Spark Minute

Build Attention for Your Brand by Recognizing Others

David Spark — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 16:27:56 +0000

If you want people to pay attention to you, pay attention to them first. It’s how we create personal relationships, and it’s how we should create business and professional relationships as well. Unfortunately not all organizations approach it this way. Many believe they should speak first and announce their “message.” That seems to be the most important part. Always stay “on message” and make sure your audience remembers your “message.”

In today’s give-and-take world of social media, talking about yourself as you enter the room won’t make a good first impression. If you want more respect and recognition, show it to others first.

This is exactly what Spark Media Solutions did with our client Tripwire, whom we’ve worked with at the RSA Conferences. Read our full case study, “How to Become One of the Most Respected Companies in Your Industry.”

Company: Tripwire is an IT security company with a suite of software products for protecting sensitive data and critical IT systems, and detecting vulnerabilities and potential threats.

Situation: The security company was relaunching its blog to serve as a social media hub with new sharing functionality, a new design, and a new title, “The State of Security.”

Challenge: Other organizations that just announce, “We’ve got a new blog,” fall on deaf ears. Users need something to talk about. If Tripwire wanted to bring an audience to their blog they would need an anchor piece of content to act as a hub for conversation. This piece of content had to be done fairly quickly as there wasn’t enough time to do a big crowdsourcing project.

Solution: To complement the new blog, Spark Media Solutions’ recommendation was to create a list of the top 25 people in the security industry to follow via social media.

The Technique

There’s never a guarantee that a piece of content will be successful, but there are methods one can deploy to improve the value and viral nature of a piece of content. For this project, here’s how we gave our list some depth and legs:

Create context as to why these people are valuable – Explain why someone should be following these people. In our research we had found other such lists, but they were just that, “lists.” We found another list that provided context but it was close to five years old. It was definitely time to offer up an updated list.

Provide links to follow the person – Provide Twitter and blog links for each recommended influencer, but also create a Twitter list of all 25 people so with a single click a reader could follow all of our recommendations.

Reach out to the influencers for some content – Since these are the people we’re profiling, we should give them an opportunity to speak as well. We emailed each influencer and simply asked, “What’s your security tip for 2012?” After a lot of back and forth, we were able to get great tips from all 25 influencers on our list. It’s not an easy task, but it was made possible through Tripwire’s preexisting work proactively building relationships.

“We’ve been building genuine relationships with influencers in the community on and off social media for the past two years. We believe in supporting the community and value their contributions to the information security industry,” said Cindy Valladares, social media strategist for Tripwire.

Letting the influencers know they’re on the list – Influencers become influencers by promoting themselves and having others refer to them as influencers. By letting a person know that you’ve written about them, and that you’ve added them to a “top important people list,” chances are extremely high that that influencer is going to tell his/her followers about being honored. That means the top 25 security influencers are probably going to retweet this list to their audience. Meaning ultimately this list will be seen by an audience that cares about security issues.

After a lot of work, we finally produced the piece “Top 25 Influencers in Security You Should Be Following.”

Results

The blog post was hugely successful. Regularly, blog posts on Tripwire’s blog got a handful of shares via Twitter and Facebook. This post got well over 700.

“We were shocked when we saw the amount of web traffic this article drove to our site. December is usually a month with less traffic due to the holiday season, but this article contributed to about 30% of overall web traffic in the first few days it launched. Over the month, the referral traffic that social media contributed grew by 400% compared to previous months,” Valladares said.

While the sharing was phenomenal, what was more phenomenal was the amount of respect and appreciation the community, and the influencers, had for the creation of such a list. Here’s just a sampling of the hundreds of responses:

“Gotta hand it to @TripwireInc , this is an excellent list…” – JT Keating, @JTKeating
“Great list to follow.” – Kylie Heintz, @kmheintz
“Great resource.” – CSID, @CSIdentity
“The security rock star list is up. Are you following these peeps?” – Jennifer Usher, @jmanos
“A big #FF today for @cindyv and @TripwireInc for their efforts in supporting and engaging with the infosec community.” – Brian Honan, @BrianHonan
“A lot of smart security people on this Tripwire list.” – stacksmasher, @stacksmasher
“A pretty good list of #security people you should be following on twitter from @TripwireInc.” – Threatpost, @Threatpost
“Am tweetless at @TripwireInc’s inclusion of me.” – Bob Rudis, @hrbrmstr
“I’m humbled to be on @TripwireInc ‘Top 25 Influencers’ list.” – Brian Honan, @BrianHonan
“Honoured to be on @TripwireInc’s list of Top 25 Influencers in Security You Should Be Following.” – Graham Cluley, @gcluley
“Congrats to Akamai peeps @csoandy,@mckeay & @joshcorman on making Tripwire’s Top 25 Influencers list for Security.” – Karthikeyan D S, @dskishere
“Congrats to @andrewsmhay (#10) and @taosecurity (#1) in Tripwire top 25 security influencers.” – Vivek Rajagopalan, @vivekrj

There was plenty of kudos for the list, the expert tips, and congratulations to people who made the list. It was clearly an honor to be on this list as Richard Bejtlich admitted on his blog and said this about Tripwire:

“Tripwire is one of those technologies and companies that everyone should know. It’s almost like the ‘Xerox’ of security because so many people equate the idea of change monitoring with Tripwire.” – Richard Bejtlich, EthicalHackers.info

Next steps

This article was a precursor to Tripwire’s social media strategy for 2012 which includes a major engagement at the RSA Conference to be held in San Francisco at the end of February, 2012. This will be the third year Spark Media Solutions has covered the event, publishing our videos and articles about the event on the Tripwire blog (Check out our coverage from the 2011 RSA Conference).

Now that we’ve identified the top 25 influencers, had conversations with them, and in many cases interviewed them in past events, our next step will be to follow up with an interview at RSA.

The relationships Tripwire and Spark Media Solutions have built with infosec influencers have become critical in our need to reach out to them, converse, and get their opinions.

“Part of our strategy is to allow infosec influencers to freely share their opinions and points of view, regardless of whether they align with Tripwire solutions. We’ve built a relationship of trust, where we hope they benefit from the platform we provide,” Valladares said.

When you have a true relationship with a person, initiating requests, such as interviews, are far easier to make and result in greater acceptance.

Beyond honoring top influencers and interviewing them, we’ll continue to look for more ways to create content that showcases their wisdom.

“The goal is to look for opportunities where both parties succeed, Tripwire and influencers. We want all participants to be seen as key resources that are providing the community with valuable information about security,” Valladares said.

Stock photos of cropped heads courtesy of Shutterstock.

Build Strong Industry Relationships Through Content Marketing

David Spark — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 18:37:09 +0000

Last week I got to appear on Murray Newlands’ show “Future of Engagement.” We talked about how content marketing has become all the rage as of late. It’s been around for a while, but I’m happy that everyone thinks it’s “all the rage” because it makes my company appear a little more hip. Regardless, we talk for about six minutes on content marketing, how it’s necessary to be visible when people are trading information via social media and seeking it via search. That’s why we stand by our credo that “Content is the currency of social media and search.”

Content also becomes a point of contact, an icebreaker, or development step for relationship building.

Watch the short interview, especially to see the absolute worst angle and close up of my giant misshaped head.

My Five Favorite Videos from Interop 2011

David Spark — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 17:20:21 +0000

Were you at Interop last year? Want to relive all the excitement? Probably not, so why don’t you just check out some of the best videos I shot at the event while I was reporting for Dice.

Here are my five favorite videos from Interop 2011

	Google’s Vinton Cerf on the company’s culture of tolerating failure – Watch me make an incredibly stupid mistake interviewing one of the legends of the Internet
	Interop 2011: Tour of the Network Operations Center (NOC) – The coolest thing they do at Interop every year, and I take a tour of the entire thing.
	Funniest trade show booth I’ve ever seen – This was awesome, a mechanical bull on the trade show floor.
	The latest trend in IT is the democratization of IT – My interview with Lenny Heymann, General Manager of the entire conference.
	CIO Boot Camp: Is your IT department a Terminator? Is it Sponge Bob? Or is it Colin Powell? – IT departments get no respect.

Here are 25 more videos from Interop 2011

	CIO Boot Camp: Meet EnviroTech’s entire IT department, Vincent
	Do you need (or want) 169 terabytes of traffic per second?
	Ciphertex’s handy five terabyte carry-it-with-you RAID storage
	Vint Cerf: More applications need to share and reuse spectrum
	Google’s Vint Cerf on flowing in and out of multimedia conversation modes
	Netscout provides deeper insight into voice and video traffic
	Digital analytics for foot traffic
	Vidyo’s video conferencing solution lies somewhere between Polycom and Skype
	Interop 2011 Grand Prize Winner: Performance analytics for your virtual environment
	The best way to prepare for a giant network attack is to create one yourself
	Cisco offers application administrators real-time insight into the network
	Extracting the benefits of fiber when you only have a copper network
	Spiceworks — Free network monitoring and social network
	The best testing environment is the one that simulates real traffic through your network
	NEC’s Programmable Flow Switch automatically configures switches
	Citrix Receiver: One solution for onboarding any mobile device
	Moving everyday files quickly to and from the cloud
	CIO Boot Camp: Decision making under massive uncertainty
	CIO Boot Camp: Letting students pass digital notes in school and church
	CIO Boot Camp: What I really want to do is virtualize
	CIO Boot Camp: What technology do you want to retire?
	CIO Boot Camp: How can my technical infrastructure compete against the agility of a start up?
	CIO Boot Camp: What do IT directors have in common?
	CIO Boot Camp: Jumping the Curve: Switching from old to new technology
	What’s everybody talking about at Interop?

13 Annoying Communications that Must End in 2012

David Spark — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 15:58:58 +0000

Last year I wrote a list of 16 annoying communications that must end in 2011. It was one of my most popular articles of the year. I guess my readers just love to hear me complain. Given that my crankiness is in demand, I decided to put together a new list of annoying communications for the new year.

Shortening someone’s name right after you’ve been introduced

Almost everyone who has a long first name, for which there are many shortened versions, must deal with this. If someone says their name, call them by that name and no other version. If a person introduces themselves as “Elizabeth” then that’s what you call her. You may want to call her “Liz” but that’s not what she wants. So don’t do it.

What’s far more irritating is when the name shortening happens immediately after an introduction.

“My name is Robert.”

“Hi Rob.”

“Hi Shmuck.”

Not remembering someone’s name right after you’ve been introduced

I’m monstrously guilty of this as I can immediately forget someone’s name the instant they tell it to me. Others who are guilty of this will declare, “I’m so bad at remembering names.” Nice try. Announcing your fallibility is not an excuse. Unless you’re being introduced to the entire choir, be in the moment and remember people’s names. If you need to, use some tricks such as associate that person with someone else you know with the same name. If it’s a name you’ve never heard before, repeat it back to make sure you’re pronouncing it correctly.

Tagging objects as people in Facebook photos

This was funny the first time, but not anymore. Especially now that Facebook puts thumbnails of your five most recent photos at the top of your profile. If you don’t want people thinking you’re a bowl of spaghetti or the hooded assassin in a New Yorker cartoon, you need to untag yourself.

Tagging people in Facebook articles just to get them to read them

I’m more than happy to accept a personal email or a Facebook message, but to tag me in an article on Facebook just to get me to read it is obnoxious. The Facebook wall is an individual’s public expression, and it’s not designed for you to promote your crap. This was a major problem with MySpace as people would post photos of whatever they were selling on their friends’ walls. The site just became a useless marketplace for digital graffiti and we now see what’s happened to that.

Opening a panel discussion by allowing the panelists to first talk about themselves

This irritates me to no end, and it’s an incredibly lazy move by the moderator. If you have four panelists, and you give them five minutes each to talk about their business “just to set the stage” you’ve wasted 20 minutes on information NO ONE WANTS TO HEAR. The audience has a program with speaker bios, let them read it on their own. The moderator should just give a one line introduction to each and then begin the session. Unfortunately, that’s just one way that most panel discussions suck. To make your panel session not suck, download and read my article, “More Schmooze, Less Snooze: How to Deliver ‘The Most Talked About’ Panel Session.”

Asking a blogger, “Can you blog something for me?”

This is thankfully not as bad as it used to be, but I still get these completely inappropriate requests. Blogging is a job. There may not be direct income from it, but it can be used to build an industry brand and create relationships. Making this request is asking, “Can I intrude in on your personal brand? Would you promote something you know little to nothing about? Would you do some work for me for free?”

It’s often a thoughtless request with the hope of just getting free press.

The most egregious case of this I’ve ever received is spelled out in this two-part story, “Hey PR, Bloggers Are Not Tools to Be Used.”

When this type of request is OK is when someone who you do know and have a relationship with asks you to retweet something on Twitter or to “Like” something on Facebook. It’s a sign of support and assuming it doesn’t infringe the brand you’re trying to create, it takes little to zero time to do.

Stringing people along

Whether dating or in business, there’s nothing more annoying and rude than giving someone hope by stringing them along with an “I’m so busy, call me next month” response. I don’t care how important you think you are, no one is truly that busy that they can’t give the person the current status even if they don’t know what the current status is. It could be as simple as “I have no information for you now, and it’s not looking promising, but you’re welcome to follow up in a month if you want.”

This only works if you actually connect with the person on the phone or in person. If you send a lot of emails or leave a lot of phone messages and get no response, take the hint. The recipient is not required to email or call back every person to tell them nothing is happening.

Attaching videos and uncompressed photos to emails

Most of us 45 and under don’t make this mistake. It’s the fault of our parents and grandparents who just learned how to attach a file to an email.

“Did you get the wedding video? I attached it.”

It’s our responsibility to show the older generations how to use YouTube, Kodak Gallery, or any of the hundreds of other video and photo sharing services.

Not understanding what BCC is

With every email we send, we see the To:, CC:, and BCC: fields. After at least 15 years experience writing emails, we should all know the difference. Sadly, at least once a year, we receive an email with 50 people in the CC: field. Inevitably someone will hit “Reply to All” in a response just to the sender. Then someone else will hit “Reply to All” and tell everyone to stop hitting “Reply to All.” What fun.

For more, read “Social Media ‘Gurus’ and Bloggers Are Egotistical Jerks.”

Sharing without consumption

This is the behavior of liking, sharing, or retweeting a piece of content without reading, listening, or watching it. It’s often done as a favor to a friend (e.g., “Would you retweet something for me?”). More often it’s a means to game online popularity to build your own social media profile. We can now see actual results of this as others are putting weight on social reputation services such as Klout and Kred.

These services unfortunately have a major fallibility that awards the content sharer rather than the content creator. For example, if someone tweets this blog post without my Twitter handle (@dspark), and then they’re retweeted, then their Klout score is increased, but mine isn’t. Therefore, the “klout” goes to the person who shared the content, not the person who created it. This happens all the time.

Hiring companies that are looking for employees with audiences are now using these services as benchmarks. One friend applied for a job which required him to have a Klout score of at least 30.

For an egregious case of sharing without consumption read “Here’s What’s Wrong With Social Media: Sharing Without Consumption” and for more supporting data read my Mashable article “Why Sharing Online Content Might Be Too Easy.”

Cross posting all tweets to Facebook

Does anyone enjoy this? Thankfully Facebook doesn’t reward this lazy type of posting. Most of these reposted tweets will not show up in your newsfeed. People who turn the Twitter app on in Facebook just end up clogging their profile page. In the end, it only reflects poorly on the user.

Wishing “Happy Birthday” on Facebook

I know I’m going to get a lot of heat for this, but in all the years people have said the phrase, “It’s the least I could do,” this truly is, outside of doing nothing at all, “The least you can do.” Nothing says, “I barely care,” then to type “Happy Birthday” on someone’s profile page.

If you do truly want to wish someone “Happy Birthday” then do something else, anything else other than just typing “Happy Birthday.” It’s great that Facebook reminds us when people have birthdays. Use that as a chance to reconnect with the person with a positive message about them or your relationship with them. Or, better yet, send a personal video message through Facebook. For more, read “I Just Sent 555 Personalized Video Holiday Greeting Cards-How I Did It.”

Please, just do anything else, write anything else, beyond just “Happy Birthday.”

Facebook pages that require you to hit the “Like” button just to see the content on the page

This is really obnoxious, and it’s a method of gatekeeping content. The fan page is requiring me to make a commitment before I can see the content. This goes hand-in-hand with having a splash screen with a giant arrow that says, “Click our ‘Like’ button.”

It’s not the best way to treat and talk to your audience.

“We want to capture you so we can send more ad messages to you. Problem is we also believe you’re an idiot, so we have to tell you what icon to click.”

Now it’s your turn to complain

There’s got to be more things that annoy you. What have I missed?

Creative Commons photo credit to Dan Taylor, JAXPORT, and Adam Tinworth.

Stock photos of angry guy, confused person, and name tag from Shutterstock.

This Week’s Beancast: The End of CES and Who Defines Decency

David Spark — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 18:04:10 +0000

Last night I recorded this week’s episode of the Beancast with host Bob Knorpp (@TheBeanCast). We discussed digital branding, the end of CES, who defines decency and people not wanting to talk to brands. Joining me and Bob on the show were Bill Green (@mtlb), Creative Strategist, BFG Communications (Host of the Adverve podcast and The Adverve Blog), Tonya Hall (@tonyahallradio) host of Tonya Hall Radio, and Tom Martin (@tommartin) Founder, Converse Digital.

Listen to the show (Time: 1:02).

Vote for Spark Media Solutions’ New Logo

David Spark — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 17:34:29 +0000

After a week of more than 250 submissions from 49 designers, we have 8 finalists for Spark Media Solutions’ new logo design. We did the crowdsourcing design contest with 99designs. Would love to get your input on which one you think is the best. Just rate each finalist and leave a comment as to why you think one is better than the other.

Go to 99designs, #1 for Logo Design

Tips to Energize Brand Advocates

David Spark — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 17:20:51 +0000

Earlier this year I produced and reported at an event for Zuberance, a tool that helps companies energize their brand advocates. Tons of marketers and social media goons were there, and offered up some fantastic advice. Here are all the videos and their advice.

	How Do You Energize Brand Advocates?
	Build a relationship with an Advocate like you would with a friend
	How do you convert a passive fan of your brand into an Advocate?
	Advocates love brands and brands love Advocates
	Give Brand Advocates special access
	How JetBlue built long lasting relationships on their 10th birthday
	The ongoing confusion between Advocates and influencers
	Microsoft knows that their customers sell their product better than they do

Creative Commons photo attribution to ThinkPanama.

My Five Favorite Videos from the 2011 Game Developers Conference

David Spark — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 17:20:36 +0000

I was looking back at my collection of videos and realized I had a ton of videos that I had yet to share. So going back to the way back machine, about eight months ago, I pulled out all my videos that I shot for Dice at the 2011 Game Developers Conference. Here they are:

My five favorite videos from Game Developers Conference 2011

	What game inspired you to be a game developer? – Love their responses. Every developer was inspired by a different game.
	World of Warcraft Game Director on how to upgrade an insanely popular franchise – His session was PACKED, and I caught him for a quick interview about revamping the most popular MMORPG.
	Three tips from @MistressMousey for getting a job in gaming – Gamer or not, these are good tips.
	One game developer’s plan to advance his career – This guy was completely open about wanting to leave his job.
	What’s more valuable at GDC: Roaming the floor or the parties afterwards? – Game developers trying to figure out how they should best network the conference.

And here are 21 more videos from the 2011 Game Developers Conference

	What are you bad at?
	The advantages of developing casino games
	The psychological benefits of videogames. They’re not just for fun anymore
	Building a talent pipeline with your local university
	The hardest part of game development
	Top three challenges for technical artists
	Could Zynga’s CityVille be the most perfect social game?
	Sony Computer Entertainment is hiring, hiring, hiring
	Why do you want to develop games for RockYou? They’ve got great food!
	Independent developers and GDC are the hotbeds for great gaming talent
	Soldiers play videogames to reduce nightmares that result from traumatic combat
	Surprise, you need experience and passion to work for Microsoft
	Networking at the San Francisco Game Developer’s Workshop
	Are schools helping gaming students prepare for the real world of game development?
	THQ is looking for senior talent across the board
	Ex-TV producer looking for developers to launch a new social gaming network
	Key to getting a job in game development is networking and a clear portfolio
	Want to get a job in game development? Do a team project
	Demand is high for developers, but breaking into the gaming market is still difficult
	Best skill you can learn in game development is team building

My Seven Favorite Videos from SXSW 2011

David Spark — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 22:37:16 +0000

We’re coming up on SXSW 2012 and I’ll be there once again reporting for Dice. The event is always insane and I was inspired to go back and look at my coverage from last year and put together all my videos, with my seven favorites up first.

My Seven Favorite Videos from SXSW 2011

	Live action Angry Birds – This was hysterical. People lined up to put on Angry Birds costumes and to play a live action version of the game.
	What makes you a geek for life? – Asked a bunch of people this question as they were waiting in line for the Diggnation event. CNN iReport picked up this video.
	Group Crowd Surf at Diggnation at SXSW 2011 – Another funny moment and I had a great angle. I caught Brian Brushwood and Leo Laporte afterwards to get their reaction.
	How come your conference notes don’t look like this? – These are the COOLEST conference notes I’ve ever seen and I was way impressed with her talent.
	Michael Ian Black on WitStream: a channel of snark for live events – One of the funniest guys on Twitter talks about his curated funny Twitter stream for live events.
	How Marc Maron’s WTF Podcast has changed his career – Comic I’ve known for years. Watch me try to take credit for the success of his podcast.
	Are you a geek or are you geek-ish? – Just a funny moment with crowd members at SXSW.

Lots more great videos from SXSW 2011

	Diggnation fans are either geeks, or love geeks
	Creator of the “Fail Whale” reveals the image’s four-legged origins
	SXSW proves that your social media friends actually exist
	How comedian Shane Mauss tests out material using Twitter
	Think more like a publisher and less like a sales person
	ReadWriteWeb needs great news writers
	HowStuffWorks’ Jonathan Strickland exposes an incredibly geeky tattoo
	The most important part of a social media engagement is retention
	Has social media communications allowed us to live in John Lennon times
	Diggnation fans gobble up Dice t-shirts and dice!
	Is Robert Scoble in the room?
	Are influencers a viable marketing channel?
	Situational awareness at Geek Spring Break (a.k.a. SXSW)

How to Fail at Content Marketing

David Spark — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 17:35:29 +0000

Screwing up at content marketing is one of the easiest things you’ll ever do. In fact, I see far more content marketing failures than I see organizations doing it well. It’s an honest mistake an organization makes. For most, content marketing is new territory and rarely are we good at something the very first time we do it.

I have witnessed and unfortunately been part of many of the following mistakes. If you’re just starting out with content marketing, you are almost definitely making some of these mistakes. Almost all of my clients have at one time dealt with these issues and in some cases may still be dealing with them.

Hire an ad agency or PR firm

As the communications landscape changes, traditional ad agencies and PR firms have been offering more services to satisfy their clients’ needs, such as content marketing. Seems natural, right? Communications firms know how to write and produce video for marketing purposes, it should be a natural shift to do the same editorially. It’s not.

Unless an ad agency or PR firm already has a staff of former journalists and TV producers, it’s not a natural shift just like it wouldn’t be a natural shift for a journalist to start writing marketing copy.

Yes, ad agencies and PR firms without a seasoned editorial staff can physically create media, but it’s like hiring a general practitioner when you need a specialist. A GP can only sort of help you.

I’m sure I’ll get a lot of heat for this comment as many ad agencies and PR firms are basing a lot of their new business on content marketing. I’m all for that, just as long as they have an experienced staff to do it. That requires hiring people who have worked in traditional journalistic media, not just giving new responsibilities to staffers who don’t have the experience or training. Traditional media is very different from creating ad copy.

Treat content marketing like marketing

This is one of the net results of hiring an ad agency or PR firm to do content marketing. Because their head is so steeped in creating marketing and delivering for the client, it’s very hard to break away from it. Heck “marketing” is in the title of “content marketing” so why not treat it like marketing?

People are forced to watch ads, but they self-select content. If it appears that your content is really marketing in disguise, consumers will sniff it out and avoid it. There are exceptions to this rule such as truly entertaining Superbowl commercials that people like to watch on YouTube.

The core problem is in the name “content marketing.” It sounds insidious. We’re giving you content, but we have an ulterior motive and that’s to market to you. I have used the phrase content marketing to categorize my business, Spark Media Solutions, solely because it’s understood and people use those words when they’re conducting Google searches on the subject. I used to use the synonymous term “custom publishing” but unfortunately it’s become rather dated and only people in the industry know what it means. What I now use, which I think is a more apt title that speaks to the viewpoint and the skills needed is “brand journalism.”

Try content on a limited basis, and give up quickly

I have sadly seen too many examples that I will not show in order to protect the guilty. As I mentioned in a previous article, “Top 10 Things You Didn’t Consider When Developing a Social Media Strategy,” you have to calculate time into your strategy. Rarely do companies have that kind of patience with any communications. It’s understandable that if you spend money you’ll want to see some results for your efforts. The problem is measuring a content marketing campaign is unlike measuring a marketing campaign. Content’s value is cumulative. Initially, you won’t see the results like you would from a pure marketing effort, but over time results will increase, sometimes dramatically.

No magazine built a brand with its first issue. It takes many issues, trial and error, to build an editorial voice, a brand, and a following.

Don’t get involved in social media

Traditional marketing doesn’t require involvement with your audience. It’s something that can be outsourced and you don’t have to get your hands dirty. Not the case with social a social engagement which should be part of any content marketing effort. Unlike most services, this isn’t one that someone can “just do for you.” You need to take a level of responsibility yourself, and that requires building a social presence and that takes time.

Have a narrow view of production

A good number of my initial engagements begin with “We want to make a video” and immediately the first question is “How much does that cost?” Which is the equivalent of asking, “How long is a piece of string?”

In all cases, someone who wants to “make a video” has a bigger problem to solve, and that gets into discussions of strategy and whether this video will be the solution to that strategy. But a greater concern of mine is that if you focus all your efforts on just one video it can get very costly to just create a single item and that means you’re putting a pretty heavy gamble on one single piece of content. Conversely, I’m a big fan of one effort, multiple units of content. For example, instead of going to a conference and producing one video of the event, why not produce multiple videos, articles, photos, a podcast, and maybe also a summary of the event? All of that is going to yield much greater output, make you more visible, and your per unit (video, article, photos, podcasts) costs will be a fraction of that original video you wanted to create.

For more, read “Be the Voice^SM” – Build Your Business by Becoming your Industry’s Thought Leader.

Have extremely high expectations about traffic

This coincides with giving up quickly. I’ve had huge clients for which the employees eat, sleep, and drink the company Kool-Aid. If you’re so steeped in it you lose perspective and think the rest of the world has been itching to hear more about you and once your story gets out there they’re going to be busting down your doors.

It’s not going to happen. Unless you already have a brand with an extreme loyal following, no one cares about you. Everyone cares about themselves.

Believe there’s a direct correlation between site traffic and inbound sales calls

It rarely works that way. Have you ever purchased something solely after reading an article or seeing a video a single time? Probably not, so don’t believe there are some other people out there that do. Direct sales shouldn’t be content marketing’s purpose. That’s the purpose of marketing. Content marketing helps you build greater brand affinity. It plays into many other critical factors, such as:

Increasing brand value
Increasing audience trust
Humanizing your business
Connecting with industry influencers
Creating assets to be traded via social media
Creating assets that are visible in search
Increasing the value of your services

The asset itself and the process of creating it is what creates value.

Conclusion: Pay attention to your audience first

Self-centeredness with content production only works for a select few that have already established a powerful brand. For organizations that are just starting out you must always play to your audience. It’s a great rule of thumb. Before you create any piece of content ask yourself, “Why would anyone care about this?” If there isn’t a compelling reason, then move on to another content effort. Remember, unlike traditional marketing, content marketing is user selected. Make something the user wants to select.

Fail, traffic, and cameraman photos courtesy of Shutterstock.