Content marketing has evolved over the years from a prominent buzzword to an integral part of marketing in the digital space. As an essential element to online advertising, almost every brand is getting in on producing content, making it all the more difficult to stand out. Content Marketing Institute recently reported that in 2014, 38% of B2B marketers felt that their content marketing strategies were effective. In 2015, however, that number dropped to 30%.
If those stats aren’t sobering enough, wait until you come to the realization that this trend is only going to continue as long as companies are pumping out massive amounts of content. So is content marketing coming to its final days? Not likely, but your business’s strategy will need to undergo a bit of a metamorphosis in order to break through the digital discord.
To help you gain a bit of direction on forming that new strategy, Fanatics Media CEO, Mark Fidelman, rapped with world-renowned social media strategist, Mark Schaefer, to get the inside scoop on how to improve content marketing strategies for 2016. Get all their awesome insights from full length conversation below:
Mark Schaefer is the Executive Director of Schaefer Marketing Solutions, an acclaimed college educator, globally recognized speaker, and author of five best-selling books including The Content Code. Additionally, Mark’s blog, {grow} is in the top 1 percent of blogs in the world, based on number of reader comments. With more than 30 years in the marketing industry, Mark’s insights have been featured in the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and other major publications in addition to having been named one of the Top 10 authorities on Social Selling by Forbes.
Here are a few of the many noteworthy moments from their illuminating and entertaining dialog.
Question #1: What Should People Know About Content Marketing Today?
Mark:
“Social media platforms are shifting in a way that’s taking the attention away from us and our content and putting it on them.”
There are currently two mega-trends happening in the industry that should be worrisome to brands. The first of which is information density. The sheer amount of content online has made it incredibly difficult to compete. For this, Mark has laid out a clear and thoroughly researched path in his book, The Content Code, that he advises is the right way to go.
The second trend lies in social media. Platforms like LinkedIn and Facebook are currently attempting to become something like publishing houses. Initiatives like Facebook’s Instant Articles are taking publishing power away from brands and putting the focus on the social channel itself.
The way people are made aware of content is through links, so publishers will share their content links on social media as a way to push inbound marketing and visitors to their websites. With the recent changes, social portals are becoming like cul-de-sacs as they no longer want outside links to be shared as this takes users away from the platform; hence features like Instant Articles. Because of this, the inbound marketing model has been threatened. One of the keys to solving this issue is through branding; companies must do their best to build brands that social followers want to engage with in an effort to send visitors to their websites.
Question #2: Do You Have Any New Content Marketing Distribution Strategies that Can Be Deployed Broadly?
One of the first would be through influencer marketing. Influencer marketing has truly become a mainstream modality and is more important now than ever before. Reaching and employing influencers to distribute content is a massively effective technique.
Another would be through native advertising, which has also become quite popular. While to Mark, this form of advertising feels like companies are trying to trick consumers, it still seems to have its benefits and is worthy of attention.
The truth is that all distribution channels still have merit, the key is to look for new and creative ways to draw the reader’s attention.
Question #3: Do You Have a Marketing or Social Hack That Is Related to Content Marketing?
One of the big reasons that many brands are suffering from “content shock” is that so much content today looks exactly the same. It seems to be a bit lazy and uninspired because of this.
Through this realization, Mark found inspiration in an unlikely place; Taco Bell. The fast food chain only utilizes approximately 14 ingredients, yet every month the company comes out with a new concoction. The point made here is that marketers have many ingredients at their disposal, but are not using them in creative or innovative ways.
Mark recently conducted an experiment in this vein where he embedded a video in a SlideShare presentation that utilized a basic PowerPoint template. Because of the creative way he leveraged the medium, the presentation ended up on the front page of SlideShare and was tweeted out by the SlideShare Twitter account. Through doing something in a creative way that took little effort to accomplish, Mark’s presentation was able to gain gobs of attention.
Content needs to be presented in new and exciting ways that people haven’t seen before. It needs to energize, inspire, and entertain audiences; this is the key to getting content shared.
There are still plenty more insights, tips, and tricks, like Mark’s six success factors for content marketing in 2016, waiting for discovery in the full replay.
Need help getting your content in front the people that will like, comment, and share? Give us a call at 760-262-4252 or send an email to info@fanaticsmedia.com and we can show you how to get your content to cause a commotion.
