Content: marketing currency in social media that accelerates performance

Content: marketing

“currency” in social media

that accelerates performance

ENGAGE OPPORTUNITY

EVERYWHERE

...

...

...

Two of the biggest trends to hit the marketing world in recent years are

content marketing and social media – trends that are increasingly and

intimately intertwined.

It turns out that content is the “currency” of social media; and effective use of brand-generated content in social media venues enables brands to aggregate fragmented audiences, establish long-term brand relationships and generate demand, according to a series of in-depth interviews with marketers who advocate both trends.

Research corroborates the results of those interviews. A January 2011 survey of 644 marketers found that of those marketing content via LinkedIn, 57% had acquired new customers through that social network.1 _{Fifty-seven percent of those using blogs also}

acquired new customers, as did 48% of those using Facebook and 42% of those using Twitter.

Given that research, it’s not surprising that marketers interviewed for this white paper insist that an effective content marketing strategy in social media must embrace – and integrate – all those channels.

Importantly, while opinions varied on a few of the practices suggested by the interviewees, everyone agreed on this: there is as yet no substitute for the in-depth due diligence

necessary to tune each social media content practice to your particular audience. You cannot, for example, look for consumers only in Facebook or business buyers only in

Content: marketing “currency” in social

media that accelerates performance

White PAPeR

The right approach to content marketing in social media can

enable brand marketers to re-unify their fragmented audiences –

and at a level of engagement far greater than through traditional

marketing channels.

LinkedIn; instead, you must use the available analytical tools to find your target audience everywhere they “hang out.”

In the words of Ted Kohnen, Vice President, Integrated Marketing for brand activation agency Stein + Partners, “In social media, there are no hard-and-fast categories, there aren’t any real silos. We marketers like things to be nice and neat but social networking just doesn’t work that way.”

Social media content marketing best practices

Among the most important practices that emerged from the advocate interviews is to have a central content repository and home community (often anchored by a blog), and then build two-way integration between that site and your presence in Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and other social networks.

“We’re strong proponents of social media channel integration,” says Elizabeth Houston, Global Events Social Media Marketing Manager, Comsys, for Cisco Systems, Inc. “We would never use a standalone approach. One-off efforts just don’t produce the kind of results that integrated efforts do.”

That social media channel integration concept will be explored further in this report, along with the following seven “rules-of-thumb” that were the major ideas to emerge from the advocate interviews.

Listen to your Social Echo – your target audience will tell you what content it wants

Analyze where your audiences spend their time in social media Establish an “expert” social media presence

Offer content that is fact-based, educational, thought provoking, newsworthy, topical or otherwise actionable

Use Twitter as a real-time conversation forum for live events Build a blog-centric, integrated social media strategy Measure everything

Listening to your social echo

Consumers and business buyers already are engaging each other in social media conversations regarding the subjects – and brands – they know well or want to know better, millions of times every day. Twitter, for example, passed the

110-million-tweets-per-We would

never use a

standalone approach.

One-off efforts just

don’t produce the

kind of results that

integrated efforts do.

“

”

Elizabeth Houston

Global events Social Media Marekting Manager, Comsys, for Cisco Systems

> > > > > > >

day mark in January 2011.2 _{These millions of conversations constitute a vast reservoir of}

opinion and insight that could never before be collected and analyzed.

However, social media analytics tools enable marketers to do just that: tap into that rich source of knowledge and tease out the conversations taking place about their brands, or about topics that are critical to their brands. Most advocates of content marketing in social media agree that the very first step is to listen to that “Social Echo,” a term PR Newswire recently coined to describe the powerful reverberation around brands that occurs through these conversations.3

“You have to set out listening posts,” says Joe Pulizzi, Founder and Executive Director of the Content Marketing Institute. “You get tremendous value out of understanding what the conversation already is; you can learn what the hot topics are, and where you can weigh in with real expertise.”

Interviewees agree that listening in on social media venues to identify the topics that are important to their audience, and the most influential voices on those topics, is a critical first step for their social media content marketing strategy. (Full disclosure: PR Newswire, the author of this white paper, offers such an on-demand listening tool.)

Finding

your

audience

The same analytical tools that help you identify the right topics and the highest influencers also enable you to find where your target audience is “hanging out” in social media. Sometimes, that tells you where to focus and what to exclude; more often, however, it comes down to a matter of emphasis.

“Figuring out where the audience is is a science, and it takes time,” says Cisco’s Houston. “They are in different social media watering holes, per se. Some are in Twitter; some are in Facebook; others prefer to read blogs.” She described Cisco’s approach to finding its audience in the context of the recent Enterprise Connect trade show (formerly VoiceCon), which the company attended earlier this year. “We profile the event’s audience to find out what level they are. Do they participate in social media? What would we like them to walk away knowing that they didn’t know before?” Houston explains.

“Then we ask ourselves which Cisco media channels do we have in place for that audience? What size of followership do we have? If it’s small, we may use Twitter, and try to use that event to grow our Twitter handle as we get closer to that show,” she continues.

Figuring out where

the audience is is a

science ...

They are in

different social media

watering holes,

per se. Some are in

Twitter; some are

in Facebook; others

prefer to read blogs.

“

”

Elizabeth Houston

Global events Social Media Marekting Manager, Comsys, for Cisco Systems

2. Data posted to Quora on January 4, 2011 by twitter Product Marketing Manager Pierre Legrain 3. Amplifying Your Social Echo, PR Newswire, January 2011

“From there we look into industry and other third-party social media channels related to the topic, and answer questions like, where do audiences exist? What are their sizes? How do we participate in them? Can we enter the conversation as a peer, or is there an opportunity to enter as a subject-matter expert?”

The process Houston describes mirrors that of several interviewees, all of whom take an analytical approach to finding the fragments of their target audiences that are participating in multiple social media venues.

The great B-to-B versus B-to-C debate

When it comes to deciding what social media venues to emphasize, many interviewees support the conventional wisdom that Facebook is better for B-to-C content marketing and LinkedIn is better for B-to-B – but there is vigorous debate.

“From my personal experience, Facebook is not yet as strong a B-to-B component as some of our other channels, like LinkedIn, Twitter, and blogging,” Houston says. Cisco focuses energy on Facebook for its consumer products, such as the Umi home video conferencing system and Valet router.

Elliot Kass, Vice President, Content Marketing for UBM TechWeb, the technology media firm, agrees. “Facebook is for consumer marketing, because of the nature of Facebook and why people go there. That’s where consumers go to find things and share things. But that’s not where the people in business go, until they go home and become consumers,” says Kass.

However, there are opposing views.

Says Stein + Partners’ Kohnen: “I agree Facebook is more B-to-C targeted, but you can still use Facebook for B-to-B. There are some industry verticals where the difference between the two is almost indistinguishable.”

Facebook is for consumer marketing,

because of the nature of Facebook and why

people go there. That’s where consumers go

to find things and share things. But that’s

not where the people in business go, until

they go home and become consumers.

“

”

Elliot Kass

Vice President, Content Marketing, UBM techWeb

You can still use Facebook

for B-to-B.

There are some

industry verticals where the

difference between the two is

almost indistinguishable.

“

”

Ted Kohnen

Vice President, interactive Marketing, Stein + Partners

Similarly, Wheelhouse Solutions’ B-to-B brands, such as Champion Exposition Services and Immersa Marketing, emphasize Facebook and Twitter over LinkedIn (though they use all three), according to Leslie Brand, Vice President, Marketing at Wheelhouse.

The chart at left explains why all four of these marketers are right, all at the same time. While LinkedIn has a clear lead over the other social media channels in terms of B-to-B customer acquisition, 41% of marketers surveyed acquired B-to-B customers via Facebook. The reciprocal is also true: Despite Facebook’s consumer dominance, 39% of marketers surveyed acquired consumer customers via LinkedIn.

The chart also provides eloquent argument for why short cuts and generalizations are not possible at this juncture in the development of social media, as Stein + Partners’ Kohnen commented at the outset of this report. Marketers must align their content marketing strategy with their social media channels via analytical due diligence, as Cisco’s Houston describes above, in order to ensure they are reaching their full audience.

establishing your expert presence

“Before your brand can expect great response from content distributed in social media, you have to lay the groundwork,” says the Content Marketing Institute’s (CMI’s) Pulizzi. “That way, instead of pushing content seeds out into stone, you’re putting them in soil.”

What Pulizzi means by “laying the groundwork” is to establish your brand’s social media presence by commenting on, or posting to, the blogs, Facebook pages, LinkedIn groups or Twitter communities that are most relevant and influential for your brand or topical focus.

The first step is to identify the top 10-to-15 blogs and other social media venues where your target audience already is present. After that, you post comments to demonstrate your expertise on the topic, and share excellent content created by others.

“You have to do it for three-to-six months to become accepted as part of the community. After that, you can start inviting them in to your own blog, to guest post or be moderators,” Pulizzi says.

Before your brand can

expect great response

from content

distributed in social

media,

you have to

lay the groundwork.

That way, instead

of pushing content

seeds out into stone,

you’re putting them

in soil.

“

”

Joe Pulizzi

Founder & executive Director, Content Marketing institute

20% 40% 60% 80% 0% LinkedIn Company

Blog Facebook Twitter

61% 39% 55% 63% 41% 67% 39% 53%

Customer Acquisition by Channel

B2B

vs

B2C

Pulizzi also acknowledges, however, that this is often the toughest thing for a brand to do. “You have to assign one or more people to be out there, to represent your brand as subject-matter experts. Marketers worry that the individual’s brand will shine too much – and then what happens if that person leaves the company?” asks Pulizzi, rhetorically. Kohnen describes an innovative solution that Stein + Partners developed for one of its clients, TheLadders, the leading recruitment solution for professional talent. Three company employees plus Kohnen ghostwrite social network posts in all the major venues under the guise of four fictitious characters. The four represent distinct, highly sought job candidate types: The Hammer (sales), The Machine (finance), The Wizard (engineer) and The Mastermind (marketing).

“The characters are obviously fictitious but the approach works because of the high value of the content these characters post and tweet – and because everybody’s in on it,” Kohnen explains.

Laying the groundwork offers ancillary benefits, too. Pulizzi says: “When there is a mistake in one of our posts, one of our contributors is going to let us know in two seconds. They monitor our stuff. They care.”

“It’s a ‘pay it forward’ strategy, in use since social media was born. Do it right, and your blog becomes a magnet for everything you do, and you can share out from that blog,” Pulizzi concludes.

Social currency: ‘news you can use’

There is no doubt about what type of content is most effective for B-to-B brands in social media. It is expert content about a given topic that helps your audience be more successful. The interviewees consistently describe it as “fact-based,” “research-oriented,” “instructional,” “actionable” and “news you can use.”

Not surprisingly, that emphasis is probably strongest in the information technology (IT) industry. “What IT people do is they evaluate things, they prepare reports and presentations for committees; so they’re constantly doing research,” says UBM TechWeb’s Kass. “If you’re a marketer you want to help them. You want to provide your message in the context of real content, real useful information that your audience needs, and in a format that they can use.”

However, the advice is sound in every market, as Kohnen, Pulizzi and Wheelhouse’s Brand describe, each from their unique point of view. “Our number one strategy is to educate our customers and to influence our future prospects,” says Brand. Wheelhouse’s Champion Exposition

Our number one

strategy is to

educate

our customers

and to

influence our future

prospects.

“

”

Leslie Brand

Vice President of Marketing, Wheelhouse

Services brand, which manages the logistical end of events primarily for associations, has produced major research on exhibitor trends and on the digital tools that trade show attendees are increasingly using. “A hard fact from a known brand or a case study describing something that was innovative and successful is extremely helpful to our customers and prospects,” says Brand.

Kohnen agrees, pointing to multiple research projects and in-depth white papers that Stein + Partners has created for many clients. But there’s a hurdle: in-depth research and white papers don’t make great Facebook or LinkedIn posts – and never mind 140-character tweets.

The solution, says Kohnen, is to “atomize” in-depth content into “easily consumable and digestible parts that make people want to know more.” In the case of TheLadders, where each of the four characters is tasked with three-to-five posts/tweets every day, Kohnen prizes white papers with enough texture and substance to be highly atomized.

In that regard, one white paper – Measure Up: ‘Quality’ Metrics Drive Quality Hires – has been most effective for TheLadders because of the depth and substance it offered to be atomized, he explains. Kohnen provided three examples of the tweets that drove that effectiveness:

“Study: #Recruiting managers seek tool that finds highest quality candidates in a shorter period of time #measureup http://bit.ly/dlG7u5”

“To avoid skew from outliers use medians instead of means when calculating time-to-fill averages. http://bit.ly/dlG7u5”

“Analyzing #recruitment funnel and time-to-fill metrics can help HR executives avoid rejected offers #measureup http://bit.ly/dlG7u5”

Blog content should also be written to take advantage of this approach, says Pulizzi. “The top 10 blog posts on our site for the last 30 days are all super instructional – and in most cases they have a number in their headline,” he says.

In fact, Pulizzi provided the CMI site’s top three traffic-generating posts for the 30 days prior to April 7, 2011, and the number of times each one was shared on Facebook or tweeted:

1) 12thingstodoafteryou’vewrittenablogpost:shared 661 times on Facebook; tweeted 497 times

2) 12reasonstoputblogsatthecenterofyourcontentmarketing:56 Facebook shares and 294 tweets

3) 5contentstrategiesforboringbrands:31 Facebook shares and 117 tweets “Anything that’s a stat can and will get retweeted,” adds Brand. “We’ve seen that with both of our own research surveys.”

The top 10 blog posts

on our site for the last

30 days are all super

instructional – and in

most cases they have

a number in their

headline.

“

”

Joe Pulizzi

Founder & executive Director, Content Marketing institute

> > >

Rodale Custom Content & Marketing (RCCM), another Stein + Partners client, used actionable and instructional content at the core of its recent re-branding activities – and in RCCM’s case the content was about the art and science of content marketing, Kohnen explains. Lacking a blog, however, RCCM used PR Newswire’s ARC™ engagement platform as a repository and distribution mechanism for its white papers, videos and related collateral. The ARC engagement platform enables marketers to distribute and optimize multimedia content across all digital channels

It worked: “About three dozen different blogs – from very tech-centric to marketing-centric – embedded the ARC video player in their sites and linked back to the company’s ARC site,” Kohnen explains.

Twitter as events conversation forum

Many of those we interviewed use Twitter before, during and after live events, both to engage users with their brand content and to generate audience interaction.

UBM TechWeb provides such tweeting as a service to its events customers, says Kass. “We will tweet for the client at an event to build the cachet of the event, and get people who are not attending to pay attention and follow the event,” Kass says. “So it’s a way of extending the client’s message beyond the event to a broader audience.”

“We’ve also used it very effectively to continue the conversation – to keep the momentum going with prospects who attend the event. The tweeting will continue for three-to-four days in the wake of the event, and can be used as a segue to get attendees involved in another online community or activity,” Kass explains.

Cisco also makes extensive use of Twitter in and around its own events and the events it attends. “Prior to Enterprise Connect, for example, we held a Twitter chat. It created engagement with our customers on an ongoing basis prior to the show, and we were able to continue those conversations during and after the show,” Houston says.

That Twitter chat was based on a topic of interest to the audience that related to topics on which the company planned to speak at the show, Houston explains. Cisco made a subject-matter expert available for a one-hour live, interactive question-and-answer session via Twitter.

Twitter is particularly interesting as a real-time conversation forum for attendees during a show, explains Wheelhouse Solutions’ Brand. “We always recommend that our customers use that channel during attendee and exhibiter marketing pre-show, and then on site. We suggest using hashtags, and even session hashtags so that individual sessions can have their own conversations.”

Many of those we

interviewed use

Twitter

before, during

and after live events,

both to engage

users with their

brand content and to

generate audience

interaction.

“That way, speakers who want real interaction can have a screen in the room and can watch the audience’s questions via Twitter,” says Brand.

The blog-centric integrated strategy

By itself, a blog is an isolated voice. Yet a social media content marketing strategy without a blog lacks a grounded center. However, if you integrate blogs and social media with a comprehensive content marketing strategy, the results could border on magical.

We’ve explored in previous reports how content marketing can help to re-unify audiences that have splintered into a variety of forms, formats and venues across the increasingly fragmented media landscape.4 _{The “magical” potential of an integrated, blog-centric}

approach to content marketing in social media is to find those audience splinters wherever they roam and use your blog as a magnet, in Pulizzi’s words, to bring them all together again into a unified online community.

Noted blogger Brian Solis, Principal of research-based advisory firm Altimeter Group, explains why the approach is essential. “People’s attention dashboard is now a tweetdeck, or their Facebook wall, or their inbox, any of which allows them to see what is happening in the social web. You have to make sure your content is published in places that are going to reach that attention dashboard,” Solis says.

Houston explains that Cisco often creates blog-centric community sites for the topics it deems important, and then connects those communities to all the appropriate social media venues where its audiences can be found. “We do this because we want everything to be integrated, and we want customers to be able to access and converse with Cisco’s subject-matter experts,” says Houston.

“If we’re using a blog for Cisco Umi, for instance, we may have a blog post about a new feature, or how the industry is changing, and then tie it to a YouTube video, or tweet about it. That way, the blog does not become its own standalone channel, but is integrated with those other social channels that don’t have native blogging.”

“The integrated approach is great because it is more than just pointing to a white paper where there is not another step,” Houston says. “Online community creates the opportunity to ask a peer a question; it creates the opportunity for word-of-mouth.”

UBM TechWeb’s Kass agrees: “You can create a great white paper but only when you blog about it will people discuss it,” says Kass.

The integrated

approach is great

because it is more

than just pointing to

a white paper where

there is not another

step.

“

”

Elizabeth Houston

Global events Social Media Marekting Manager, Comsys, for Cisco Systems

Measure everything

The advocates of content marketing in social media generally agreed that measuring their branded content’s social media interactions is more than a way to be accountable for the success of their content marketing efforts – measuring is a necessary element of knowing what to do in the first place!

As Houston describes above, measuring via analytical listening tools defines the social venues in which to emphasize different topics, and where to find different kinds of customers. Stein + Partners’ Kohnen is constantly performing similar analyses for the agency’s clients, to help define their media plans and to find their target audiences in social venues.

The interviewees add tracking codes to their links in social media channels, and constantly monitor their interaction levels in each venue and tweak their messaging accordingly – often in real time. Further, they use listening tools to analyze their performance. “We want to know, were we trendsetters? How did we influence the influencers?” says Houston. Most interviewees key in on measuring their brand’s influence on the major influencers that are relevant to their success in social media. A sampling of the main questions they measure for includes:

Who are the major influencers?

How actively engaged are they with our content? Do they retweet our content?

Do they blog about our content?

Do they respond to other posts on our behalf?

The interviewees agree that it’s too early in the evolution of social media to be able to “connect the dots” from social media interactions all the way to company revenue – but they see that day coming soon. In the meantime, they focus on measuring the depth of engagement between the audience and their content as a proxy for sales success.

Conclusion: you’re either in the conversation, or you’re out of it

Our interviews with advocates of content marketing in social media have shown that the right approach can enable brand marketers to re-unify their fragmented target audiences and achieve levels of engagement that were unheard of the last time those audiences were unified – in the context of traditional mass media.

For the interviewees, that “right approach” consistently includes blogs that are home to both brand content and online community, and are connected via rich, informational posts

> > > > >

The interviewees

constantly monitor

their interaction

levels

in each

venue and tweak

their messaging

accordingly – often in

real time.

to all the relevant social media venues. The right approach also includes a lot of hard work: in-depth measurement and analysis just to determine the right content and the right venues for your brand, or product.

Waiting won’t make it any easier. We encourage all marketers to explore strategies for content marketing in social media sooner rather than later.

The top 11 best practices for content marketing in social media

1)

Listen to your Social Echo to identify the issues and topics that customers

in social media really care about, and that are ripe for thought leadership

2)

Use analytical listening tools to find where in social media your target

audience is “hanging out”

3)

Align your content marketing strategy with social media channels via

analytical due diligence – don’t be lured in by generalizations

4)

“Lay the groundwork” for content marketing in social media by

establishing an expert presence in the appropriate social media venues

5)

Identify the top 10-to-15 most influential social venues for your audience;

establish your presence there

6)

Overcome, or work around, your fear of losing influential brand

representatives – you’ll make more

7)

Establish a blog-centric online community as home for your brand content

and related topical discussion

8)

“Atomize” substantive content for easy digestion in social media venues

9)

Deploy fact-based, instructional or actionable content in social networks

10)

Use tracking codes to measure your activities and constantly tweak your

execution tactics

11)

Always focus on content that helps your audience be more successful –

sales and profits will grow naturally as a result

about PR Newswire

(888) 776-0942 www.prnewswire.com