Content marketing is quite an engulfing term, encompassing so many different aspects of branding. Let’s quickly define: content marketing is simply a person, brand or organization that pushes content, typically on various platforms, to influence potential customers to not only purchase, but to become zealots and spread the word. But if a brand is pushing hard, it is going to take A LOT of content to truly make an impact on the public and get the buzz going. Internally, it may seem repetitive, but the potential consumer might have never even heard of your brand yet, let alone the specific content you are trying to show them. Let me also say that content marketing thrives off of customer engagement, the content must be interesting enough to where the receiving user will not only get the intended “chuckle” or “well isn’t that neat,” but will want to interact with it somehow and show it to others, thus spawning FREE word-of-mouth marketing for your product and brand. One question, though, how do you push out shareable content regularly without becoming repetitive and boring?
As a former Community Manager who has worked with national brands, I can say that content creation is one of, if not THE most important things on each day’s agenda. Content calendars are vital to establishing and maintaining a brand’s tone, but they are also essential for drawing in fans and followers. With each piece of content that is released, the fans and followers should want to interact with it in some manner – whether it be a “like,” “comment,” “share” or “RT.” The goal is to get it passed along and seen by as many people as possible. So, what about smaller to midsize brands who are looking for good, creative content that does not necessarily have to be branded in-house? A great place TO START is StumbleUpon - the control center for endless content. To illustrate, let’s take a mid-size salon that has multiple locations within a decent size city. This salon is rockin it on social and doing well with developing, managing and growing their online presence. But as the months pass, their Social Media Manager starts to realize that he or she is getting low on fresh content – and funds are tight so incorporating in-house creative design, or freelanced for that matter, is not an option. What do they do? The Social Media Manager sits down and filters a StumbleUpon search for content pertaining to the salon. Then once enough multimedia content has been obtained, he or she writes engaging ad copy that will encourage the user to interact (preferably including some good CTA’s) with the content. And there is NOTHING wrong with showing your audience you are harnessing multimedia content power via StumbleUpon – in fact, it shows A. brand transparency and B. you are socially savvy enough to harness StumbleUpon for multimedia good for your brand. The amount of salon content, or any kind of content for that matter, is endless. Everything from multimedia to articles, it’s all there. Seriously, take a look!
So, next time you, or some overly-caffeinated Community Managers you know, are freaking out because content needs to be created and pushed out for a client, remember this information. Because let’s face it, when the content sucks, the word-of-mouth referrals will suck and nothing will be “shared” or “RT’ed.” And there is nothing better for a brand than someone passing along its content and saying, “hey, take a look at this!”
Do you think StumbleUpon is a good resource for content marketing? Why or why not?
