Project GGMH — Content Engagement Experiments
How to use content curation and engagement to drive growth and conversions
** Work-in-progress. Awaiting test results from new experiments.
Goal:
- “Create conversation with every link you share”
- Empower readers to activate
- Funnel readers to recommendation
Users:
- For Writers: See if their article is resonating, and to recommend further reading.
- For Marketers: See if readers have this challenge in their company and convert them when readers raise their hand.
- For Influencers: Conduct surveys by adding polling widget on curated content, and learn about your followers.
- For Startups: Study your audience and readers via content curation and then how do I redirect readers to my website?
Positioning:
I believe that people want to gather feedback for their content so that they can learn what resonated with readers and funnel personalize action and recommendation to them, and they would pay good money for that because currently its difficult to set up polls and survey for each individual article and ask for qualantitive learning.
If you have been setting up polls and survey for each individual article and ask for qualantitive learning and think its difficult and time consuming, you can gather feedback for their content with Brewio so that they can learn what resonated with readers and funnel personalize action and recommendation to them.
Background:
Previously I cofounded a content research SaaS tool startup, where we help brands and agencies with content marketing creation. The biggest challenge for them is creating content that resonates. Furthermore, they need to justify whats the ROI of good content, and in converting for MQLs (marketing qualify leads). I explored more on how content upgrade can capture reader sentiments and reader engagement level.
I do content curation on The Startup Chat Facebook Group and on Quibb. To be recognized as a thought leader, not only do I need to share great content but also interact with commenters. Ultimately to build a network. My recurring challenge is my conversations are scattered through multiple channels (Facebook, Quibb, Twitter, and LinkedIn). I want to accumulate all the conversations into one place, and gather my audiences from different network to communicate with each other.
I also want readers to raise their hand about their problems with my content, so I can help them further. In the future, how can we confirm with the reader before they even know it — through Facebook OAuth data or reading pattern data.
Why do we want more commenters and engagements?
According to Neil Patel: “All in all, [comments] bringing 16% of all search traffic through comments isn’t too shabby. I know text from comments makes up the majority of the words on the page, but you have to keep in mind that many of the comments just say “good post” or “thanks.” ”
Problem:
- How to grow your audience using content curation?
- How do I convert readers on my content without pesky popups?
- How do I funnel readers to a specific recommendation that they will find valuable?
- What’s the highest form of value for our readers?
Solution:
- Capture the reader at the moment of reading.
- Ask for readers to contribute insight.
Hypothesis:
- Create inline poll inside content
- Create inline comment next to content
Experiment #1: Google Docs
Goal:
- Focus on getting more comments
- Gather commenters from different channels
- Accumulate more comments
- Test whether commenters want to comment inline
Hypothesis:
I am hoping for 3% of readers will respond. This benchmark as only 1% of a normal article will respond.
Solution
With inline commenting, readers would be more likely to comment or reply at the moment of context.
We can create different discussions and POV depending on who the reader is.
Screenshots
Results:
Why anti-lean startups are back
Results: 7 clicks ; 2 comment from FB
2 interactions
—
How I got $248,000 in pre-orders before I even had a product
Results: 155 clicks; 4 comments from FB
Results: 135 clicks; 3 comments from FB
8 interactions
—
11 Reasons We Didn’t Invest In Your Company
Results: 10 clicks; 1 comment from FB
23 interactions
—
What to do when it’s too late to get a technical co-founder
Results: 19 clicks
3 interaction
Observation / Learning:
People like that the content is actively being viewed by other readers.
Because it’s a Google Suite product, almost all readers are logged in, and ready to comment. There is no registration or sign in barrier.
Readers think because its on a Google Doc, its written by me. So they would just correct my spelling or edit my grammar.
I put in a prompt, “Free Feel to Comment” on top. There are readers who would test it out by changing font colors.
Commenters have questions about the writing itself because they think its still in a draft mode and that I shared it to get edits.
Commenters replied to my questions.
Commenters replied to each other. The interesting thing here, they receive email notification would be in Gmail’s Updates tab. And because it is coming from Google, the receiver trust the source of the email.
Experiment #2: Poll Plugin
Goal:
- I wanted to port to a more native feel
- I want readers to take the poll.
Hypothesis:
Solution
Screenshots
Results:
How Email Marketers Are Embedding Video
Results: 2 clicks ; 0 comment from FB
0 interactions
Observation / Learning:
Wordpress takes a lot of time to load.
Poll require a lot of styling, and at the end its still not what I wanted.
I want a followup question, which no free poll service at the moment offer this function.
Most polls use an iframe, I want a native feel.
The article I use was also not controversial enough, so it was hard to spur comments or interactions.
However I lost all the Google Doc attributes, like the UX, or the inherited positive side effect with Google Doc.
Experiment #3: In-House Poll Widget
Goal:
- To get the readers to have mini-commitment, before taking a recommended action.
Hypothesis:
- I believe 20% would click it. One out of five people should be able to relate to this or be curious enough.
Solution / Screenshots
Demo:
http://productdesigncanvas.com/hackernoon/12_signs_you_re_working_in_a_feature_factory.htm
Results:
9 out of 92 readers with a poll widget.
Out of 9, 2 of them clicked NO.
But they did not write a comment.
Out of 9, 7of them clicked SOMEWHAT and YES.
But they did not click on the recommended article. It could be its not noticeable enough.
Observation / Learning:
Readers believe the poll is part of a real post.
They clicked on many different places. For desktop readers, its to set their mouse cursors.
The readers did not noticed the the domain difference.
They all noticed the Poll, but did not click it. It could be because they don’t have answer to the question. Or maybe I did not add a poll question that resonated with those readers.
Product Challenges:
Readers would not trust you if you are trying to capture email using GGMH widget on other peoples content.
However this can be mitigated by only allowing email capture when the user owns the domain. They have to add additional JS into website header.
User can add poll surveys and recommendation (to check out this article) into curated content.
Distribution:
By distributing to my network at The Startup Chat and Quibb, I can collect interests from my community, and gather reader intention from my content curation.
I am also planning to use Facebook Ads to target content curators and marketing managers who use Sniply, Startafire, Linkis, Buffer, and other social media tools.
Tips:
- Create content upgrade above the heat map fold
- Create personalized recommendations and actions to activate readers
- Don’t over do the widget Installations
- For best results: add it on content that’s evergreen
Future
- Create side panel for discussion and polling
- The feedback would be listed as a comment. Bailing the reader to comment by a question prompt in the middle of the article.
