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The Shift Back to a Decentralized Social Web Has Begun

In 2018, I wrote this post about how I felt we were a year or two away from beginning to shift back to a decentralized social web experience. At the time, the primary reason I cited was a severe degradation of the overall user experience on centralized social sites like Twitter and Facebook.

When trying to understand the difference between a centralized and decentralized social web experience, look at it this way:

Centralized: Twitter and Facebook. A lot of people, talking about everything. Control rests with the platform, not the content creator.

Decentralized: Blogs. Far fewer people, talking about just a few topics. Control rests with the content creator since it is their blog.

 

So in 2018 when I wrote the above post, the ‘control’ issue hadn’t yet raised it’s ugly head like I knew it would eventually. As we are now all aware, Twitter and Facebook have gone to great lengths to remove content it feels is objectionable on its platforms over the last few months. Some people feel what Twitter and Facebook has done in removing content is completely just and acceptable, others feel it is outright censorship that must be addressed. My view has always been that once a platform starts making judgement calls on what content is or is not acceptable for its community, then we have started down a very slippery slope. And the angle of that slope is completely dependent on the objectivity of the humans that moderate the content on their platforms.

But more than anything else, it has long worried me that platforms like Twitter and Facebook are acting like publishers and exerting increasing amounts of control over the content that can be published on its platforms. This concerns me not only as a content creator, but also as a consultant who works with companies on building and executing digital strategies. My advice is simple:

I recently discovered that former Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger shares some of those concerns, and is working to address them, in his own way:

What Larry has done, in essence, is take back control of his tweets. He’s built a way on his blog to ‘tweet’ from his blog, then send the content to Twitter. So if Twitter decides to remove his content, that just removes it from Twitter, the content will still exist on his blog. Here’s an example of a ‘tweet’ he created on his blog, then sent to Twitter.

To be fair, this attempt is painfully crude. But it does work. What this could lead to eventually could be a scenario where content creators post short 140/280 character thoughts on their blogs, which are then sent to Twitter in the form of a tweet. Over time, a sort of ‘reader’ could be developed similar to the blog readers that pull in a blog’s RSS feed, so that we could subscribe to the ‘microblog’ feed from our favorite bloggers and viola…you could subscribe to the ‘tweets’ from your favorite content creators and bypass Twitter altogether!

The momentum toward a decentralized social web where the individual content creator has more control over their content is growing. And in an evil scientist sort of way, guess who is jumping in and trying to get in front of the decentralization parade?  Twitter.

 

Twitter can sense that a lot of its users are upset with its recent censoring of content, and are moving to other content creation tools. So the company tries to get in front of that rush, and secure the tools and functionality that it feels users will move to, such as newsletters.

The tug-of-war over a decentralized vs centralized social web is also one of control vs convenience. Right now, the pendulum is swinging back toward control for content creators, especially businesses that create content. When you are building your content team, focus on hiring managers that have a proven track record of developing engagement and community around content. This will make the process of detaching from social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook far easier for your business.

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Monday’s Marketing Minute: All Eyes on Clubhouse, Kroger’s Smart Shopping Cart, B2C Marketing Priorities

Happy Monday! Hope you’re ready for an amazing week, off to a rainy start here, but at least it’s not bitterly cold! By the way, a quick thought, I know a lot of us are really worried about everything that’s happening in the world right now and even locally. A few weeks ago I was driving and listening to the news and just felt overwhelmed with all the ‘bad’ news and stories. Suddenly, I had this thought come into my head ‘You are responsible for your own happiness”. That thought has given me a lot of comfort and calm since, as well as a feeling of empowerment! I hope it does for you as well!

On with the news…

 

So I’ve always had this rule when it comes to ‘new’ social media tools; I usually wait a month or so to try them out. This is because marketers being marketers, we want to overhype every new social media tool, each tool or site immediately becomes the new Facebook killer or the new Twitter killer. So I generally wait a while for the hype to die down, then see if anything sustainable is left.

But I’m jumping in a little faster with Clubhouse simply because the tool offers a different experience than most. If you aren’t familiar with Clubhouse, in a nutsell, it’s an app (only for iOS currently) that has audio chat rooms. You pick a chat room and LISTEN to everyone, you don’t chat by typing. The app is super hot, even though it’s in closed beta and you can only join if given an invite, it still has over 2 million users. I think this speaks to how we are hungry for new offerings in the social media space. 10 years ago, it seemed like a hot new social media tool came out every 3-4 months that everyone gushed about. We haven’t seen that environment in a long time, but I think the pendulum may be swinging back. Clubhouse has some obvious monetization issues to work out both for itself, its investors and hosts, but the future looks bright. For now.

 

Ok I would love this if it came to Wal-Mart, which I only shop at when I have to. The biggest reason why I can’t stand Wal-Mart is going to checkout and seeing those massive lines. But a new ‘smart’ shopping cart that Kroger is testing could make the buying process in grocery stores so much easier! It lets you scan items as you place them in the cart, link up your loyalty cards and coupons, even pay with your credit card! That would help eliminate the biggest detriment most people have to grocery shopping, the checkout line. It’s all about finding and addressing the pain points that your customers have.

 

This always blows my mind. I saw this story from Marketing Charts on top priorities for B2C marketers in 2021.  The top three priorities are: 1 – New customer acquisition, 2 – increasing engagement, 3 – increasing customer loyalty. These are pretty standard, and new customer acquisition is almost always the top priority for all marketers. Yet the same marketers that plan to focus on customer acquisition, loyalty and engagement typically won’t invest in the customer advocacy programs that drive all three. These same marketers could deliver on all three by investing in advocacy programs such as Voice of the Customer, Brand Ambassador and Customer Loyalty programs. And the hell of it is, such advocacy programs are much easier to create, execute and measure in a B2C environment.

So those are some stories that caught my eye on this Monday! Hope you have a wonderful week, check back tomorrow, I’ll have a new post up on how the push to decentralize social media is underway, and look at two people that are making it possible. One you will expect, the other will definitely surprise you! See you tomorrow!

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#ContentCircus 1-19-21 Recap: How Do You Create Content When Your Business Is Closed Due to Covid

We had another fantabulous #ContentCircus on Twitter last night on the topic of How Do You Create Content When Your Business Is Closed Due to Covid. I wanted to share some of the takeaways. For further reading, check out yesterday’s prep post:

 

So the problem that a lot of content creators are having now that their business is closed or limited to the public, is that they aren’t sure how to adjust the content they create. My advice is to focus on content that goes ‘behind the scenes’ or ‘backstage’.  Content that gets into how your business is run, why it is run the way it is. We talked more about this last night:

 

 

Focusing on such content does two things: It appeals to our love of nostalgia, but it also helps educate customers on how long your business has been around. And even if your business isn’t that old, creating content from the owner’s point of view is still helpful, It helps the customer understand who the owner is and why the business is so important to them.

 

This type of ‘under the hood’ content is great for educating the customer on the product creation and packaging process, and for helping them appreciate its value. Obviously, you don’t want to give away any proprietary secrets or anything of the sort, but you can give customers a better sense of how your business is run. That helps establish your expertise as well as create trust with your customers.

 

When creating content that focuses on your employees, you just want to give your customers a better sense of who these people are.  You can talk about what they like about working for you, which products they enjoy making. Or even give them a chance to talk about themselves, their hobbies, how they are adjusting to covid, etc.

 

And finally, just as you created content that highlights your employees, you can create content that showcases your customers. Focus on your most loyal customers, give them a chance to share their story. And that’s another point worth mentioning:  If you’ll notice all four of these areas of content are really dealing with storytelling. Telling the story of the history of your business. Or the story of how your products are made, or the stories of the people who make them, the people that buy them. So don’t think of this as new types of content that you will ditch once your business fully reopens, storytelling is a wonderful art to learn and it leads to amazing content!

 

So that was our #ContentCircus for last night. You can check out the entire conversation here.  Hope you can join us next Tuesday at 7pm on Twitter for the next #ContentCircus!

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How Do You Create Content When Your Business is Closed Due to Covid

Many retail businesses across the country and world have had to abruptly adjust its sales strategies over the last year due to concerns over covid. Local and state restrictions in most areas have impacted capacity and in many areas businesses aren’t allowed to have customers in store other than to pick up an order.

This has also impacted businesses’ content creation efforts. What happens when your content strategy was to highlight the in-store experience, and suddenly your store isn’t open to the public?

The answer is you adjust. In this post I’ll give you some ideas you can use to boost your content creation efforts even if your business isn’t open to customers. Additionally, this will be the topic of tonight’s #ContentCircus on Twitter, starting at 7pm Central. So this post will give you plenty of tactics to get you started, then you can join #ContentCircus tonight and get even more ideas.

Bring the Backstage to the Front of the Stage

Whenever I work with clients on developing advocacy programs, such as a Voice of the Customer, Loyalty or Brand Ambassador Program, one of the discussions we have is what type of content they should create to support these initiatives. I always explain to the client that your ‘fans’ want content that goes ‘behind the scenes’ or that gives them ‘special access’. This content is a great way for the brand to develop deeper ties to the customer, and customers who are your fans, want this type of connection and content.

For the purposes of this post, let’s assume our business is a bakery called Sally’s Sweet Tooth. Sally’s content has been mostly focused on pictures of her cakes, pies and pastries, maybe a mention of new creations or sales. She posts the pictures on Instagram and Facebook, and has some pictures up of all her offerings on her website, but she isn’t updating the content there as often as she should be. Sally likes to also highlight her store in her photos, as well as the happy customers. But she’s at a loss now as to how to keep creating content at the same pace since her bakery is closed to the public and can only accept pickup orders. Without customers in the store, Sally can’t figure out how to create content at the same clip as she has been and her engagement on social is starting to fall.

The key for Sally is to take her content backstage. Before, Sally’s content focused completely on the store itself and the products being sold in the store. But there’s so many more sources of content that Sally could showcase:

  • The history of Sally’s Sweet Tooth
  • The baking process
  • The bakers who work for Sally
  • Sally’s customers

 

The History of Sally’s Sweet Tooth. Sally can create content create content that shows how and why she got into baking, why she wanted to make a career out of it. If her bakery has been in business for a long time, she can show pictures of the bakery in current and previous locations, if applicable. This is very effective if the business has a long history, because it helps speak to the success of the business. Plus, we all love nostalgia, we all love ‘origin stories’. Any content Sally can create about herself and her business and its history simply helps to humanize the business and it makes it easier for customers to connect with her.

The Baking Process. Here, Sally can go inside her kitchen and show how she and her bakers make the delicious sweets and pastries that her customers love. This would also be a wonderful opportunity for Sally to create content that educates her customers on the precautions she and her bakers take to ensure a clean and safe environment. Sally can help put her customers’ worries over covid at ease by demonstrating the precautions Sally’s Sweet Tooth is taking to ensure that her customer’s health and well-being is protected. Plus, customers love this type of content, it helps establish the baker’s expertise and makes the customer more comfortable buying the product being created.

The Bakers Who Work For Sally. Sally should regularly create content that gives customers an idea of who her bakers are as people. Let the bakers talk about why they love baking, what makes them want to create food for other people. Have them talk about their favorite cake or pastry to make, and what it means to them. Also, don’t be afraid to let your employees talk about how they are dealing with covid and the change its made in their lives. For many employees, this can actually be helpful for them to share their stories, and for your customers, it gives them a better understanding of the people behind the name badge. When we better understand the people we do business with, it makes us more likely to want to continue to buy from them.

Sally’s Customers. Finally, Sally would be smart to create content that focuses on her customers. She can talk about long-time customers who have stuck by her for years.  She can talk about creating a special cake for Megan’s wedding and what it meant to create it. And don’t be afraid to create content that promotes your customers. We are all facing hardships right now, feel free to create content that champions your customers and promotes them as the rock stars that they are.  They will appreciate it, and you will feel good about putting the spotlight on the people that keep you in business.

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Monday’s Marketing Minute: NBC Universal’s Marketing Bet on The Office, How Morning Brew Got a Million Readers

Happy Monday, y’all! Hope everyone had an amazing weekend. Last week was my birthday, so I decided to take Monday off, then on Tuesday I got a bit sick and decided to rest for a couple days and before I knew it, it was Friday and I’d lost the whole week here!  So sorry, I will try to make it up to you this week, starting today!

 

So NBC Universal is doing something interesting with its new streaming service and its hit series The Office. I found this story in The Hustle newsletter and unfortunately they didn’t tweet a link to it. NBC Universal is actually building out the service around one show; The Office.  They have a freemium plan that gives you access to the first two seasons of The Office. If you want more, you pay for it, and get all the seasons as well as additional ‘superfan’ content. It will be interesting to see if more streaming services move toward packages built around individual programs. I could see certain very popular shows having enough of a fanbase to add in bonus content, maybe access to Zoom calls with actors from the show, etc, and that being a standalone product. If this was done around shows that are in the catalog, this could really work well.  A package for Cheers fans, or Friends fans that includes Zoom ‘reunion’ calls with the actors, or something similar.  For your business, think about your more profitable product or service, and how that could potentially be a draw to attract new customers.

 

This tweet is a few months old, but I’m just now seeing it and it had such good lessons that I wanted to share. The Morning Brew is a wildly popular business newsletter that last August reached a milestone of having one million people open a single newsletter.  If I have 500 people open mine, I’m thrilled! There were many key takeaways from the article, but the two I noted were that they didn’t focus on number of subscribers, they focused on levels of engagement. Their goal was to get each subscriber to open that first email, with the thinking being that when they do, that greatly increases the chances of them being an engaged reader.  One thing they do that I think is genius (but really won’t work unless you have a huge list) is they send out 4 different subject lines for each newsletter to a small subsection of the list.  Then, they see which subject line led to the most opens, and pick that one to send out to the remainder of the list. Another smart thing is they promote the newsletter via other newsletters! The thinking was that people that like newsletters, will read multiple ones, so advertise where their attention already is, on reading another newsletter!  Check out the article for some great insights on building your own newsletter audience.  This is definitely a priority for me in 2021!

 

Finally, let’s wrap up with a share from the fantabulous Kelly Hungerford. You can never go wrong with Kelly! She points to a CoSchedule study that found that 32% of customers would leave a brand they claim to love after just one bad customer experience. Showing empathy for your customers via your content and interactions can go a long way toward keeping unhappy customers!

 

Thank you so much for reading, I will be back tomorrow with another post, and remember that tomorrow night on Twitter we will have #ContentCircus, starting at 7pm Central! Be safe and be careful this week!

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Why Twitch is a Game-Changer For Letting Millennials Influence At Scale

Have you ever seen something, or heard an idea, and you knew it was significant, but you also knew that you didn’t fully appreciate why it was so important? I’ve spent a LOT of time with Twitch streams the last couple of years. The content creators are highly entertaining, and the best ones are great marketers, so I enjoyed watching the streams from that angle as well.

First, let’s back up a minute. What is Twitch? In short, Twitch is a site where people go to watch other people play video games. I know, on it’s surface, it sounds ridiculous. Why would anyone watch someone else play a video game, when they could play one themselves? But if you have children who play video games, it’s a safe bet they have spent time on either Twitch or YouTube watching people play those same video games. Often, people start out watching Twitch streams because they want to learn how to get better at playing a particular game. Twitch has functionality to let content creators stream themselves playing video games. But additionally, Twitch has chat functionality, which lets streamers talk to members of their chat inbetween games, and sometimes even during games. In fact, Twitch streamers can talk about (almost) any topic with their chat. You can go to Twitch and subscribe to a content creator’s stream, and this gives you access to join the streamer’s chat room and talk to other subscribers, as well as the content creator.

So I began to spend more time watching streams on Twitch over the last couple of years. I could tell all along that there was something bigger happening that I really didn’t fully grasp. So I kept watching, until one day, something clicked. I noticed that that the streamers kept referring to their chat as ‘chat’. As if the entire chat (and we are talking millions of followers in most cases) were a real person, and more importantly, ONE person. It’s common to hear streamers playing and then say things like:

“Chat, you’re doing that thing again!”

“My chat is saying the same thing.”

“Chat, I’m not playing that game, just stop!”

Now this may seem insignificant, but what these Twitch streamers have done, intentionally or not, is they have found a way to connect ‘individually’ with millions of people, at the same time.

They’ve found a way to scale their ‘personal’ attention from one person, up to millions at a time.

The biggest problem in dealing with traditional influencers is that their personal attention can only scale so far. If you’re wanting to work with an influencer on Twitter or Instagram, they can’t individually connect with more than a few dozen people. After that, it becomes problematic. This is why brands have begun to work more with microinfluencers or T-Shaped Influencers in recent years, because even though these influencers have much smaller followings, their networks are typically more niche and they have a much better ability to connect with their followers on an individual level. Which is one of the key drivers of true influence.

 

Twitch is different

A problem with traditional social media is that influencers lose the ability to connect with and influence individuals as their network grows. Twitch is different because it effectively lets the influencer livestream around a topic that the network is already interested in; video games. Chat functionality lets the streamers/content creators stay engaged with individuals and the content creators can even play games with the members of their network. All of this helps streamers better connect with more people. If you think about it, this is similar to a radio talk show. The host can take calls from the audience, so that gives them another layer of engagement. But with Twitch, they can talk in chat with the streamer, or the streamer can play a game with them, and they can talk directly with the streamer while playing the game with them.

These multiple layers of engagement make it easier for a streamer to build and hold influence with its audience. Think about someone on Twitter with say 250k followers. They can tweet, post Fleets, and livestream. But most will only tweet. They can interact directly with with individual followers, or with multiple followers via a hashtag. But the Twitter platform doesn’t lend itself to engagement at scale like the Twitch platform does.

 

What’s the key lesson here? 

What is influence? My definition is that influence is the ability of a person or entity (such as a brand) to create a desired change in behavior in a person (likely a customer) or other entity. We need to trust someone to be influenced by them, and a key way to achieve trust is interaction. This is where the traditional influencer model of one to many breaks down at scale. But, the functionality built into Twitch (chat room, being able to play games with subscribers) helps the content creator/streamer overcome the influence at scale issue, to a degree. So if you’re vetting influencers to use in your marketing campaign, one of the key factors to look at is the platforms they use, and each platforms ability to help the influencer achieve one-to-one interactions with its network.

Another way to look at this is if you are a brand that creates content, how can you best one-to-one interactions with as many people as possible? Maybe you do a sponsorship working with influencers on a platform like Twitch, or maybe you try using these platforms yourself.

Just focus on creating as many positive interactions with each member of your desired audience. That helps facilitate trust, which helps create influence.

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#ContentCircus 1-5-21 Recap: How to Audit Your Content

We had another fabulous #ContentCircus last night on the topic of How to Audit Your Content. The last two weeks have really taken off, I appreciate everyone’s participation and sharing their smartitude. Here’s a link to the transcript from Hashtracking. I wanted to highlight some of the great points made during the chat:

 

Readability is a big area to address when doing a content audit. Anything you can do to better organize your information and make it easier for the reader to understand key concepts, is a good thing. Honestly, a lot of this comes down to simple stuff that we can all do, and #ContentCircus participants had some great suggestions:

 

After I’ve addressed readability, I will then move on to editing the actual information in the post. Is any of it outdated and needs to be removed? Is there a new case study or research study I have found that I can add? Also keep in mind as I add or remove material, I am still addressing readability, that carries over throughout the entire process.

 

Next we moved onto discussing using the proper search keywords and phrases during your content audit. Luckily, #ContentCircus community had many helpful suggestions for keyword research tools!

 

Next, we covered adding visual elements to your audited content. Note that as we address things like font size for text, headings and subheadings, now adding visual elements, we are (hopefully) making it easier for the reader to process information. That’s what we want. The easier it is for our ideas to flow to the reader, the more likely they are to understand those ideas, and their impact.

 

Finally, we talked a bit about Calls to Action. Whenever you audit your content, you should add a Call to Action that encourages the reader to take some next step based on who they are, their intent, and what action you want them to take.

 

So that was our first #ContentCircus chat of 2021! We had a wonderful discussion on auditing content, and I hope you can join the next #ContentCircus, which is every Tuesday at 7pm Central, on Twitter! Just follow the #ContentCircus hashtag!

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A Step-By-Step Guide to Performing a Content Audit That Increases Traffic and Conversions

I’ve been blogging for 15 years now, and in that time I’ve learned that the last two weeks of every year is when traffic to my site drops about 30-40%. Pretty much like clockwork, traffic begins to fall on the Friday before Christmas, it rises a bit the week after Christmas, then returns to normal levels the first week or so of January. Because of this, I typically don’t publish posts in that last 2 weeks of the year. I use that time to write posts for January, and I also use it to audit my content. So this year, I got the clever idea to do both; Audit my content, and as I am, write a post about my process!

So this is how I audit my content.

 

First, what is a content audit?

A content audit is the process of reviewing the content on your site, periodically. I know a lot of content creators hate auditing their content. Personally, I love auditing content, because I know that when I have finished auditing an individual post, it will be a better post. I know that every post I audit will be improved, so that’s why I enjoy the auditing process.

Now my process for auditing content is a bit different, which is why I wanted to talk about it. I go by the Greatest Hits model that I talk about in this post on the Rock Star’s Guide to Content Creation, Content Marketing and Promotion. I look to develop roughly 10 posts which will be my signature content or Greatest Hits. These will be the pieces of content that I want to be successful. This is the content I will continue to promote, and continue to audit and work to improve. These are the 10 posts I want to be known for, my Greatest Hits. Think about a rock star; When you go to their concert, you want to hear their Greatest Hits.

Keep in mind that these 10 Greatest Hits posts should ideally cover the same or very similar topics. If you have 10 posts covering 10 different topics, that’s a problem. But if you have 10 posts covering 3 related topics, that’s much better. Think of it this way; These 10 posts will be the content you want to be known for. Just like a rock star is known for their Greatest Hits. It’s the same thing here, this will be your signature content. So choose wisely.

 

A content audit sounds like a lot of work, is it worth it?

My experience is a resounding ‘Yes!’ Posts that I have audited and improved have seen up to a 300% increase in traffic! There are two keys to seeing an increase in traffic when you o a content audit.  The first is you much IMPROVE THE CONTENT. You have to make the post better. This post will walk you through the process for improving the post, but it must be improved upon. After you have improved the post, then change the date to make the post more recent. For instance, if you are auditing a post from 2017, and you significantly change and improve the post, then you can change the date to say 2020. Search engines want to refer users to relevant and recent content. Use your content audit to improve the quality of the content and to make it a more recent post by changing the date. Doing both of these things together will result in a nice improvement in traffic to your audited post.

 

How often should you do a content audit, and what’s included?

So every 6 months or so, I first audit my current 10 or so Greatest Hits posts. I look at how each is performing.  I track them through Google Analytics and maybe even with Webmaster Tools. So I get that list of my current 10 or so Greatest Hits posts, and set them aside for now.

Then I look at all my other posts, paying close attention to the posts I have published in the last 6 months or so. What I want to do is find at least one post I’ve written in the last 6 months that I can move into my group of 10 or so Greatest Hits posts. I want to keep my Greatest Hits fresh, plus I want to force myself to continue to create content that is good enough to be worthy of being included in my Greatest Hits.

But I also look at past posts as well. Who knows, there could be a post I wrote in 2015 that’s suddenly taken off in search results. I want to check and make sure my older posts aren’t showing signs of life. If any of them are, I then put them in my list of potentials for my Greatest Hits, along with any new posts I have written in the last 6 months.

I take my current 10 Greatest Hits posts. Then I take any potential posts written in the last 6 months that could be added to my Greatest Hits, as well as any former posts I’ve identified that could be included. That will likely give me a list of 12-15 posts that are candidates to be my 10 Greatest Hits posts.

So the final step is to whittle those 12-15 posts down to a group of 10. What’s my criteria for which posts I remove from Greatest Hits consideration? First, I look at the 10 posts I have as my current Greatest Hits. Are there any posts that aren’t performing as well as the rest of the group? Then I look at the 2-5 posts that are my candidates for adding to the Greatest Hits list. For these 2-5 posts, the first thing I look at is the topic. Are these posts covering a topic that isn’t well-represented in my current 10 Greatest Hits posts? If so, and if it is a topic that I want to be known for, then there’s a great chance I will move that post into my 10 Greatest Hits list.

 

I have my group of 10 Greatest Hits posts that I will audit, what now?

Ok, I’ve finally settled on my group of 10 posts that will be my Greatest Hits posts. Now I’m ready to begin the actual audit and improvement process for these 10 posts. Here’s what I want to review for each post:

  • Readability. Is the post easy to read? Clear takeaways. Can the reader easily find and understand the key lessons from the post?
  • Does the post have the latest information?
  • Search Keywords and Phrases. What are the target keywords and phrases for each post?
  • Visually appealing. Is there visual elements that are pleasing to the eye? No walls of text!
  • Clear calls to action. Is there a clear and obvious way to keep the reader engaged with my content?

 

Readability

The first area I look at for my 10 Greatest Hits posts when auditing them is readability. For me, that means first scanning the post quickly to see how pleasing it is to the eye. I don’t want to see a wall of text. I want to see smaller blocks of text, organized with headings and callouts to point the reader toward key points that I want them to understand. Also, I identify the key lessons I want the reader to take from reading this post. I make sure each lesson is clear and succinct. To be honest, a lot of brutal editing needs to happen to each post. You have to remember, every 6 months or so, I will do this process again. Every time a post is involved in that auditing process, it will likely have changes made to it, maybe additional text will be added. So if I’m not careful, I could end up with 10 posts that are bloated 5,000 word monstrosities! I have to add what makes sense, and take out what doesn’t. And if I only add, then I need to make sure that the post’s readability isn’t negatively impacted.

 

Does the post have the latest information?

This is where I can typically make the biggest positive impact on a post. I might write a post on a topic, then 3 months later come across a research study that confirms what I wrote. I can then go back and add the research to my post, to improve the quality of the post, and also give more credence to the claims I made in the post. I may also come across a case study that is an example that I can add to the post, which will also greatly improve the quality of the post. By the way, this is why I tend to avoid dated content like ‘Here’s Your 2020 Guide to Creating An Amazing Content Strategy’ in my Greatest Hits collection. I would rather write ‘Your Guide to Creating An Amazing Content Strategy’ and work to refine and improve that post every 6 months via my content audit.

 

What search keywords and phrases am I targeting?

This is important for two reasons. First, it helps me make sure I am focused on the right keywords and phrases, and throughout the post. In fact, as I was ending the previous paragraph, I changed it from ‘and work to refine and improve that post every 6 months’ to add ‘via my content audit’ at the end, simply to get the phrase ‘content audit’ in the post again to help search engines understand what this post is about.

Second, making sure I am targeting the right keywords and phrases also helps me with the overall structure and content of the post. Its almost like a double-check of all the other areas like readability, key takeaways, etc. Notice also that I purposely handle the other areas such as readability and latest research first, then keywords. I write for people first, search engines second.

 

Make every post visually appealing.

We love visuals. Pictures, video, anything visual catches our eye and refocuses our attention. Also, visuals help break up walls of text. In general, I try to add visual content from three different categories to my Greatest Hits posts; Images, Video, and Infographics or Callout boxes.

Images are self-explanatory, as are videos. In both cases, you want to choose images and/or videos that help illustrate your content’s key points and concepts. For instance, if I were doing a case study of a brand ambassador program that Chick Fil-A was doing, I might want to add a video of the company’s CMO talking about why the program is working for the brand. Keep in mind that if you can show key concepts using different formats (text, audio, video, etc), that it helps the reader learn those concepts.

Also, think about adding infographics or callout boxes to highlight and illustrate key takeaways and concepts. Tools like Canva and Thrive Architect (affiliate link) can help you create infographics and callout boxes.

 

Adding clear Calls to Action to your posts

This is where a lot of us falter. We fail to add good Calls to Action on our Greatest Hits posts. Which is really unfortunate, because our Greatest Hits posts will ideally be the posts that are our most popular. A lot of people will be reading these posts, and if they are arriving from a search engine, it will likely be the first time they are exposed to your content. So at a minimum, you want to make sure they know how to stay engaged with your content.

How many of you have watched PBS during their famous ‘pledge weeks’ where they ask viewers for donations? Typically, during these pledge weeks, PBS offers its best programming. It will debut a new series by an acclaimed filmmaker like Ken Burns, or it will show a live concert by The Highwaymen, or other special events. PBS will show its best content, and during the airing of these shows, it will ask for money. It’s the same concept with your Greatest Hits content. These are your 10 best posts, so you’ve earned the right to ask for something from your readers. It can be as simple as asking for a comment, or asking for a subscription, or asking for a sale. The point is, your best content should have clear calls to action included.

So what type of call to action should your Greatest Hits posts include? Let’s go back to the Buyer’s Journey:

Buyer's Journey, Creating Better Content

When a visitor arrives at one of your Greatest Hits posts, you need to understand where they are in the Buyer’s Journey. That will help determine what type of call to action they should receive. For the purposes of your content audit, there are two main factors to consider when deciding where the visitor is on the Buyer’s Journey:

1 – The post itself. Which of the four groups above is the post aimed at? Whatever group it is aimed at, your call to action should be focused on moving the visitor to the next step in the process.

2 – Referral sources of traffic. If the post is getting a lot of traffic from search engines, that likely means those visitors will be arriving at your site for the first time. So your call to action would likely be focused on encouraging them to subscribe to your content, or download a white paper, or sign up for your newsletter. You want to extend the interactions with this person. On the other hand, if the primary sources of referrals for your post are sources like social media or email, that suggests that the visitors are familiar with you and your work. So your call to action would likely be further along the Buyer’s Journey.

 

So that wraps up our content audit, now let’s put it into action!

Originally. I had planned on ending this post here. We’re already over the 2,000 word mark, and I’ve covered all the key points I wanted to make. But, I think it would be helpful to see this process in action.  I want to now walk you through how I audit and improve one post.

Here’s the post; Great Customer Loyalty Programs Are Built On Offering Great Experiences.  This post has some potential, but it also needs a lot of work.  It has 1165 words, and one image, of a Ferrari. The main keyword phrase this post is targeting is ‘loyalty programs’. While this post needs work, I like the two hypothetical stories about the cereal loyalty program and the one for Ferrari. But the post doesn’t have much more than that. So I wanted to walk you through my process for improving the quality of this post.

 

First, let’s tackle readability. Let’s start with the title; “Great Customer Loyalty Programs Are Built on Offering Great Experiences”. We need to improve it, I like that the keyword phrase ‘customer loyalty programs’ is in the title, but we need to jazz it up a bit. The new title will be “Here’s How the Best Customer Loyalty Programs Create Happy Customers’. This makes the title more interesting, but it also means the title is now making a specific claim that the post has to back up. The post has to now show you how a customer loyalty program can create happy customers.

Let’s also add new information. Now I want to keep most of the post as it is, but I do want to add new content to support it. Specifically, I want to add content that explains and justifies the claim made in the title. So I want to show how offering great experiences leads to happy customers. I have some research to support that claim, so I will add it to the post. I will also add a couple examples of great customer loyalty programs that offer members great experiences as a reward Pairing these actual examples with the hypothetical ones the post already has, will help facilitate learning and retention of the post’s core concepts.

Revisit targeted keywords and phrases. Now I will review the post and make sure that I have focused on the correct keywords and phrases, and have them placed in the post in a way that will make sense to both the reader, and search engines which will be crawling the post. Also, note that I addressed readability for the READER first, then move to the search engines. Write for the humans first, then the machines.

Adding visual elements. For now, I want to add at least a screenshot of the new customer loyalty programs I am adding as examples. If I can find video of an executive at these companies talking about how their loyalty programs work, I may add that. If nothing else, the screenshots will help break up the text and give the reader visual information that supports the text.

Adding Calls to Action. For this post, I will add an email link so readers can contact me if they have questions about their own loyalty programs. I will also add links to other posts I have written on loyalty programs. The assumption is that over time, most of the traffic to this post will come from search engines, and those people will likely be first-time visitors to my site.

 

So that’s the process! You can view the audited post on Here’s How the Best Customer Loyalty Programs Create Happy Customers here.

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Monday’s Marketing Minute: Podcasts Thrived in 2020, Year’s Top Search Terms, Fast Food in Pompeii??

Happy New Year, y’all! Welcome to 2021! Time to turn the page and start into a new year and I am ready for it! I bet you are as well! Before we get to today’s Marketing Minute, tomorrow night’s #ContentCircus will discuss how to do a content audit. It’s a process I’m going through now, and we will be discussing tomorrow night at 7pm Central on Twitter. Additionally, I will have a VERY robust post up here tomorrow on my process for auditing content. It will tie in nicely with tomorrow night’s #ContentCircus, so look for that as well. As they say in the circus, on with the show!

 

This surprises me a bit, but podcasts continued to have remarkable growth in 2020. Downloads surged by almost 50%, and spending on podcast ads hit a whopping $780 Million! There was some concerns that growth of podcasts might slow in 2020 as we spent more time at home, and less time driving to work. But the stellar growth of the format in 2020 proves that we love listening to our podcasts, and not just while driving to work.

 

It’s always interesting to look back at the top search terms for the year. As expected, most of the terms revolved around the pandemic and how it has impacted our lives and daily workflow. One of the big topics I’ve talked about here the last few months is how customer behavior will change as a result of spending more time working from home. I think the shift in search term usage reflects that.

 

Ok, it’s hard to restart from a nice Christmas break, even for the Marketing Minute! I thought this discovery of an ancient ‘fast food stand’ in Pompeii was absolutely fascinating! And look at the artwork on the site of the stand! It’s two thousand years old! I can just imagine this being in the corner of a bustling market, where patrons could go and get a hot meal while shopping.

 

That’s it for this edition of Monday’s Marketing Minute! See you back here in a week, and be back tomorrow for my post on how I audit my content, then we will discuss at #ContentCircus tomorrow night at 7pm Central on Twitter!

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#ContentCircus 12-15-20 Recap: How to Create Content For Every Stage of the Buyer’s Journey

Last night we had our second #ContentCircus chat, and our topic was How to Create Content For Every Stage of the Buyer’s Journey. We had a wonderful discussion and I wanted to share some of the key takeaways.

For buyers who are Unaware, your content should focus almost completely on the customer. Think about it, you are trying to connect with buyers who do NOT know who you are or why they should buy from you. Why would you try to sell to such a buyer? Your content should focus completely on the buyer, what’s interesting and relevant to them. Figure out how your product or service fits into the lives of your buyer, and create content around those intersection points.

Once you move buyers to being Slightly Aware of who you are, then you create content that helps these buyers understand how your product or service fits into their lives. You create content that illustrates how you can solve problems for them, or help them in some way.

When you reach the Interested stage with a buyer, it’s finally time to SELL them on your product or service. These buyers are doing final research before they decide on which product or service to buy. So they want detailed content that talks about the products or services they are considering purchasing. This is the ONLY stage where you should directly sell via your content.

When the buyer is ready to make a purchase, the only job your content has is to show them how to complete the sale. No need to keep selling them, the buyer is ready to buy.  Just take their money!

Now, what about after the purchase?  What type of content should you create then?

 

Another great #ContentCircus comes to a close! Here’s the transcript so you can read all the tweets. The first two chats have focused more on strategy and tactics for the more senior content roles like Chief Content Officer or Director of Content Strategy. Our next #ContentCircus on 12-22-20 will focus on our favorite content creation tools! This will be more helpful for Content Marketing Managers and Content Strategists who are more directly responsible for content creation.

Thanks again to everyone for joining, see y’all next Tuesday for #ContentCircus, and back here tomorrow!