View
242
Download
0
Embed Size (px)
DESCRIPTION
Shawn Amos is a seasoned curator of content. He has lived through the trends of the last 20+ years, and approaches content is a whole new way - with mindfulness...
Citation preview
Today, I’d like to give you a bit of my own history, my take on where we stand at this moment in :me, and where I think we’re going. I then want to share a few pieces of Colorado content I think are cool and give you a few things to think about as you move forward in your own content journey. This is more of heart conversa:on than a head conversa:on. I know we’re addicted to data and devotees of numbers which I dig too. But this social media space is a game of science and art and in my experience with clients I oBen see them using science as an excuse to avoid the art. Don’t be afraid of art. I’m sure you’ll get lots of people giving you valuable pieces of hard data over the next day. I encourage you to pair it with the soBer side of storytelling and together find a path forward for you. Throughout this conversa:on, I’m going to ask you to alternately think of yourselves as users of social media, consumers, and marketers/business owners.
1
I grew up making content before it was called content. I made things with my hands likes cookies with my dad, movies in film school and records in what used to be called the music business. Everything started with a story I was excited to tell. And that’s s:ll the case. What excites you? Excitement is contagious. What is your story? What are you excited to share? So the leap from making stuff to marke:ng stuff is not that far. It’s all storytelling. The fundamentals of storytelling have gone unchanged for thousands of year. We want to be inspired, see something of our best selves — a glimpse of who we might become. However, the way we tell stories has changed drama:cally.
2
Think about the fact that the way we reached large audiences went largely unchanged for over 200 years. The most effec:ve way to reach people at scale was through print — newspapers, magazines. We had a long :me to master print communica:on. Then radio came along, then TV, changing the form factor. But we had 50+ years to master it. Now, in the past 16 we’ve had more media changes than the past 300. In 2012 Google sold more ads than all newspapers and magazines combined. And this doesn’t even address more recent plaYorms social apps like Tumblr, Vine, Pinterest, Snapchat These plaYorms have demanded changes in the way we tell stories. This stuff is really, really new. No one has mastered it. How could we? It’s s:ll s:ll changing. It’s the wild west.
3
When I started Freshwire in 2009, the phrase ‘content marke:ng’ had not entered the lexicon. In fact, in 2009, most of my :me in 2009 was spent explaining what ‘content’ meant. What a difference a few years makes. Content marke:ng has become seriously ubiquitous and seriously overexposed.
4
A flood of companies and services have come into the marketplace — some run by really smart and talented people. All of them carving up this social media maze into a million slices. Some are one size fits all companies promising to scale content overnight, some promise to make videos that will go viral, all are products of a world we’ve created where we need to be always on, always plugged in. All of them are selling a 24/7 real-‐:me rush to be always relevant. And to be fair, they — we — are only selling what we see mirrored around us. Marketers are mimicking the “always plugged in” behavior we exhibit as users of this technology. The myriad of offerings and catchphrases has created confusion amongst our clients. I'm sure you’re confused about what the hell to buy or who the hell to hire. Content marke:ng has not only become over-‐saturated as a term, it has perverted the very essence of marke:ng — what is noble about marke:ng. The art of marke:ng. There is a a bit of madness in this content marke:ng rush. One that is wholly unsustainable and oBen crumbles under its own weight. We are in a bubble that is close to popping. So, as an early entrant into this field, it may seem counter-‐intui:ve or suicidal to say what I’m about to say but here it is.
5
It isn’t just marketers who killed content marke:ng, it’s consumers as well. We’ve reached a :pping point as marketers and consumers — as humans. Let’s look at some stats. A bit of data. I know you guys dig data.
6
Forget marketers vs. consumers for a second. Let’s just think about ourselves as people all sharing this same moment in :me. We are all addicts. We share and we share and we share. Maniacally. OBen mindlessly. But this is the way we communicate now. It is not going to change. It will level off. Standards and prac:ces will emerge but this fundamental shiB is wriien in stone.
7
And as consumers we have more control than ever over what content we consume and how we consume it. The formerly cap:ve audience now directs our own media experience. We’re :me-‐shiBing, we’re ad-‐blocking, and we’re focusing more and more on niche social plaYorms and communi:es -‐-‐ basically doing everything we can to get away from tradi:onal adver:sing.
8
And we are turning to one another for consumer reviews. We want the real story, not a slick, packaged marke:ng campaign. Brand control has shiBed to us — the consumer. And we are more than happy to talk brands up or down all over the Internet.
9
In fact, brands wading into social media was a defensive move at first. An aiempt to control the message as they did in newspapers, radio and TV.
10
But lo and behold, social media turned out to have a business upside.
11
And in par:cular, gekng users to ac:vely engage with content suddenly became every brand’s goal.
12
Along with the growth of social media networks, the idea of “content” began to expand. Why wait for a consumer to upload a video of your product if you can create one yourself? Why wait for a consumer to write a how-‐to guide if you can write one yourself?
13
So by 2010, about a year aBer Freshwire opened its doors, many companies were realizing that maintaining sustained, regular communica:on with customers was either too :me-‐consuming or beyond their capabili:es.
14
Brands are not dissimilar to consumers in that they are oBen crea:ng and sharing content without knowing exactly why. We are mindlessly crea:ng, publishing, consuming content with liile to no strategic underpinnings.
15
So we are all having the same experience — brands and consumers alike. Itching this compulsive itch to share, like, retweet, favorite. We are all hooked on content. We’re hurling forward at breakneck pace at an unprecedented volume. We’re all “marke:ng.” It’s important to understand these plaYorms, how they differ from one another, how they can be leveraged. It’s important to learn how to tell stories on each of them and it can be complicated. But the manic speed and incessant pace is not needed. Moreover, it cannot be absorbed and bring any real value to us.
16
And this is the :pping point we have reached. We are leaving content marke:ng and entering an era of content mindfulness.
17
The emerging realiza:on that we do not have to be always on. We do not have to be half present everywhere but rather fully present in the places that maier.
18
And this IS science. There is data to back this up. Major educa:onal ins:tu:ons are studying this.
19
20
This could be called the social media overload mind.
21
And it’s becoming mainstream.
22
We are realizing that our content crack addic:on needs to be broken.
23
Anyone know what this means? Last weekend [14 Feb 2014], the Verge published an ar:cle :tled “You're not going to read this But you'll probably share it anyway “ It detailed a study by web analy:cs firm Chartbeat who studied the sharing habits around Upworthy content.
24
This is what they found. It’s the very defini:on of mindlessness.
25
As a result, Upworthy has begun a using a new metric to gauge the effec:veness of their content. They are gekng away from the no:on of “more” and replacing it with the no:on of “mindfulness.”
26
Aien:on = mindfulness. If we come in contact with stories that maier to us — that reflect our inner life — we will share them. And the creators of those stories will maier to us. The brands that maier to us do so because of their ability to represent the way we feel. We express consumer loyalty because of the values of company as much as the perhaps. More so, perhaps.
27
We are slowly leveling off and returning to storytelling. Stories that are meaningful enough to share.
28
Now this is where art and science meet. Or really where planning, strategy, and art meet. We host storytelling workshops for our clients as a way to get them comfortable living in these new social media waters. These are ques:ons we ask at the top of those workshops. Being in the moment allows real-‐:me to happen. Real-‐:me maiers but not everything needs to be real :me.
29
Let’s take a look at some Colorado companies and what they’re doing to create their own space online
30
Denver recrui:ng company BWBacon not only has "bacon" right in their name, they do a fantas:c job of demonstra:ng their brand story online. They are not here to sell. This is the thing. The brand — your product — is not always the hero of your story. That's the challenge to meet: how can you tell your story without your products being in the center of it? Their Facebook page on any given day could be men:on an employee ski party or a Broncos game or an ar:cle about how Colorado is a great place to work.
31
This is the opposite. These are a bunch of magazine ads.
32
Remember magazines?
33
Quick LeB in Boulder is a great example of a company that promotes itself by promo:ng its knowledge of the industry. Quick LeB is a web and mobile app development company, and they do a great job of promo:ng themselves as credible, relevant and community-‐oriented. They blog regularly with :ps for programmers. They’re a big supporter of STEM so they sponsor school programs and hold hackfests, which provides even more content for them. Something else we really liked is that they have a presence on GitHub, the popular online hub for programming projects. It’s a great example of knowing where you should be online, which is becoming increasingly important as social networks con:nue to appear.
34
Cura:on is not a dirty word. Many brands need to get comfortable with the fact that other voices exist on the internet. Sharing/cura:ng other people’s content helps achieve scale with limited resources, creates community and is old-‐fashioned networking. All brands and people want their stuff shared. It’s okay to share others’ relevant content just as you wish others to share yours. W.J. Bradley Mortgage Capital sees its Facebook page to aggregate important news and informa:on like mortgage rates and housing values. They’re inser:ng themselves into their fans’ days in a way that helps establish them as up-‐to-‐date and knowledgeable about the industry.
35
MarkeYorce in Louisville is a consumer analy:cs company – they take customer and industry intelligence and deliver it to clients. So you can imagine they’re sikng on a lot of data. To promote their own exper:se, they take their informa:on and turn out whitepapers, infographics and webinars, available to anyone. They’re establishing themselves as thought leaders with a wealth of valuable content. If a company was looking for a consumer analy:cs solu:on, MarkeYorce would stand out.
36
Before we get into a mini storytelling workshop, a few ques:ons to ask yourself: What value am I providing my customers? Do I want to be in charge, or part of the community? Am I a social media user? How will I involve my customers? Do I have the in-‐house resources to maintain a long-‐term strategy? Please remember, storytelling is equal parts: • soul searching • strategic • opera:onal
37
Okay, let’s do a bit of the soul searching part. The goal here is to get you thinking about stories beyond your products. Thinking about the common space you share with your customers and how you can meet in that shared area. We’ll do part of this privately and part of it collabora:vely.
38
39
40
41
Hopefully, you’ve begun to find your storytelling voice and you’re beginning to see how it can be sustained. These exercises are essen:al to build a sustainable and meaningful content strategy. They should involve a cross sec:on of stakeholders from your company. In a full workshop, we would dig into strategy — dissec:ng the right plaYorms for different parts of your story, developing an editorial calendar, iden:fying resources, defining objec:ves for content. Then, we’d get into coordina:on between departments so workflows can be defined and everyone is on same page with requirements. The end product is guide that defines your voice, your values and your master story narra:ve but also a playbook that gets everyone aligned on how, why, and where you tell the stories you have chosen to tell.
42
43
44