More and more brands are adopting the “brand as a newsroom” concept and becoming publishers of contextually relevant content. That is the brands who actually “get it” regarding social media and content marketing.
We all know of the exploits of Red Bull who at this point are pretty much setting the standard for content, but other brands are making great strides to take advantage of the benefits of creating, publishing and promoting great content.
In this video, Ashley Callahan, Manager of Digital Communications and Social Media for Coca-Cola, talks about how Coke developed the “Coca-Cola Journey” social campaign.
In the video she says that her team always asks themselves a few important questions before they post anything. Those questions are pertaining to whether or not the content is going to be interesting, relevant and captivating to their audience.
There’s your recipe. Your content has to be interesting. It has to be contextually relevant and it has to be captivating. People have to want to consume it and share it. And there’s one more major attribute that your content MUST have.
“Compelling content at it’s core is interesting and it tells a story.”
If your content doesn’t pass all of these criteria, then don’t publish it. It’s that simple. Notice the characteristic that isn’t in that list. It’s not an overt sales piece. Nobody cares about that. No one is going to be captivated or compelled by your price and item sales pablum.
“That’s not to say that price/item advertising isn’t essential for many marketers. It is. But when your ad is about your price, your brand is about your price. Period.” h/t
And that kind of content never passes the water-cooler test. Which means that no one will be talking about it. If no one will be sharing, consuming, or talking about your content…why are you publishing said content?
As a result of this content marketing strategy, Callahan tells us that frequency of post and freshness of content has significantly driven their numbers. Then she drops this nugget:
“All of our social media channels have grown by over 100% in just the last 9 months!”
They’ve grown specifically because they have not been pushing price and item based brand or sales messaging.
I’ve suggested brand newsrooms to quite a few clients and prospective clients. Some companies fear stepping out and becoming publishers. They fear curation and aggregation. They fear collaboration. For this kind of strategy to work, you have to embrace innovation. The digital arena requires you to break down the conventional silos that prevent social progress.
For your reference, the slides used in the video can be found below.
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