The 40-Hour Content Marketing Challenge

At a recent conference, Andrew Davis introduced the Influence Pyramid to describe how brands can use valuable content to reach influencers online. Here’s his explanation:

After his presentation, he was asked the question, “If I have 40 hours a month to focus on my online content strategy. What should I do?”

It’s not a lot of time, but if you can devote it, brands can definitely learn a lot about not only how they’re perceived online, but how to contribute to the discussion.

1. Get a baseline (5 hours)

I’ve been touting the power of Google Insights for Search for awhile now. This is the first place I’d start in developing an online communications strategy. Follow the guidelines I outlined last week.

Search for your brand, your competitors, and your category. Where are the spikes? Were there long term positive effects on the trend or was it an immediate fall back to Earth? Use regular Google searches to determine what caused the spikes. Was it a big PR hit? A promotion? A positive review in a relevant community?

Google Insights also have keyword data relevant to the search string. This is valuable insight into the ideas surrounding your brand. It will help you to find the audience in the next step.

This very top-level insight into your current web influence and reputation. Understanding your position in the current landscape will help shape your messaging.

2. Find your audience (25 hours)

Photo Credit: Stijnbokhove (Via Flickr)

If you’re like most brands that we encounter online, you think you know your product’s demographic base. It probably reads something like this:

Male. Age 18-54. HHI $30-75,000.

Content created to reach this audience will be valueless. The demographic is far too broad for the content to add any value to them. Remember, this isn’t television advertising, which is the most basic level of one-way messaging.

Web content marketing has to follow the behavior of web communities. It has to be extremely niche and highly targeted.

You can use Quantcast to find out where else the people who visit your site are participating. Of course, a good analytics program (we use Google Analytics) will tell you what sites are driving the most traffic to you. But this isn’t necessarily exactly whom you need to target.

Conversations are going on that are relevant to your brand segment, but may never mention your brand. These conversations are valuable too. You can’t think about marketing in terms of your brand name, you have to think about how you can elevate the discussion of the ideas within and around your product or service as well. The baseline research is going to help determine what those conversations are.

Use these sites to develop profiles of your online audience. These will need to be much more focused than TV demographics. With the limited amount of time in this challenge, I recommend you develop three extremely targeted profiles of your audience and where they participate.

3. Understand your audience (10 hours)

Photo Credit: Walkadog (Via Flickr)

Now that you’ve identified where the people who influence your brand are participating, start to listen. You will need to understand how they communicate with each other, and what motivates them to participate.

You’ll need to know the trajectories of the vibrant conversations. How did it start? What kept it going? Remember, the audiences you identify will behave differently from others, and each other.

What you don’t want to do at this point is listen only for mentions of yourself. We call this kind of behavior ‘triage,’ where brands seek only to participate where they come up. This is inefficient and ineffective. Ultimately, the only way to build a valuable brand reputation online is to participate in the space as the community would. They are not married to your brand, nor should your online strategy be.

Does it seem like something’s missing?

By now you’ve probably noticed that none of these three steps mentions actually participating. And that is correct. If you have 40 hours in a month, there’s no way to craft actual valuable content for the audiences you’ve identified.

A comprehensive digital strategy takes time and research. You can’t just jump into the pool and assume you’ll make friends. Valuable relationships — the holy grail of content marketing — is the result of long-term, honest engagement.

Takeaway

Identifying and understanding your audience is the most crucial first step in online participation. Don’t underestimate its importance.

So, you’ve spent about 40 hours researching your audience. You’ve identified three key audiences, what kinds of content they consume online, and — perhaps most importantly — how they engage with it. What next? Ideally, you should be able to put together a rough editorial calendar, that addresses the audiences you’ve identified, with content that they would consume.

If you’re serious about the power of building a relationship with your customers and audience, try this 40 Hour Challenge. Share your learnings in the comments below.

About the author

Brad Schwarzenbach -

As an analyst on the Tippingpoint Strategy team, Brad explores new opportunities for clients to build relationships with their customers. He’s always testing new social media channels, poring over analytic data, and identifying emerging trends. He also speaks at conferences & events about uncovering powerful messages hidden within brands' unique values.

Brad’s research has contributed to the development of content & contributor strategies for such clients as Breville, Rodale, Long’s Jewelers, and Fusionapps, as well as being a frequent contributor to the Tippingpoint blog. He’s been “listening” to the way we communicate online since the old AOL People Connection days and watched the way that digital communication has evolved.

An English and Creative Writing major at the University of Connecticut, Brad’s spent most of his career creating web content and becoming intimately familiar with web theory for Bayard, Inc. and TomTom Inc., giving Brad keen ears and eyes to what, exactly, makes web content valuable.

Outside the office, Brad feels most at home with his beautiful wife-to-be Kristina, or on the golf course. “There’s a distinct pace and rhythm to the way people communicate online.  Understanding and taking part in them yields amazing opportunities for my clients to not only grow but to improve their business. I’m constantly looking for those opportunities.”