contentliciousmarketing-blog

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Propel Your Content with Storytelling: What We Can Learn From NatGeo

When it comes to creating compelling content, there are various ways to do it. Each way works well with different objectives, and the decision to use a specific strategy relies on the situation and is often combined with other approaches. Storytelling is one of the more well-known and creative approaches that many marketers choose to use. This can be done in numerous ways, for example, through photos, gifs, written stories, actual videos and more. Many successful companies have based their entire content marketing strategy around storytelling by incorporating key aspects from Jonah Berger’s STEPPS into their stories in order to help their brand build awareness.

One such company is National Geographic; they use their social media visual platforms to grab the attention of viewers and reel them in with their stories. Their main platform that they use is Instagram, and on this platform, they play on the emotion of “awe” and focus on producing images that are not only high quality, but also unique and full of color. Their images range from photos of animals, to landscapes, to different parts of the world, and even include some people. They grab the attention of the viewers and create a “wow” reaction, which in turn encourages engagement through the form of likes, follows, comments, and shares. It is because of this storytelling strategy that National Geographic has around 82 thousand followers on Instagram. I personally follow it for this specific reason alone—I enjoy the stories they tell through their photos and videos.  

The idea of storytelling sounds simple enough, right? In a sense, it is; however, relating the stories that you tell your audience to what they perceive as valuable and compelling can be a little more difficult that one would think. National Geographic is successful in this because they fulfill a number of unofficial requirements. According to Nadine Heggie, the VP of Brand Partnership, "Staying true to your brand, being timely with content, using the power of wow and wonder, and embracing new technologies to tell stories" is one of the major keys to National Geographic’s success. According to Carolanne Mangles from Smart Insights, NatGeo keeps things fresh and exciting through their unique content, and by donating “27% of their profit to the not-for-profit National Geographic Society that funds research and projects” they are able to build their brand reputation and target different segments of the population, such as those that are advocates for the environment.

Another reason why National Geographic has been so successful with their storytelling is the way they go about it. For example, their hooks; when it comes to all forms of storytelling, not just for content marketing, a strong hook is essential.  NatGeo focuses on creating attention-grabbing, engaging first sentences that draw the audience in to read the rest of the story (their exceptionally great content doesn’t hurt either). They play on the emotional part of Berger’s STEPPS by incorporating wow and wonder into their stories, as well as other emotions, like sadness and grief. In one image, they show the gravestone of the American conservationist who lost her life protecting the mountain gorillas of Volcanoes National Park, Dian Fossey. This image provoked the engagement of well-known music artists, Blink 182 and Cypress Hill, who both commented on the image out of respect for Fossey, which in turn encouraged viewers and fans of the music artists to read the rest of the story. Another image they used that played on the more serious emotions of pain and despair was a picture of the aftermath of Hurricane Irma. Through this image they united both those that were affected and those that had empathy for the survivors, and encouraged engagement among both.

Other attributes that have to do with National Geographic’s success is the fact that they do not actively brand and promote through their images. Viewers do not feel like they are following a company whose sole purpose is to promote to them, but rather feel like they are just being exposed to awesome images with awesome stories (I speak from experience). By doing this, they are able to build a subscribed audience that, if they so desire, are able to extend their subscription is various ways, such as a paid magazine subscription. Along with this, National Geographic also shares more than just images and story-like captions. For example, this awesome 360 video that allows users to experience what it would be like to swim with Tiger Sharks. This video engages viewers by letting them move their point-of-view to look around the ocean, and with random captions that appear in the water, this video also educates viewers at the same time. Overall, National Geographic is killing it with their storytelling, and it is my belief that there is a lot to be learned from them.

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Create Awareness > Encourage Consideration > Acquire Customer.

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10 ways to grow your social media followers

The competition to gain followers on social has never been fiercer as the majority of brands adopt social media as a fundamental part of their digital strategy. With social metrics used increasingly to gauge the value of a brand it’s vital that you have an active audience.

In our 10 Ways to Grow your Social Media Followers infographic we show you how posting quality content, identifying key influencers in your market and digging deep into your insights can get you those all important new followers and keep you current followers engaged.

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How often & When should you post to social media networks?

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How to create compelling content?

1. Inform 2. Inspire 3. Interact

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Worried about running out of ideas? How to figure out what to do next

Keeping up a content calendar can be a daunting task, especially if you’re on a smaller team. Maybe you’re looking over your content calendar and seeing that the next few weeks look slim, or you’re staring at a blank list intended to be filled with all of your new ideas for the rest of 2017. 

Don’t panic! Here’s how you figure out what to do next when you’re worried that you’re running out of content marketing ideas.

Chances are you know or can quickly find out which of your posts are the all-time most popular on your blog. What common elements do your top performing content pieces share? You can start a list of new ideas building from that, but you can also think of ways to refresh the existing posts, depending on your resources.

Is there a new angle to write about the same topic? Maybe your audience has shifted and you can write about the same topic in a more polished way, or there could be a lot to update since the first time you wrote. It’s also possible you can tie an old evergreen post into a new trend— which will bring us to our next point.

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👉 ➕➕ Inbound Marketing is responsible for 90% of clicks on the Web🔥

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9 Awesome Tools to Help Your Twitter Game

With over 328 million monthly active users, it’s hard not to acknowledge the power and popularity of one of the world’s most prominent social media platforms. The microblogging trend has taken the internet by storm and it’s easy for anyone to follow their favorite brands and celebrities from the ease of their phone. You too can take advantage of this platform by utilizing these handy tools to boost your marketing efforts….keep reading

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Did you know Travel, Drinking Vodka and Meditation can all make you more creative? The human mind can be rather resourceful without meaning to at times. It really doesn’t matter what you love doing,  anyone can be creative if they put their heart and soul into it. Here are 10 scientifically proven facts about creativity to consider: https://www.designmantic.com/blog/infographics/10-facts-about-creativity/

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Three Examples of Successful Businesses Failing at Content Marketing

Despite all of the books, articles, classes, videos, etc. of all the ways on how to improve your content marketing or be an expert at it, it is surprisingly hard to be successful with it. It is one of those arts that some people just excel at, and although it is a skill that can be improved on, it is something that many marketers and businesses fail at. The amount of failed content marketing efforts that exist is endless—I could not put a number on it if I tried. The majority of the businesses that fail at it tend to me newer, smaller businesses, however, I found some example of well-known companies that have failed at content marketing within the past.

The first has to do with Levi’s jeans and a campaign that they attempted to start in order to boost women’s jeans sales. The tagline they chose was “hotness comes in all shapes and sizes” and probably would have been somewhat successful if not for the photos they chose to go along with it. One would think that Levi’s would choose models similar to the Dove campaign—a mixture of women of different ethnicities, sizes, and ages. However, the main photo that was released with this headline consisted of models that were uncharacteristically skinny and similar in body size. These models kind of defeated the purpose of the whole campaign and ruined the message; and it’s no surprise to say that Levi’s failed with this content marketing effort. The main way they went wrong with this ad is pretty obvious, but like most issues, there is more than meets the eye. Levi’s lost sight of their original goal; the idea was good, but not everyone was on the same page. According to Forbes Magazine contributor, Neil Patel, the lesson that can be learned from this is to, “Maintain content leadership throughout a project to unify tone and meet original goals.” However, I think that there is more we can learn than just that. For example, they could have incorporated emotion and stories into their content in order to help the campaign catch on better. Their main target was women—why not play into the more emotional side of this consumer segment and use this campaign to tell a story that illustrates why these jeans are special.

The next major company that failed at content marketing is something I still remember and question to this day—Apple’s U2 album incident. If you’re an iPhone user, then I’m sure you know all about this little incident, but for those of you that were living in the dark ages at that time, let me just recap for you what Apple did. Basically, without anyone’s permission, they used iCloud to upload U2’s album to every apple owner’s device(s), despite whether they wanted them or not. A large portion of Apple users were not pleased, including me. Apple disregarded their consumer’s needs and wants in an attempt to do what? I don’t even know what they were trying to do, I understand what U2 wanted from this, but what did Apple hope to gain—consumers that wanted a free U2 album? Perhaps it was simply exposure that they wanted, they knew people would be talking about the album release, even if it wasn’t in the best light. Despite this stunt landing them in the spotlight, I believe they went about it wrong; they came off a little creepy and desperate. I believe Apple could have gone about this content marketing effort in a different way and perhaps could have been successful with it in a more positive light. For example, instead of forcing the album on their consumers, they could have instead simply offered the chance to download it for free as a specific promotion for the release of the new album. Content marketing isn’t about forcing your brand on consumers, its about letting them come to you. In the end, it all comes down to being in touch with what consumers want.

The last example I found of a failed content marketing campaign has to do with Nesquik and also has to do with being in tune with consumer wants. Several years ago, Nesquik attempted to start a campaign with the hashtag #NationalBunnyEarsDay in hopes of boosting brand awareness and sharing what the company is about. According to Wendy Parish, from the Marketing Drive, they “wanted fans to celebrate the classic photo prank ‘bunny ears’ with #NationalBunnyEarsDay,” however, the campaign did not catch on very well, especially on social media—both Instagram and Twitter had less than 10 shares each. Along with their attempted new holiday, Nesquik created an app for smart phones that allowed users to put chocolate bunny ears on their photos, similar to what Snapchat allows its users to do today with their filters. In idea form, this campaign seemed like it might be successful, but the company missed one major thing—what do consumers really want? I can speak from experience that I don’t want an app that’s sole purpose is to put chocolate bunny ears on my photos. However, had they perhaps paired up with another company that already had a foothold in that area, such as maybe Instagram or Snapchat, it may have caught on a little better. But Nesquik was out of touch with what consumers wanted and did not “tie their content to the real world,” and instead based their content off of what the marketers liked.

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Using YouTube to Propel Your Content Marketing

When most people think of the word marketing, they think of the paid advertisements, like billboards and commercials, that are thrown at consumers in their everyday lives—and they’re not wrong. But what most people don’t associate with marketing are the free advertisements that are floating around out there in the digital world, like YouTube videos. I’m sure you already know where I’m going with this, considering what my blogs all about. But you guessed it, these forms of free advertisements are still considered marketing, or to be more specific, content marketing. Anything form of advertisement or content that relates to a brand and that has been released to the public for free is a form of content marketing. In some cases, many types of advertisements, or marketing efforts, fall under both categories of traditional marketing and content marketing—this is the case for many of the videos that can be found on YouTube. One such example is the Samsung Gear S3 Smartwatch that was recently developed within this past year. To market to this product, Samsung came up with various ways to do it, among those ways was a cluster of YouTube videos.

One way that Samsung marketed their product was through the use of a “smart billboard”. I know what you’re thinking right now, how is that considered content marketing if they paid for the billboard? Well, its content marketing because they made a video of the billboard interacting with people on the street and then uploaded it to YouTube, thus making it a free video for anyone to watch and be exposed to their product. Rather ingenious if you ask me; Samsung was not only able to interact with everyday people on the street and draw their attention to their product, but also build a subscribe audience on YouTube of people who were specifically seeking out Samsung products.

In their “smart billboard” video, it shows a man on a billboard next to a bus stop advertising the watch; as people begin to show up and wait for the bus, we slowly learn that the man on the billboard is not a picture, but rather a live-streamed video. The man interacts with the people waiting at the bus stop by talking to them and drawing attention to his smartwatch by making phone calls with it, playing music, and texting. He focuses on interacting with the people, rather than talking about the product, and eventually gets people involved in the advertisement by having them replace him on the billboard. Overall, I think this was an excellent example of content marketing—they got their product and all the features it offers out there without ever really having to talk about it. The only qualm I had about the “smart billboard” was the location of the billboard. They placed the billboard that was supposed to be advertising a smartwatch at a bus stop—not trying to stereotype public transportation users, but do you think the people waiting for the bus had the money to afford a smartwatch? Because my guess is that they don’t. However, putting the billboard there was still a good way to promote their product through word-of-mouth, and to help build their brand’s image.

Another way that Samsung promoted their new Gear S3 Smartwatch is through the release of another YouTube video, this time directed at Dads. The video, called How to be Super Dad with Samsung Gear S3, shows fathers and their children doing everyday things, such as going grocery shopping, gardening, playing, and napping. It shows how the watch helps and improves the fathers’ ability to take care of their children, as well as allows them to bond with their children. As we watch, we jump from scenario to scenario of dads using their watch to simplify actions, such as paying for stuff using their smartwatch because their hands are full, or answering important phone calls on their watch because their child took their phone. The video implies that the watch is so easy to use that even a child can figure it out, and literally shows children playing with it. One scene demonstrates the durability of the watch when it shows a dad planting bushes with his children and getting covered in dirt and water. This video does a good job promoting and educating consumers about their product without ever having to actually talk about it. It plays on the viewer’s emotions and the bond between a parent and a child, and by showing dads of all different races, speaking various languages, Samsung broadened their target market to Dads worldwide.

Overall, there is a lot to be learned from using YouTube for content marketing. Many companies, such as  Samsung, have already figured out that this platform is an effective way to reach modern consumers who prefer watching videos and having the ability to interact and respond to their ads, and they do a particularly good job demonstrating just how effective YouTube content marketing can be.

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The Truth We Often Forget

One thing all marketers want to be is successful, but that is the one thing all (or the very least, most) marketers struggle with. It is no surprise that there are many factors that contribute to the success of effective marketing, especially content marketing. In John Hall’s article, The Truth About Content Marketing and What Brands Need to Know, published by Forbes, Hall discusses the many things that all content marketers have learned at some point in their career or schooling, and that are often ignored or forgotten.

The first is perhaps one of the most known facts about content marketing, but is one that is easily overlooked, and that is effort—content marketing takes effort.  All too often marketers think they are putting in enough effort, but the harmful reality of it is that, they’re not. Content marketing is one of those things where enough is never enough. Keeping your content relevant and effective is essential to being successful. True, it is time and energy consuming, and at times may not be possible (trust me, I struggle with this all the time), but it is key to developing a subscribed audience, and essentially, helping bring awareness to your brand. Of course, this not-so-simple act is easier when you have a team to equally distribute work to, but for those that work on a small team or work alone and are unable to devote all of your time to your content marketing job (such as myself), I recommend setting aside a certain amount of time every day to dedicate to finding killer content to drive your brand stories.

Another tip from Hall that is one of the more well-known facts about content marketing is consistency—once is not enough. This fact coincides with the first paragraph of putting enough effort into your content. Not only does your content need to be relevant and effective, but it needs to be consistent and frequent. As a content marketer, you have built a subscribed audience—the people following your brand and keeping up with your blog are there for your content, what do you think will happen if your content loses its consistency while your competitors’ remains strong? You’re going to lose your audience. Effort ties in with this concept because, although consistency is important, the quality of your content is equally important. You could be posting every single day, but if your content isn’t interesting and providing some type of value to your consumers (or potential consumers), then your consistency will be for nothing.

The third tip Hall mentions is that your content marketing strategy for distributing your content cannot only be through one channel or in one way. Although utilizing social media platforms, such as Instagram or Twitter, can be effective, limiting yourself to only one or two ways of distributing content is not going to help you become successful. Just as you need variation in your content, you need variation in the way you distribute it.  Having multiple channels of content distribution will increase your chances of new audiences being exposed to your product or service(s).

Another fact that is mentioned in the article is a common misconception of the true purpose of content marketing. Many companies fall under the impression that content marketing is just a way to promote a brand and increase sale, which it is in a certain sense, but it’s also more than just that. Content marketing’s purpose isn’t just to generate sales, it’s “a long-term strategy for building your brand, enriching your audience members’ lives, and earning trust.” You are creating a story with your content that teaches the audience about your brand and provides value to them. You’re not going to increase sales or ROI by talking about how cool your product or service is; you need to provide value and convince the audience that you can be trusted.

Along with the misconception of what content marketing’s purpose really is, there is also a misconception about the relationship between content marketing and public relations. Many people assume that these two are not connected, however, according to Hall, “these strategies actually complement each other pretty well.” Although, there are many differences between the two, it is mainly the type of approaches that they use. Content marketing tends to be more of a long-term strategy, whereas, PR uses more of a short-term strategy.  But just as content marketing helps you attract and engage consumers and strengthen your brand image, PR is capable of this too; if practiced together, effective content can be used to “fuel PR opportunities.”

The last tip Hall offers is to master the basics first, or in other words, to not “run before you can walk.” Find out what works the best with your audience and focus on creating a plan that works with them. All too often companies focus on “what’s new rather than what’s actually best for its strategy,” and they end up wasting not only money, but time and energy as well.

Overall, Hall reminds (and educates) us about various helpful facts that are capable of helping you be successful with your content marketing.    

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3 Trends all Content Marketers should know

In today’s society, everything is constantly changing; whether it be evolving technology, or new fashion trends, one cannot expect things to remain the same for long. Marketing, or more specifically, content marketing, is no exception to this, and that is why it is so important for marketers to remain in the loop. In order to do this, one must pay attention to trends. Andy Betts, Chief Marketing Officer and executive adviser for BrightEdge, does an excellent job discussing some of the major trends that are currently driving content marketing in his article, The Future of Content and SEO: 5 Trends Every Marketer Needs to Know. In the research that was conducted for his article, he found that 71% of the marketers surveyed reported that less than half of their content was being consumed. Another key finding he discovered was, “Fewer than 9% of marketers report three quarters or more of the content they produce is engaged with.” For the amount of time, energy, and not to mention money, companies are putting into their marketing efforts, these findings are extremely low. Betts covers five trends that he believes will improve these statistics, along with your success as a marketer. To keep things short, I chose the top three I found most relevant and elaborated.

The first trend that was mentioned is the convergence of search engine optimization (SEO) and content. Betts believes that the fastest and most efficient road to success involves merging your SEO top habits with your content marketing processes. By furthering their knowledge of consumer intent and behaviors, marketers will be able to develop smarter content strategies.  This can help marketers optimize their content for consumers more successfully, which can lead to a higher percentage of a company’s content being discovered organically (content appearing based off of relevance as opposed to as advertisements). This is something that many marketers have already caught on to; in fact, when asked how they viewed the role of SEO and content marketing, 97% of marketers responded that they believed the two were of the same function or closely related, with only 3% viewing them as separate disciplines. Some tips that’ll help you and other marketers adapt to this trend include things like, “investing in SEO before launching content” in order to generate stronger results. Another tip he mentions is to consider producing micro content. These “Small, custom content elements are more highly optimized for specific consumer searches and questions than long-form, investment-heavy content (e.g., webinars, research reports, case studies).” The last tip he offers is to listen to the data and let it lead you; this simply means to stop focusing on content that isn’t producing results.

The next trend Betts talks about is producing engaging content that performs; this is one trend that is an exception to the ever-changing world. Content that generates engagement—it sounds so simple, yet is actually pretty difficult. Betts’ research found that “only one in five B2C brands produces content that their target audience engages with.” For me this number is not surprising; we are taught in school that engagement is important to marketing, but how to actually create content that is engaging is a skill that is not easily learned. Some tips that are mentioned in the article include understanding what consumers want—this is done through creating content on things that are relevant to your target audience, and optimizing it for discovery. Another tip is to create headlines or captions that entice engagement, and then deliver on it. I know, harder than it sounds; coming up with a title or headline for something is somewhat of an art. I struggle with this all the time, as I’m sure you can see from my bland blog-post titles. I recommend pooling ideas—multiple brains working on something are always better than one.

The third trend that is discussed is hyper connecting mobile and local, or in other words, optimizing content for local mobile searches. Betts found that, “Nearly one-third of all mobile searches are related to location.” By matching your content to local intent, it allows your content to become more easily discoverable through organic search. One tip on how to do this is to “Optimize for location, device, and speed.” Another tip is to satisfy the demand for trending topics and format types. This means using videos or images to attract and satisfy, as opposed to only words. This goes back to creating micro content to generate views. Most people on their phones or other mobile devices don’t want to read long articles or case studies; the average attention span is simply not long enough to focus on things like this when browsing on one’s phone. By creating micro content that is optimized to location, as well as to devices, and is formatted in such a way that is short and easy to read, marketers will be able to generate views and brand awareness.

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10 rules for writing a good headline

1. Self-interest. What’s in it for the reader. 

2. Arouse curiosity. Make them STOP and ask, “How can that be?” or “What do they mean by that?” Then answer the question well. 

3. Does your ad SINGLE OUT your intended audience? 

4. Is it EASY to understand? 

5. Is it newsworthy? 

6. Is it believable? David Oglivy: “The customer is not a moron. She’s your wife.” 

7. Quick results. 

8. Be specific. 

9. Something of value. 

10. Make it well known. Brand names and testimonials make people feel comfortable.

source: Murray Raphel "Mind Your Own Business,”

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Why content marketing is so crucial for your business?

Here are some research-backed reasons.

https://medium.com/@AyeshaAmbreen/9-reasons-why-content-marketing-is-crucial-for-your-business-be85ead414dc

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How to Boost your Digital Marketing Strategy

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Evolution of Influencers [Infographic]