Content Marketing Digest Edition 1
I plan to curate regularly what I see being published about Content Marketing on the web. This should help you keep tabs on new trends, stay inspired by success cases, use better Calendar.ly for your own pleasure and success!
Digest Articles:
Google: Youtube Playbook
This is a short and right to the point guide filled with lots of interesting insights. Google is promoting their Youtube platform, but they do it based on how users consume Content. Google is one of the leaders in removing friction to allow for content consumption and stickiness to their platforms.
It is interesting to see how Google guides Content Creators to produce content pieces depending on 3 main factors:
1. User Journey Stage:
“..For awareness and consideration, place your brand later and focus on building a connection..”
and
“…When optimizing for ad recall, integrate your brand in the first five seconds.”
Google is clearly telling you to create different video executions depending on the user journey and also, that if you decide to use Re-targeting or Direct Response tactics you should then brand your video directly within the first 5 secs.
2. Content Consumption behaviors:
Google has been pushing the consumption behaviors in their Micromoments concept for long and they keep on pushing on the same message, it might be because it just makes common basic sense!: It seems there are 2 main moments to watch Youtube:
“..95% of YouTube ads are watched with sound on…”
This is when you have a lot of free time and you just sit or lay down and watch Youtube as if it was a TV. Or you are on the run, killing time while waiting in line and
“…You have only seconds to grab and hold their attention…”
so make sure you put something attractive quickly in the first seconds.
3. Make sure you measure outcome:
Content creation is expensive and time consuming. You better start measuring the outcomes of your content pieces and content formats. Youtube allows for CTA, subscribe, End screens, info cards, etc. Use them and then measure how these users react to your marketing collateral and business. You might realize that users who subscribe have a higher Life Time Value, a better email open rate, a higher sharing rate, a higher NPS, etc. If not, then change your strategies and find the one that delivers a bigger ROI.
How does Calendar.ly fit into all this?
A Post in Calendar.ly can be defined for a set of social profiles or only one so you make sure you fine tune the Post for the medium where it is going to be posted. Remember, consumption behavior varies per social media outlet, even within a single social media outlet, the user journey, and media ad formats will define the format the Content piece needs to be like. Make sure you use Topics to group several Posts that are related, but are tailored for a different purpose or micro moment.
Can You Still Blog Your Way to Visibility & Credibility?
Rand Fishkin, -who actually wrote a really good book about founding companies: “Lost and Founder”-, gives his point of view based on current data and years of experience on how relevant is Blogging these days.
He clearly concludes that:
“..still popular, though the frequency has dropped…”
“..Blogs themselves have become ubiquitous (nearly every site has them), but average quality has generally gone down..”
Based on this, he suggests to Blog only if:
“…Primarily serving an audience that has a consistent, ongoing need for information around your topics (i.e. you’re likely to build loyalty b/c people consistently wanting content in this field)…”
“…Able to work for months or years to become in the top 5%…”
in your industry.
Nowadays, we live in an over-saturated information age. There are too many information outlets: Facebook, Twitter, Medium, Reddit, Buzzfeed, Instagram, Pocket and niche sites/forums/communities. Blogging is just one of them. As a marketing team you need to analyze where does your Target Audience spend most of the time, and where they are more keen to engage with your Brand. If you are in an industry where intimate topics are relevant, maybe Facebook and Instagram are not the perfect places to raise awareness, but if you deal with more wide societal topics, raising awareness in such social media outlets might be definitely interesting. If you need to become the authority in a B2B environment, then blogging might be an option if you know you do want to become the top 5% content producer in your industry.
How does Calendar.ly fit into this?
Blogging can become a daunting task. It will not have as much amplification as a video. It will not generate as much awareness and quality blogging pieces will require, research data, analysis, visual elements and thorough good copy-writing. You will invest lots of time and budget on a blog piece, the same levels as a video production even. Calendar.ly Posts are a great way to consolidate the initial brief, all the research data, analysis, copywriter and visual feedback together as a single source of truth.
Category Design, Competition, and Getting Creatives to Do Legendary Work with Christopher Lochhead
This is a really fun to listen Podcast. I was not into Podcasts since a few months ago and a BIG new landscape of great entertaining knowledge has opened up for me. I recommend you try it out as well. Download a podcast app or use the Google podcast one, or just listen to them online. For me, I personally listen to them while driving to work. It is like my personalized radio. The content quality is amazing and the topics are very varied.
In this particular Podcast the main topic is “category design” which comes down to: be unique and be first to market. The conversation is quite distended and tongue in cheek sometimes. It is not too related to Content Marketing, but the leitmotif definitely resonates with Content creation. The noise in social media is too much, either you are unique and first to market, or you better have a plan B.
How does Calendar.ly fit into this?
We have a creative challenge in every marketing collateral piece we work on. We need to be unique. We need to be relevant (time to market). We need to know when to execute which tactic. This is where Calendar.ly calendar view and Kanban board can help you execute precisely your content creation activities and have everything ready for publishing.
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Originally published at blog.calendar.ly on January 21, 2019.
