Content Marketing Pop Quiz
by EMILY MITCHELL
Q: What brand does a stellar job building their business with a combination of offline events and social media?
A: Salesforce.com proves its ranking as the #1 market leader in CRM platforms, with is combination of offline events and social media. To wit, the annual Dreamforce conference and user summit combines thought leadership, education, networking and lots of fun. Drawing in 170,000 users in 2016, Dreamforce reinforces Salesforce.com’s stature as the leading CRM sales platform. This IRL event is the stuff of a content marketer’s dream; panels led by world-class speakers such as Marc Cuban and Chris Sacca can be live-streamed and later packaged as sleek videos on the Salesforce.com site. Additionally, user-generated sharing is a no-brainer, as the thousands of participants happily hashtag their whereabouts throughout the event. In sum, the Dreamforce conference is an incredible confluence of offline events and social media, which serve to buoy the brand’s standing.
Q: What are your top 3 tips for creating and cultivating brand content that generates sharing across social?
A: Tip #1: The medium is the message. Nothing is more soul-rankling than the brand that posts identical content across all available social platforms. While the target viewer may be toggling between Facebook, twitter, and Instagram this should not give a brand the wherewithal to bombard its user with identical content across those same channels. The key is to personalize, both to the medium and to the user. For example, perhaps the brand’s goal is to convert a viewer into a qualified sales prospect. An effective means is to create an offering, such as a white paper, that is useful to the viewer. The brand may ask ask the viewer to submit a couple of data points via a landing page form. Always customize to your audience. Are you targeting pilots, lawyers, or doctors? Create a white paper that is specific to these demographics and take advantage of personalization tools.
A twitter post would do well to use intriguing copy. An Instagram post, and particularly a promoted post, must be visually engaging — beautiful or beguiling, with a clear image and even clearer caption and tracked hyperlink.
Tip #2: Digital native companies like Attn:, Buzzfeed, and Headspace are leveraging the power of short videos, particularly within Facebook. Videos will begin to play simply by being hovered over with a mouse, and most have closed captioning and subtitles which can hook even the most passive of viewers.
Tip #3: Enjoy the process and follow your gut. Experiment across mediums. When you are not paying for promoted content, the only expense is time. Particularly with paid posts, be sure to track all links in order to see which channels are performing best. Understand your marketing funnel and optimize, optimize, optimize!
