One of the wonderful things about modern marketing is that it is so easy to engage your target audience by creating and curating compelling content.
Just create something awesome and post it. Before you know it thousands of people are viewing it and tweeting about it to their friends. Pretty soon, you and your brand are incredibly hot!
Google says there are 38 trillion pages of content on the web. So what? Don't let that stop you. People are really into your brand. Your brand is so much more compelling than world leaders, or pop stars, or sports figures, or Kardashians.
Sure, you're competing with every entertainment and sports and news and cultural producer on the planet for peoples' attention. But all they have is beautiful, famous, talented stars, and amazing athletes, and worldwide news. You have something they don't have -- BRAND STORIES!
Make people totally fascinated with your brand by creating powerful brand stories! Soon, they'll want to have a brand relationship, and understand how your brand aligns with their lives, and how they can co-create with it, and share brand values. You'll have a global community of brand ambassadors creating a movement around your awesome brand.
Here's the key: STORYTELLING!
And who's better at storytelling than you? I mean, at company parties -- you're the man!
We all know that Disney and CBS and Yahoo and ESPN and HBO and Fox and Pixar and Dreamworks are always scrambling to come up with ideas that people will be interested in. Why? It's obvious....those "Hollywood types" don't know anything about storytelling!
They have to hire high-priced "writers" and "directors" and beautiful "stars" and spend hundreds of millions of dollars to create their content. Then they make stories about love and war and aliens and crime and spies and triumph and human emotions. Why? Because their stories aren't nearly as compelling as YOUR BRAND! Come on. You can do better than them!
You have BRAND STORIES to tell -- and that's what people want! They want to hear the story of how your new spread improves the taste of any sandwich! They want to know how your heating and cooling system aligns with their active lifestyle!
Here's an example. You know all those shows on Public Broadcasting that no one watches? Those guys just don't get it! If they had your SOCIAL MEDIA TEAM to do some awesome storytelling for them -- not that crappy stuff about space, nature, murder, history, or music -- maybe someone would finally pay attention.
Here are some tips for creating amazing content for your brand that people will really want to engage with and share:
- Make your content fun! (When will those movie studios ever learn this?)
- Don't be boring! (Don't be like all those magazines with beautiful women on the cover with their shirts open and their tits falling out. Who the heck wants to see that?)
- Write attention-grabbing headlines! (And use lots of these things !!!)
- Provide useful information! (Because, aside from your brand's content, there's hardly any information on the internet!)
- Know your audience! (Insider tip: Everyone likes puppets!)Creating compelling content is awesome. It's a surefire way to surprise and delight your target audience. It's fun, and it's going to take your brand right to the top.
Happy contenting!
26 comments:
Laced with acidity. Love it.
Just kill me.
yeah, their content is so compelling, they don't have to spend a single dollar promoting status updates and force-trending issues only they care about.
And because you're investing so much time doing this, you can now afford to not bother about improving the product or service. brilliant.
This is my favourite of all your posts. Thank you xxx
Thanks for the tips!
The only other thing that could have made it better was to post this on April Fool's Day.
But maybe not. Maybe people will take this seriously because it's been posted on a normal day. Devious.
I thought you were just being sarcastic until I got to the part about everybody liking puppets. Which is undeniably true. That yodeling goat in "Sound of Music" gets to me every time.
Loved it, but wish you could have wedged in a Joseph Campbell reference. That's like cat nip for modern marketers.
Scullin, you really need to quit writing comments and get out there and find your bliss.
What if comments are my bliss?
How pathetic would that be?
Uh oh...
But what if comments are my bliss–– how pathetic would that be?
Uh oh...
I hate all c-words but this one takes the cake. Disclosure: I actually love cake...
Well said again Bob. My thoughts exactly. Everyone's being bullied by the new young planners who just seem to 'know' what we're doing wrong and have all the answers. And this year, the made-up bullshit buzz-phrase they're all spouting in an echo chamber of bullshit is that "brands have to become publishers of content". Sure Red Bull can do it, they sell 5.5 billion cans a year and own some of the most eye-popping sporting events in the world.
To much dismay, I recently questioned if "are we really going to get people to stop watching Breaking Bad or House of Cards to interact with our clients brand content?". And notice none of these planners can ever tell you what of your clients content will work online. Worst of all, this kind of empty thinking is making it's way into every aspect and type of agency. Endlessly endlessly exhausting.
#pro-tip get your audience to generate useful content for you! User-gen worked wonders for Doritos and their Super Bowl ads. It can work for your blog too!
I'm pretty sure you stole this from Linked In.
I've read it there before - lots of times.
Content = TV ads.
Over here in the UK, we're in love with Christopher Booker (a Target own brand version of Campbell, if you like.) He cites the Gilgamesh epic as one of the "Seven Basic Plots."
It is clear from his summary that he has never read the Gilgamesh epic. Or so much as held a copy of it. He assumes the plot follows a given trajectory and goes from there.
But agency "strategy" people lap this crap up like it's nectar. We're not just working from work that hasn't consulted the primary sources, we're working from work done by planners who haven't properly read their secondary sources, who haven't read the primary sources.
Hi Bob, I wondered whether, with the advent of "Dark Social" and the rise of the "Tinder Mentality", whether you were diverting increasing storytelling resources to Snapchat moving forwards? I also wondered how you planned to extend the half life of this new content stream? As a thought leader in this space I am sure we would all appreciate your insight...
You said it, Boydist. There is no end to the BS. And yes, it's exhausting and maddening.
And not only is it fun and easy to do, developing content frees you up
from having to worry about actually selling anything. http://www.bandt.com.au/media/is-there-still-value-in-the-tvc
Reminds me of the client who said to me, "Why don't WE do viral marketing?"
And, boy, does it catch fish!
This is beautiful.
... Says the man who created the Ad Contrarian brand to pimp his E-books.
Tell GoPro creating content is worthless. Tell Oprah she's wasting her money promoting her personal brand with content.
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