the Facebook iOS or Android app, tap the three lines in the bottom-right corner, select Settings > Account Settings > Ads. Tap “Can you see online interest-based ads from Facebook?” and then “Off.” This will turn off the setting across your Facebook account—on all your devices. On a computer? Go to facebook.com/ads/settings.

While you are there, opt out of allowing Facebook to use your personal info when showing you ads across the web. Click “No” on “Can your Facebook ad preferences be used to show you ads on apps and websites off of the Facebook Companies?”

 Across the Web

Other tech companies offer similar settings of their own. Visit these sites on your devices to opt out:

 - Google

- Amazon

- Microsoft

On your computer, if you want to stop other sites from accessing your browsing history to feed you ads, head to the Digital Advertising Alliance Consumer Choice page . This will only work, however, on the computer you are on. Also, if you clear the browser cache in the future, you will have to redo the process.

You should enable “Do not track” in your computer and smartphone’s browser. In Chrome, click the three vertical dots > Settings > “Show advanced settings…” > Privacy > “Send a ‘Do Not Track’ request with your browsing traffic.” You can find similar settings in Safari, Firefox, Edge and Internet Explorer.

 On Your Smartphone

There are similar settings built into your phone’s operating system. On an iPhone, go to Settings > Privacy > Advertising, and turn on “Limit Ad Tracking.”

On an Android phone, go to Settings > Google > Ads. There you can click “Opt out of interest-based ads.” This setting is just for Google-based ads, however.

These settings won’t end the ads, but they can limit how often Mr. Peanut feels the urge to sneak up on you.

5 Social Media Marketing Strategies that all eCommerce Marketers Must Know!

With more customers shopping online than ever before, and ever-increasing competition for attention, online businesses will only be able to maximize their success if they learn how to build on organic engagement in social media.

Don’t get me wrong, gaining organic traffic through search, and even conversions from paid ads, are still great ways to build business. However, leveraging a community to build sales from organic engagement costs nothing more than your time. And besides that, there are plenty of tools available to help you along the way.

Here are five practical strategies you can implement straight away which will help boost traffic and sales through your social channels.

1. Create, Curate, and Share Awesome Content

If all you do through your social channels is promote your own products, your audience is going to burn out on your pages and posts pretty fast. The more the engagement drops on your posts, the less often your new posts will be seen by your followers - after all, channels like Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest want to display only the most interesting content to keep users engaged (and there are a lot of brands competing for the limited space in a user’s social feed).

Ramp up engagement by finding really awesome repurposed content. I’m not just talking about reposting old articles or sharing cool stuff you found on other websites. Instead, take the Skyscraper approach or create something similar to Buzzfeed’s listicles.

Find an interesting topic and mold it into something much better than the original. That’s what the guys at Shopify did when they were tasked with launching a profitable business in just three days.

 

Using BuzzSumo, they searched for pieces of highly-shared content that was relevant to their audience. Using the original video created by someone else, they took the tips and created a targeted list post, then shared that to a relevant community online.

 

It didn’t take long for the new content to start driving traffic to the online store where the article was hosted.

While this surge of new traffic usually won’t result in immediate sales, well-optimized content like this will continuously send traffic and generate sales over the long-run.

2. Embrace Micro-Content

One of the problems faced by many marketers today - not just those in ecommerce - is that the web is in a constant state of information overload. Audiences are bombarded with updates from their favorite brands, publishers, and media outlets, both directly and through the shares from people in their network.

With limited time and shrinking patience, consumers just aren’t willing to spend a lot of time digesting content anymore, you can’t expect them to be willing to watch a 10-minute video or read a 5,000 word article when they’re on-the-go.

This is why micro-content comes in handy. Short, 10-second Snapchats or brief videos posted to Instagram and Facebook – or even a video converted to GIF format for Twitter – can bump up your engagement.

With micro-content, you get the same benefits of video, and your audience is more likely to watch when they know it won’t cost them more than 10-20 seconds of their time.

Major brands have been leveraging this since Vine took off, including Lowe's, Doritos, Taco Bell, and even NASCAR.

3. Blogs Are Social, Too

It’s not uncommon for marketers and online store owners to have tunnel vision and get stuck on the idea that social media is all about Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and Snapchat. But blogs are absolutely forms of social media - they’re platforms where content is posted, and that content sees shares and comments, just like the more popular social platforms.

When you’re marketing an ecommerce business, be sure to include regular blog outreach in your social media strategy. It can drive a LOT of traffic back to your store if you do it right.

That’s what Richard Lazazzera from A Better Lemonade Stand learned when he challenged himself to launch a t-shirt business in just 24 hours. After creating his store on Shopify and listing his products, he reached out to a local blogger to ask if he would be interested in covering the products since they related to an article the blogger had recently published.

 

When Richard woke up the next morning, he found a stream of notifications from new customers that came from that blogger publishing a post about the shirts. That post not only led to sales, but other people interested in collaborating with Richard.

 

Don’t just create your own content, reach out to influencers and bloggers who align with your audience and work with them to get your business or products featured on other sites and social channels.

4. Create More Engaging Content

Whenever you post content on your social channels, it should have a purpose, whether that’s to generate comments, shares, drive traffic to your store, etc. The best way to do that is to always create content with a focus on maximizing engagement.

Some of the best ways to do this include: asking questions, crafting strong call-to-action specific to engagement, and targeting your audience’s emotions with a little controversy from time to time.

This is particularly effective if you center your content around a product or your brand, like Ahole Gear has done.

 

 

Doritos recently combined another one of the above approaches by creating a short video clip that leverages their product and adds a touch of political controversy to get people talking.

 

The more engaging your content is, the farther it will reach beyond your immediate followers as they comment, like, and share the content. This will lead to repeat customers as well as the acquisition of new customers who weren’t previously aware of your brand.

5.  Use Social Reviews

Customer product reviews are a great ways to build social proof on your product pages and let new customers know what they can expect when making a purchase from you. A lot of ecommerce platforms use apps like Yotpo to develop more engaging reviews in their online stores, but you can also leverage reviews from your social media.

Not only does Yotpo enable you to connect your social accounts to post user-generated content on your pages, but Facebook also has its own native reviews that you should activate. This way, when prospective customers discover you in social media they can see right from the channel, without ever going to your site, that people are raving about your products and service.

For example, Coval Vapes is a brick and mortar store that also sells its products worldwide on its online store, and it has amassed a nice run of highly-rated reviews on its Facebook page.

 

Be sure to consistently encourage your fans to leave reviews. Rather than ask for reviews through your social channels, send follow-up emails after purchases and include a highly visible call-to-action note. Ask them to please come back and review their purchase on your social channels, or within your store, so you can later benefit from greater social proof generated by satisfied customers.

9 Tools and Apps to Help You Find Amazing Content

October 28, 2016 Justin Kerby

Content is king. As a marketer and business owner, I hear this almost every single day - and I’m sure you do too. Truth be told, it’s the context of the content that's really important. You need to find and share content that will either entertain, inspire, educate or convince your audience with each piece you put out.

That being said, it can often be difficult to discover and curate a steady stream of shareable articles, videos and infographics. The web is a big place, and knowing where to start searching is often half the battle.

Below I’ve listed 9 awesome apps, tools, and websites which can help you discover new content. Each of the platforms should offer itself as a starting point from which you can build your social media calendar.

1. Nuzzel

 

Nuzzel is one of the best apps for finding content - particularly if you’re active on Twitter. If you follow numerous accounts that are relevant in your industry, the content provided by Nuzzel is invaluable.

The app connects with your Twitter feed, and shows you the most shared content from users you follow. If you don’t follow accounts relevant to your industry, don’t worry - Nuzzel also lets you see the most shared content from the followers of other users.

So for example, if you wanted to see what real estate news is trending, you could go and look at a real estate influencers' feed on the app. It’s a great way to stay on top of the latest news.

2. StumbleUpon

 

StumbleUpon is a discovery engine that finds and recommends content to users. All you have to do is select a few interests, and hit the 'Stumble' button and the platform will show you pages relevant to your interests.

StumbleUpon is great at finding unique, share-worthy content. If you’re looking for a way to spice up your content curation, it can be very helpful.

3. Reddit

 

Reddit is the front page of the Internet, and it’s a great place to find content. Subreddits enable users to browse different topics - everything from DIY to World News has a subreddit where users post and upvote the best content. Take a look at the subreddits and subscribe to those that are the hottest in your industry. This way, when you log into Reddit, your front page will be full of content specific to you.

Tip: Reddit can also be a great place to share your own unique content. If you’re active on the platform and get familiar with some of the subreddits, submitting tasteful (not spammy) links can be a great way to get more traffic to your website. 

4. Digg

 

A news aggregator, Digg focuses on articles that are getting the most shares around the web. The platform is particularly good for finding technology, science, and entertainment news, and even enables you to get notifications as to what's being shared the most in your social networks with Digg Deeper notifications.

If you’re looking for the most popular content to show up in your inbox, Digg is a great platform to use.

5. Feedly

 

Feedly is one of the most powerful tools on this list, enabling users to subscribe to multiple news feeds and create custom segments that they can follow. Feedly makes it easy to keep track of different types of news, and even to monitor popular news stories based on topics.

Desktop, iOS, and Android apps are all available with Feedly, and with a plethora of integrations -like Pocket and Buffer - Feedly truly can be your central hub for content curation.

6. Daily by Buffer

 

Buffer launched the Daily app as a way for users to find more shareable content, and it works very well. The app shows users popular articles in one of 6 categories: 'Marketing', 'Inspiration', 'Business & Startups', 'Lifehacking', 'Design', and 'Buffer Picks'. Then, the app cycles through articles and headlines in a Tinder-style dance, making scheduling content super easy.

7. Quora

 

Aiming to be the #1 question and answer site online, Quora enables its users to ask and answer questions. The community is growing, and it can be a great place to find unique content. Questions come in all shapes and sizes, and cover virtually every topic imaginable.

8. Google Alerts

 

If you have a certain phrase, company, or anything else you’d like to monitor in Google search results, setting up Google Alerts is a great option. Google Alerts will notify you daily of any new search results including your keyword, and send the info straight to your inbox. It’s a great way to monitor articles mentioning both you and your company.

9. Pocket

 

Formerly known as Read It Later, Pocket can be a life saving tool when it comes to curating content - it may, in fact, be the most important tool on this list. After you’ve tried out each of the above platforms, one of the most challenging tasks is organizing your content. This is where we highly recommend using Pocket, as part of the three-step content plan. Save everything to Pocket, and use the app's 'Recommendations' feature to find more content that you can share with your audience.

Think of this app as your ever-present content bank.

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Getting more in-store sales with Facebook & Instagram ads!

From raising awareness of your business to having people take action on your website or mobile app, Instagram helps advertisers get the business results they care about. In fact, across nearly 700 campaigns, 98% generated significant lifts in ad recall—2.8X higher than Nielsen norms.* And 70% of performance campaigns generated statistically significant lifts for online conversions or mobile app installs.† But the value of Instagram ads extends beyond mobile.

More than just online sales, advertisers are generating sales in-store with Instagram ads. According to a study by Oracle Data Cloud’s Datalogix, Instagram drove a median of a 1.8% lift in in-store sales and a median 2.1% lift in household penetration.‡ Earlier this year, popular potato chip company Lays did just that by adding Instagram to its Flavor Swap campaign.

To build brand awareness of its new chip flavors and move chips off store shelves, Lays ran its national Flavor Swap campaign across both Instagram and Facebook. The interactive campaign let people decide which flavors stay or go by pitting classic Lays’ flavors against new ones. Working closely with media agency OMD and Instagram Partner Adaptly, the snack company created a series of video ads. By running ads across Instagram and Facebook, Lays increased its reach by 5%, lowered its CPM by 3% and drove a 5% sales lift compared to when it ran a campaign on Facebook only.


“Running our Flavor Swap campaign across Instagram and Facebook and Instagram proved a powerful punch in our ability to build awareness on mobile for new chip flavors and ultimately drive sales,” says Atin Kulkarni, Senior Director, Portfolio Strategy, Frito-Lay North America.

If you’re an advertiser looking to drive in-store sales, you can get results on Instagram. By targeting ads to your audience on the platform, you can reach a wider audience of people and drive greater impact for sales.

Sources: *Instagram analysis of Nielsen Brand Effect for Instagram results, between November 2013 and September 2015; †Instagram Internal Research May 2016; ‡Instagram drove a median 1.8% lift in in-store sales and a 2.1% lift in household penetration, across 12 US CPG campaigns measured for potential sales impact by Oracle Data Cloud.

Anthony Denardis

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Google to SEOs: Time to AMP Up

Twitter will host the 1st ever LIVE NFL game on a social media platform.

 Twitter (TWTR) to Live Stream First NFL Game This Week

AmandaSchiavo 

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Social networking giant Twitter (TWTR) will live stream its first NFL game on Thursday night of this week. Twitter and the NFL announced the $10 million deal in April.

In Twitter's first broadcast deal the company will be allowed to live stream 10 NFL games during the 2016 season.

"They actually got a good deal, it's the Jets and the Bills by the way. They got 10 games that they can stream on CBS' (CBS) feed on its mobile app and website," Fox Business Network's Ashley Webster said on "Varney and Company" Tuesday morning.

Webster believes the million dollar per game deal is "actually a bargain," arguing that the NFL could have gotten more money. However, the NFL is looking for new ways to reach an audience that has cut the cord.

Webster is more curious about how Twitter is going to leverage this deal.

"Are you going to be able to sell big time video ads to go along with it, to make it worthwhile?," Webster questioned. He called this a "big test" for Twitter, adding that it may also be a turning point.

This is also an important move for the NFL as it tries to hang onto millennial viewers, FBN's Steve Cortez chimed in. Cortez noted that the older generation of NFL watchers will sit down to enjoy a full three-hour football game, while most millennials do not.

Manage your social media or else!

Friday Thesis:

"This exactly why having a social media team to manage your content & engagement is vital in 2016/2017. VITAL!

No longer hiring someone to 'throw some posts' on your page works. It not what you say but what you hear. Obviously Amtrack failed miserably (image below) at taking care of a customer in dire straits.

Don't be that business that ignores people or responds months later."

Personal Branding is one top marketing tools to your organization

Why is personal branding beneficial to organizations?

"A lot of organizations shy away from letting their staff have their own brands and be individuals, and I think that’s a rather short-sighted because actually, if you can allow your staff to have a brand, to get known in the market, to have connections, have networks that they can really work, that’s going to enable them to do their job better. If a problem comes up or they need an answer to something, having got themselves out there, raised their profile and made this network, they’re much more resourceful than they might be if they just have to sit at their desk and nobody knows who they are.

And it doesn’t even have to be a network outside of an organization. Using your brand to raise your profile within an organization, and people getting to know each other better, knowing exactly what your strengths are, thinking, “Oh, great. I’ll go to you the next time I need X, Y, and Z.” For an organization, that has to be beneficial."

Could strong personal brands be dangerous for companies?

"Well, if someone is out for themselves, they're out for themselves. Organizations can sometimes be scared of people with strong brands, thinking, “We don’t want anyone to really stand out. We don’t want anyone to have their own personality.” In fact, actually, years ago, someone said to me about one of the main consulting companies - I won’t name them, but they worked over there for over 20 years - and they said, “You're not allowed to be individual. You have to be a clone that represents that organization in the outside world.”

So that’s fine, and if you're that sort of person, if that doesn’t bother you, you'll love working for that organization. But I think they’re missing a trick because actually, organizations can benefit from someone with a strong brand, with a high profile, with a good network, because they’re the people who have eyes on them. The business can flow in through them. So there's a plus and there's a minus to it, though, because if they leave, you could end up high and dry."

What are the steps to implementing personal branding?

"Whether I’m working with people on their brand within an organization - sometimes it’s at graduate levels, sometimes it’s at, as you say, talent levels, sometimes at exec level - the steps that I take people through are exactly the same.

The first step is defining the brand because - getting that clarity, really understanding in-depth the who and the what that you're putting in the package needs to be the first part. So that's very important - I’ve actually had the feedback from people, saying, “Wow, they came out with a lot more confidence”, so just understanding yourself is quite a nice thing.

The second thing I do is I get people to check their brand - by which I mean to get some feedback and find out if how they've perceived themselves in step one is how other people are seeing them. And I find this can be a real 'wake up and smell the coffee' moment, particularly when I work with people one-to-one and that rapport is very in-depth. Often where organizations have benefited is maybe they’ve had someone who hasn’t realized the negative impact they’ve been creating, and the real payback for the company is that person has suddenly gone, “Oh, okay. Now I see it,” which is very important. On the whole, though, people actually get complete confidence based from the feedback because people are reiterating that yes, what you think is good is what we think is good.

And then the third step is always how do people promote their brands. Now, depending on what my clients are telling me about the audience in front of me, that will be tailored to maybe at graduate level, the real basics of how you look - things like timekeeping, things like the language in your emails. At the talent level, it’s a bit more about getting out there as leaders, getting more buy-in. And then at an executive level, it’s very much understanding impact, how they come across, and how to improve that."

 

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5 Keys to Building a Culture of Content

5 Keys to Building a Culture of Content

By Joe LazauskasAugust 29th, 2016

Most companies are thinking about content all wrong—or at the very least, in a very limited way.

Content is primarily thought of as a marketing tool—a way to boost brand perception, reach potential customers, and drive leads. But in truth, content can wield a powerful influence on divisions across the enterprise—particularly any that are external-facing. Content serves as a powerful tool for sales teams, a driver for recruiting efforts, a boon for investor relations, and a cost-saver for customer service. It also helps maintain relationships with vendors, agencies, and suppliers, and can help facilitate corporate communications and build company culture.

This relationship is symbiotic. Departments outside of traditional marketing divisions are a great source of content ideas and expertise in particular subject matter. Customer service teams are the experts on customer pain points. Salespeople are the experts on prospect needs. Product and research divisions can provide dynamic thought leadership. Just as content powers the enterprise, the entire enterprise can be a great resource in powering content creation.

This virtuous circle is only possible when the company works to build a culture of content that values and evangelizes content, championing the positive impact it can have on myriad aspects of the business and driving the goals of specific divisions (e.g., meeting recruitment and retention goals). Five key actions are critical to this task:

Create a common purpose

Upon entering Marriott’s headquarters in Bethesda, Maryland, the first thing employees see is the M Live studio, Marriott’s high-tech content center.

M Live is symbolic of Marriott’s commitment to telling the brand’s story to a mass audience. M Live is a physically prominent part of the office, and has a dedicated chair for eight different departments. The studio helps unify the company around a common purpose.

“This is a tool for everybody to use in the building,” said David Beebe, Marriott’s vice president of global creative and content marketing. “It’s customer-first thinking. A lot of brands can’t achieve what we’re doing. They think, ‘I can’t do that because someone over there is not going to like it.'”

(Full disclosure: Marriott is a Contently client.)

Engage senior leadership

While a chief executive will rarely run a brand’s content operation, support from him or her is crucial.

Chase’s ambitious News and Stories content center is championed by Chief Brand Officer Susan Canavari, and its editorial board is chaired by CMO Kristin Lemkau. At Electrolux, the world’s second-largest appliance brand, CMO MaryKay Kopf brings together task forces of team members from across departments and regions of the world to unite around content. Because content tends to be a new and experimental initiative at most brands, buy-in from the bosses is key to success.

“I think content is the most important thing we do,” explained Kopf. “We curate custom content for wherever she is in that journey, with our brand as her friend. Then we utilize all that content to tell one story and develop technology to enable that.”

(Full disclosure: Chase is a Contently client.)

Establish content leadership and governance

For a content methodology to succeed and a culture of content to grow, an organization needs a leader who can evangelize content across departments, and potential partners, champion success to senior leadership, and ensure content is compliant. Often, an important part of this role is advocating for better metrics and KPIs that demonstrate content success.

Beginning in 2013, Brian Becker, head of content for the Chase Newsroom, and his colleague Stacey Warwick, head of brand innovation, began rallying internal support for the company’s newsroom. They established a system of governance and standards, built a team of content creators, and created an editorial board. Chase now has a dashboard of critical content success metrics accessible to over 150 stakeholders within the organization, along with work ows that allow them to swiftly get content approval from all necessary parties.

“We had to set up our infrastructure and then show the organization how it could work,” Becker said. “We needed to prove that content can improve marketing’s effectiveness. We also built standards, governance, and communication that reinforced that we would be responsible and thorough.”

Today, content sits front and center on the Chase homepage, and has helped the brand engage its customers much more deeply.

 

Foster collaboration

It is crucial that leaders from different parts of the organization consistently come together to evaluate the success of their content and iterate on new ideas. The newsroom for Coca-Cola’s corporate online magazine, Coca-Cola Journey, gathers weekly to evaluate content based on a blended content score, and has a monthly call with 25 international markets, each of which has its own version of the Journey site. Coca-Cola hopes to expand that number to 40 by year’s end. The content team also has an annual publishing Summit, known as JourneyOn.

Raymond James’s content hub, Raymond James Point of View, is public but is built with the objective of serving the brand’s primary clients: financial advisors. According to Mike White, the brand’s CMO, this objective enables financial advisors to educate clients, boosts their individual reputation as subject-matter experts, and, in the process, bolsters the larger Raymond James brand. The company consistently gets feedback on its content from financial advisors via surveys that, in turn, inform the company’s editorial calendar. White says that 95 percent of advisors have recently used Raymond James content.

(Full disclosure: Raymond James and Coca-Cola are Contently clients.)

Encourage creativity and risk-taking

When Marriott began production on Two Bellmen, its award-winning short film, Beebe largely gave director Miguel Cabrera full reign to exercise his creativity. In fact, Beebe’s only real criticism of the first cut was a self-promotional shot for Marriott.

“We don’t want to see any ‘Welcome to the JW Marriott, here’s your keycard,’ and then a closeup of the logo,” he said. “None of that.”

Coca-Cola goes as far as to create a formula that ensures they’re taking enough risks. As detailed in Altimeter Group’s “A Culture of Content” report:

Coca-Cola bases its content strategy on a 70/20/10 rule, which gives creative teams carte blanche to experiment with 20 to 30 percent of the content they produce. This allows Coke to create a steady stream of “safe” content while also pushing boundaries to try to be the next big thing.

A culture of content doesn’t emerge overnight, but working to build one across these five areas is crucial for any organization committed to content marketing success. It’s also the first and most important step to creating a content marketing program that will get better and better over time.