Web services often live or die by the critical mass of their audience. It is important when developing or considering any new service to consider the critical mass.
While discussing online content for a client this week, we came to the topic of what belongs on a companies home page, and why their website doesn’t have to (or rather shouldn’t have to) be a destination.
My thought on the matter was that if I were looking for content about the company’s brand identity, I would go first to the company’s website to try to find that information. Brad Schwarzenbach, Tippingpoint Labs’ Senior Strategist, replied to this by saying, “I’m going to try to get to you before you have to start looking.”
The word ‘syndication’ in the media world is a loaded term. If you’re in traditional broadcasting you understand syndication to be the licensing of programming for broadcast in your market. If you’re in the newspaper business you might refer to syndication in a similar way – as in a syndicated columnist (where the full body of content is reprinted as part of a licensing deal exclusively to newspapers around the world.)
On the web, you’ve got to embrace the fact that syndicating content (using these traditional models) isn’t a great idea. That’s why even Wikipedia distinguishes between broadcast, print and web syndication. They are entirely different.
TGI Friday’s fell victim to a social media one-night stand with their Fan Woody campaign. Promising free hamburgers is no way to build a lasting, valuable relationship with consumers.
A couple of weeks ago, Jim Cosco wrote a great post about how to make your podcast a success. We produce a podcast every week (well almost every week), and we’re really proud about the audience we’ve built. Within three months we hit the 20K downloads marker, and we’re chipping away at the next 20 thousand. But how do you know if your podcast is really successful? How do you measure its reach? What can you infer from the stats you’re collecting?
Blog post series don’t really work and artificially breaks your ideas into pieces. It can be disconcerting and alienating to readers. Always let your content stand on its own.
When I think of podcasting, I think of radio. Not gab masters like Howard Stern or Carson Daley radio, but dramatic radio. I think of shows like All Things Considered. Masters like Paul Harvey and Garrison Keillor. And classics like The Shadow and The War of The Worlds.
These things transcend the medium and connect with the listener. Your podcasts can to. Here’s how.
Quality traffic, not traffic volume will determine your long term success on the web. One more time: Quality over Quantity.
With that in mind, it’s worth taking a minute to see whether your content sucks or your audience sucks. Here’s how you can determine if your content is being viewed by the right audience and whether they’re actually consuming your content.
Before you distribute your brand’s content on a new media channel, make sure it’s channel-appropriate and make doubly sure it’s an appropriate channel. Just because a channel is experiencing traffic volume in your desired demographic doesn’t necessarily mean your content … Continued
Bill Cosby, Michael J. Fox, and Ted Danson turned NBC into a powerhouse during the ’80s with their Thursday night lineup. The Cosby Show at 8PM, Family Ties at 8:30PM, and Cheers at 9PM became a regular staple in homes across the country. The ratings were huge and it got television executives talking about a phenomenon where the audience would expect shows at a certain time and they would rearrange their schedules around them in order to tune in. They called it “Appointment Television.” The most loyal of fans would make a habit out of watching the shows because they knew when and where to
Over the last couple weeks, we’ve been looking at techniques for promoting your content. Interpersonal content promotion is about sharing your content with a few select individuals with whom you have a personal relationship. Narrowcast content promotion is about leveraging … Continued
You know the importance of engaging in a channel before trying to promote yourself. But you may wonder how it is possible to engage in all the channels your work calls for — and still actually get some work done.
If you’ve approached building your LinkedIn and Twitter networks wisely, they’re great channels for narrowcast promotion. You have an audience with an expressed interest in you and your content. Feed it to them.
Your most targeted promotion will be directly through your personal network. Interpersonal content promotion is more likely to result in a conversation through comments or an e-mail exchange. You may even invite contacts to participate.
It seems like every time I meet with an agency, they bring along their social media experts. I’m not exactly sure what makes someone a social media expert. Perhaps it is someone who knows how to amass a lot of … Continued
Today, we’re focusing neither on the value of Twitter nor what you can do with it. Instead, let’s take a look at how you should be using it for maxium efficiency.
As Twitter is in the escalation phase, you shouldn’t be spending a lot of time thinking about it or using it. You should only be spending 15% of your time marketing on all escalation-phase platforms combined.
The big three are scrambling to supply services that address this newest evolution. PR and Advertising are offering interactive. Interactive is claiming that advertising is dead. All are offering social media.
Microsoft has spent a reported $100 million to launch their new ‘decision engine’ Bing. I can appreciate their desire to go big with this product launch, but in the process they really dropped the ball on some great opportunities (and some alternatives). Yes, I am talking about the basics of content marketing.
Once you have a strategy nailed down, you need a content creation process or, as we call it, a Content Engine. The Content Engine equates to the actual tactics employed in carrying out your overall strategy — it’s the way you plan, coordinate and generate your content.
PR and ad agencies drive awareness and spark consumer interest. Interactive agencies provide places online where consumers can turn interest into a conversation. So what’s missing?
I was intrigued by an article I found on HackerNews this morning. The article, entitled The Size of Social Networks; Primates on Facebook, was published in The Economist online and it accentuates something I’ve been discussing in the office for a couple of weeks: focusing on the quantity of ‘followers’ (on Twitter) or ‘friends’ (on Facebook) is misguided and inherently denegrates the relevance of the distribution of your content. Let me explain.
As a strategist at an online content marketing agency I’m constantly asked to recommend the most effective online distribution channels. Unfortunately, there’s been no easy way to answer this question. However, over the next couple of posts, I hope to … Continued
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