SocialEaglEye

Yuzhou (Peter)-CSULA-Marketing-Student/CA Realtor

[dailyeagleye]

Storytelling in Content Marketing

Christian Salmon in his book “storytelling” said that everyone who is doing marketing is known that the most important thing is not to sell brand but tell a story. People now do not just buy a product, but they are buying a story that the product tells. Also, they are not buying a brand but buying what is the story the brand is telling.  Yes, “Developing the content in our content marketing strategy is developing the stories of us. It’s the big ideas that we represent. It’s the differentiated experiences we want to create. It’s what we REALLY do for a living. For better or worse — it’s that simple”

Storytelling is not intended to be a “selling” tool; it’s a method of building strong relationships with your customers and a thriving community of loyalists over time. Your story identifies what your passions are and serves as the foundation for all your future content developments.

Yes, the storytelling is big and getting bigger. So, we want to have good storytelling, we need understand and use good methods to tell stories. Then, Marissa Sternberg, Senior Director of Marketing gives out the infographic of the science of storytelling.

First of all, there is something we need to know to the delivery good story. 100,500 digital words are consumed by the average US citizen every day. So, keep the content short with a great title to grab readers’ attention. 92% of consumers want brands to make ads that feel like a story. The brain processes image 60 times faster than the words. Show pictures instead of only words are more direct for consumers.

Throughout the research, we have known that messages delivered as stories can be up to 22 times more memorable than just facts. Incorporate graphics and videos to add visual appeal because 79% of readers scan written content rather than reading word by word. Use a strong title to engage readers immediately or people will just skip reading it. People following directions with text and illustrations do 323% better than people following directions without illustrations. And memorable graphics and images are encouraging shares. Use more videos on your platforms by video is one of the best ways to “show” consumers how to engage with the brand, product or service. There are 43% consumers wanted to see more video content in 2016.

Then, what kind of stories are good? 68% of consumer find content that informs and educates to be the most valuable. Also, a lot of people think entertains and inspires are the most valuable. And there is no debate that quality and relevance are kings because 81% of consumers agree content quality is important, and 78% say that relevance is somewhat or very important.

There is a good example of good storytelling-Red Bull

Red Bull do really amazing things like dropping people from space and their flugtag events. They share them on Instagram and Red Bull TV. It isn’t simply that Red Bull understands that its audience likes visual content and that Instagram is the place to do it; it’s that Red Bull uses the platform to scope out audience interests and feature them prominently. The consistency and finite focus is also the weapon that Red Bull can provide good stories. Red Bull focuses on one thing extreme and that’s where the lens and watch every piece of content they put out and they’ve really been very focused and persistent to make sure they do not veer from that. I think what we see today is a lot of companies’ kind of jumping on the next hottest trend next hottest culture, but they lose track of who they are. So, storytelling is not only showing good content in a good way, but the content is belonging to you.

All in all, just like professor Jonah Berger stated in his book “Contagious: Why Things Catch On”: People don’t just share information, they tell stories. But just like the epic tale of the Trojan Horse, stories are vessels that carry things such as morals and lessons. Information travels under the guise of what seems like idle chatter. So, we need to build our own Trojan horses, embedding our products and ideas in stories that people want to tell. In addition, we need to do more than just tell a great story. we need to make virality valuable. We need to make our message so integral to the narrative that people can’t tell the story without it.

[dailyeagleye]

What change can make you post be shared-Social Currency continued

Last week, I have posted why some companies or individuals failed to make people share their posts and how important to apply social currency in their posts. Today, I will keep talking about social currency that something you change on your posts then the same product will become popular and people are willing to share it.

First of all, I want to start at Master Kong which I mentioned last week that they have millions of followers on their WeChat official account but only got thousands of reviews on their posts. If I told you, “check this out, Master Kong’s president said has zero tolerant on food safety!”. What would you think? Will you share this with other people? Or just thinking I am stupid? So, I called such post laugh at their own joke. So, for an instant noodle company, what kind of content will make people share their posts? This is an idea, “How to eat instant noodle in a French style?” In the content, they are teaching you how to make up the dishes but not just put the noodle in the boiling water. With pictures provided by different people who tried method and successes made their own French style Master Kong instant noodle.

Pics original posted by  Sysy胡大海 She shares her experience on how to cook the instant noodle like an expensive dish. 

When you see the above pictures, what will you do? You will buy Master Kong’s instant noodle and try it at home. Then, when you date a girl in a French cuisine restaurant, you can tell her that I can cook Master Kong’s instant noodle like what you are eating here. Don’t trust me? I can show you tonight. Once you really take the girl home and show her French style Master Kong. You get the girl; Master Kong get the consumer. I think there is no debate that the French style instant noodle will have more reviews and shares than president’s zero tolerant on food safety. Why? Because the second idea is cool, it gives people value to share. This is how social currency works.

In addition, social currency is not only about cool, but it needs to care what are people’s think. My father is the general manager of a medium size company in China. He always shares articles like “A good employee will try them best to complete their task”, “eight details that employees will make your boss happy” or “details make you successful” on his WeChat Moments. And his friends who are all bosses do the same thing as well. Bosses are willing to share such articles. Because these articles help bosses express their thinking but don’t want to talk to their employees face to face. So, they share these articles in their WeChat moments which their employees will see it.

I can also see some of my father’s employees’ moments. It is totally opposite. Employees are always sharing articles like “70% of outstanding employees are forced the kick out by middle management” or “Too many extra time works will cause low work efficiency”. Most of the time, they just shared such article right after they gave a thumb up to my father’s “boss like article”. Why they like to share those kinds of articles? Because those articles help them express their think in mind.  

Also, in my last post, I mentioned that my friend spent 1000 dollars to buy a brand-new iPhone 7s plus as a gift. If people shared his posts then they had a chance to win an iPhone. The method did not really work because only about 3000 people shared his posts, but he has 50000 followers. I would say, it is not a bad idea. Money always works not only today but forever. Just he didn’t pick a right date and right content. If he starts the same method on Mother’s Day and says, “share today’s content to send best wishes to your mom and win a brand-new iPhone 7 plus”. I would say he will have way more shares and may even more than his followers. 

Why? All of us have the need to show our image. Most of the time, people share your content not because they like it, or they are your fans, but your content helps them to show their image. This happened a lot in WeChat Moments. On Mother’s Day, so many people share articles, images or videos which created by different brands to wish their mom would have a happy Mother’s Day. The interesting thing is, some of them don’t even have their mom as a follower on their moments. Their mom will never know such wishes. So, what’s the meaning of the shares? They are building image to others that they love their mom. This is another kind of social currency. If you want your content shared by others, you should help them build their image.

That’s all about today’s writing. Most of the time, you are a just halfway to deliver a good content. Some changes will make your content become shareable. How to make those changes? Understand what is social currency.          

[dailyeagleye]

Something You Should Know about Social Currency

In my previous posts, I have written six Principles of Contagiousness (STEPPS). The six principles are Social Currency, Triggers, Emotions, Public, Practical Value and Stories. Today, I am going to talk more focus on Social Currency because last night, one of my best friend who is doing retail business, asked me that he has over 50000 followers on his blog. Why there are only hundreds of people will share his post most of the times when he uploads a new one. I know him. He hires professional people to help him write posts. The posts are all in good writings. Then, here is a question: why no one wishes to share?  To answer this question, I would say: why should I share?

Master Kong under Tingyi (Cayman Islands) Holding Corporation is the largest instant noodle producer in China had the same issue as my friend had. They have millions of followers on their WeChat official account. They had a regular release like once a week. Topics are like “Our president’s Zero tolerant on food safety”, “Your New Love” (new flavor introduced). I checked those posts. most of their posts only have thousands of reviews out of they have millions of followers. This means that no one really reads or shares their posts. These are all good writing articles. Why no one wants to share or read? As I said, why should I share? Why should I care how your president’s feeling on food safety? It is your responsibility to provide safe food. So, posts like Master Kong did, I called them laugh at their own joke.

Original Post on Qikenao.com

So, if you want people to share your content, your content should valuable for them to share. Then, the interesting thing happened. The same friend, he used to spend 1000 dollars to buy a brand-new iPhone 7s plus as a gift. If people shared his posts then they had a chance to win an iPhone. 1000 dollar us valuable and people think so. So, during that time, about 2000-3000 people shared his posts which is way higher than hundreds. But considering he has over 50000 followers, only 3000 is not enough. The new iPhone didn’t make sense. This is the second thing I want to say. When we talk about values, people are always thinking real money. Actually, there is something valuable but no cost which is social currency.

Social currency is to create content that even you don’t give real money or provide professional writing to others, they still will share.

There is a very simple test. if you have a friend name A. A is a poor and stupid guy. He went to a nightclub met a supermodel and date with her. This supermodel is Bill Gates’ daughter. What would do when you heard this news? A give you two options. You can’t say anything to anybody or you pay 10 bucks to A and you are free to share the news. So, what is your choice? According to the experiment, 99% of people choose the second option. Why? If I can share this with my friends when we are having a dinner, I must be the protagonist for tonight. So, who cares about that 10 bucks. This is how social currency is saying, when we are creating contents, we need to meet people’s needs which let them think they are cool when they share our contents. We build their expectations then let audiences willing to stand with us and share our contents.

Original Post in Vivaldi Partners’ Report

In addition, to better use social currency. Vivaldi Partners the U.S. consulting company divided social currency into six dimensions which they called social currency wheel. As in their study report on social currency, Vivaldi Partners defined social currency as the extent to which people share the brand or information about the brand as part of their everyday social lives at work or at home. This sharing helps companies to create unique brand identities and earn permission to interact with consumers or customers.

Original Post in Vivaldi Partners’ Report

It is about creating a sense of community and by that a strong affiliation between customers, consumers, and users of a brand. Having social currency increases a brand's engagement with consumers and interaction with customers, and by that adding to the customer conversation around the brand, it grants access to information and knowledge, which is being shared within the customer base. Belonging to a group also helps users of a brand to grow personally by accessing new utility and also developing their own identity in the respective peer group. A strong attachment to a brand will also be a core driver for an active advocacy recommending or even defending the brand.

So, creating content is not laugh at your own joke. The real currency may have less power than social currency when you want people to share your contents. All in all, apply social currency is important for your content marketing.  

[dailyeagleye]

Three Great Methods that You Can Use for Content Marketing

In today’s market, enterprises involve more and more activates on content marketing in order to get benefit from it. So, there is a great competition between enterprises. How to make your company competitive? You need a good method to do the content marketing. Here, I am going to share three methods that you can use for content marketing.  

First, Buying Influencers. At the end of 2016, CNN had announced that they bought the social media app Beme which is for young people sharing videos. This app was owned by YouTube celebrity Casey Neistat who amassed 6 million followers through his video blog and be famous by publishing inspiring videos on the YouTube. Casey Netstat’s “Make It Count Film” had 5 million views in only 10 days. After the bought, all Beme employees will join CNN and CNN is shutting down the app and asking Casey and his team to start a new media platform which they expected 10 million viewers and users.

Actually, CNN is looking to target a new audience, one that it believes Neistat hold the keys to. So, instead of slowly growing a platform or finding a leader within its ranks, CNN just went out and purchased Neistat and his team for $25 million.

Buying influencers is not only happening in content marketing but is everywhere. Like Facebook bought Instagram, Alibaba bought China second ranking chain supermarket. So, buying influencers is hot. And there is a trend that looks for influencer marketing to shift a bit from partnering with content creators and distributors to flat-out purchasing them.

Second, Email. According to Campaign Monitor, social media darling, BuzzFeed added over 1 million email subscribers in the past 12 months. How? With social media channels moving toward revenue growth and algorithm changes like what YouTube did, brands have almost no control over communicating with fans and followers. So, of all the methods to grow an audience, deep communicates with followers, email has emerged as the most critical.

Beside BuzzFeed, other media brands are also getting the idea. For example, the Washington Post now has over 75 e-newsletters, while the New York Times has 12 people dedicated to newsletters. While many people believe email is dead, but the number is telling us that email is a growth area. According to the 7th Annual B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends-North America report, the email was the most use channel of organizations to distribute content and rated as the No.1 important to overall content marketing success.

There is another good example of email content marketing. Cook Smarts is a U.S. food service company which is good at content marketing. They are running content marketing on many social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest. But the company is still keeping their email newsletter. This newsletter sends to its subscribers once a week includes all key contents of the week from all company other platforms. Users can receive contents without login into social media platforms. Through providing utility in their weekly communications, Cook Smarts serves their audience with free, useful contents, directly aligned to their interests. In doing so, Cook Smarts increases the performance by adding a distinct purpose to their email marketing, which users can rely upon each week. this later enables Cook Smarts to increase shares of their messages, with promotional content included alongside those core, valuable ingredients.

Original post by biz.ifeng.com

Third, Interactive. Readers' content needs and discoveries, sometimes is not by only one great post. It is a process and needs companies’ guide and communication, then it can accurately hit the readers’ content needs. Just like a psychologist, if he wants to understand his patient, he needs to communicate with his patient.

Still the BuzzFeed, it has a topic that “What State Do You Actually Belong In?” which is talking about which state in U.S. is more fit for a job seeker’s personality and lifestyle. BuzzFeed abandoned the traditional rigid narrative content format, using the form of interactive content: they ask 12 questions for readers to answer. For example, “which of these is your favorite fast food chain?”. Base on the answer that readers did, they give out the recommendation that which is the state that the reader should live in. Although, such a recommendation is not too serious, through interactive content, inspired the readers’ interest for the topic and related contents.    

All in all, that is all I want to share about three methods for doing content marketing. Just like Joe Pulizzi said, in almost all cases, content marketers are doing too much. Creating too much content, in too many ways, without getting the results they would like to see. he recommends killing something that isn’t driving results. Put that time and effort into something that is working and makes it even better. So, use the right method and to create the good content for your marketing.

[dailyeagleye]

Six Principles of Contagiousness (STEPPS) Second Part:

Last week I have talked about three principles of contagiousness which are social currency, triggers, and emotions. Hopefully, the information is helpful. And in this post, I will continue to talk about the rest three principles of contagiousness which are public, practical value and stories.

Forth, Public. The main idea of this principle is can people see when others are using our product? There is a famous phrase “Monkey see, monkey do” captures more than just the human tendency to imitate. It also tells us that if we can’t see we can’t make a copy. So, just like Berger said making things more observable makes them easier to imitate, which makes them more likely to become popular, therefore, we need to make our products and ideas more public. We need to design products and initiatives that advertise themselves and create behavioral residue that sticks around even after people have bought the product or espoused the idea.

There is a very popular app among Chinese people which name is MYOTee. You can use this app to create your ideal cartoon avatar. The app provides hairstyles, faces, eyes, noses, mouths and many other materials for people to make up their own avatar. These avatars can be like people’s real face, or showing someone’s character, or showing people’s lifestyle or even can create a famous person’s face. This kind of fun and easy operate product are always attracting people’s view and quickly spread out. I remembered that night I did the last check of my social media platforms and find nothing special then went sleep. On the next morning, I found such cartoon avatar came up all around my social media platforms. People were all showing their creations or sharing other’s good creations.This is a great example how public works.

Original post by Chang Bo Tian Xia

Fifth, Practical Value. The main idea of this principle is whenever you can help people and make them do things easier or better, they will want to share it. Like Berger said, people like to help others, so if we can show them how our products or ideas will save time, improve health, or save money, they’ll spread the word. By doing so, we need to understand what makes something seem like a particularly good deal. We need to highlight the incredible value of what we offer-monetarily and otherwise. We need to package our knowledge and expertise so that people can easily pass it on.

I think nearly all college students should familiar with Chegg.com. Chegg is an American online textbook rental company based in Santa Clara, California, that specializes in online textbook rentals, homework help, online tutoring, scholarships and internship matching. The major advance feature of Chegg is their 24/7 homework help and online tutoring. You post your question either from a textbook or given by a professor. There will be other people or tutor answer your questions with high-quality content and help you solve your homework problems. Think about that, it’s midnight before an exam day. You have a problem can’t solve by yourself and can’t ask anyone at this time. What should you do to get ready before the exam? Use Chegg. Post your question and wait for other people’s answer in just a few minutes. Get ready for the test. When your classmates ask you how to get an A for this class, you will definitely say use Chegg! The student is a big consumer group. One of the most important attractions for students is practical value for their study. Chegg.com catch the point and did it well.

The last one, Stories. People don’t just share information, they tell stories. But just like the epic tale of the Trojan Horse, stories are vessels that carry things such as morals and lessons. Information travels under the guise of what seems like idle chatter. So, we need to build our own Trojan horses, embedding our products and ideas in stories that people want to tell. In addition, we need to do more than just tell a great story. we need to make virality valuable. We need to make our message so integral to the narrative that people can’t tell the story without it.

Some companies do this much better. Blendtec, is a company that sells professional and home blenders, that makes a video series called “Will It Blend?”. They make videos where they’ll put wired things like a brand-new iPhone into their blender and blend it into powder. This is absolutely a cool story. If you saw that, you might want to share it with your friends, but notice how the product is an integral part of that story. You can’t tell that story without the blender. And especially-oriented people have really hard time understanding that most people don’t talk about weird specs and details, they share stories. When you talk to a friend, you won’t tell there is a new blender with improved revolutions per minute on its blades, but you might share the story of how you saw the new iPhone got blended into powder.

Ok, here is all about I want to share the Six Principles of Contagiousness (STEPPS). Hopefully, my information can help you better understand the concept. I will keep working on share more social marketing related information.

At the end, I want to share a video that talks about Six STEPPS well. 

[dailyeagleye]

Six Principles of Contagiousness (STEPPS)-First Part

Why some brands or people’s contents can be popular in the network but someone’s can’t? Professor Jonah Berger from Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania spent a decade to answer this question. He gives a course “Contagious: Why Things Catch On” which specially focus on exploring this issue. And such information now becomes a book. The book explains what makes content “contagious” which he means likely to spread, and Berger gives out six principles of Contagiousness. The six principles are:

1.      Social Currency

2.      Triggers

3.      Emotions

4.      Public

5.      Practical Value

6.      Stories

These are six key STEPPS.

Original post by John Haydon

Here, I will share some of my understanding of these principles.

First, Social Currency. Currency means value, what value? I think it is how people see others in their eyes. Then, what they are wanting to be in others’ eyes can be valuable? Basically, I think knowing cool things. So, when we are creating contents, we need to meet people’s needs which let them think they are cool when they share our contents. We build their expectations then let audiences willing to stand with us and share our contents.

There is a good example. Around Chinese people, there is a very popular social media platform called WeChat. People can chat through the app and there is a feature calls “Moments”, people can share their thinking, feelings, life activities and many things just like a combination of Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.  I followed a writer whose article normally have 5000 views. When iPhone 6 came out, Apple became a popular topic again. He wrote an article “Maybe, Jobs Wrote the Most Famous Movie Review in the World”. This article had 47000 views which way more than his other articles. Why? Because this article made people feel they were cool when they shared the article. One of my friends shared the article in his moments but he even didn’t read the content. He told me, it is cool to share such article at such moment.

Second, Triggers. To my understanding, it is to design a specific environment that will activate customers or audiences’ inner feeling, let customers and audiences connect the product or thought we want to spread with such environment. In this way, once people in a certain environment, they will think of our product and ideas, and great thoughts will cause great spread.

Also, there is another example from WeChat. I followed a public account on WeChat which calls “Logical Thinking”. This account will release a 60-second voice message to followers a specific topic about the current popular issue with great contents and points every single morning for about 3-4 years.  Now, this public account stops releasing voice message and became just release word contents about some topics every morning. But you can see there are still many new followers follow this account and followers still share topics in the morning. So, the importance is, the 4 years every day voice message release gave followers a very deep impression that every morning voice message activates followers’ inner feeling. When it is morning time, followers want to check what “Logical Thinking” released, then comments and share.  

Original post by Danny

Also, here is a video about Berger talk about Triggers.

Third, Emotions. Like the book said, when we care, we share. Some emotional events will increase people's desire to share, also some emotional events will undermine people's desire to share. So, we need to choose positive emotional events that can inspire people to actively share to spread. But, sometimes, negative emotional events will also ignite people inner feeling to share. Most of the time we all know how to and try to spread positive emotion. Like spread jokes, fail videos and many others. But how negative emotional events works? Recently, shooting on the music festival in Las Vegas is definitely a negative emotional event. I feel sad, people around me feel sad and everyone feels sad. Then, you spread out the sad, others will care.

I think here is an example to explain. I randomly select a person on Twitter that recently posted something about Las Vegas gun shooting. This post got way more of retweets and likes compares to her other posts. The Twitter’s owner is Jackie Valley with 2825 followers.

Tweet about Las Vegas Shooting

Normal Tweets

(I just use this Las Vegas shooting as an example, I truly feel sorry for those people who were dead and injured, I hope such thing will never happen again.)

So, that’s all about the first part of six principles of Contagiousness. Next week, I will continue to share my learnings with the rest three principles: Public, Practical Value and Stores.  

[dailyeagleye]

Three Examples of Successful Content Marketing

Hi everyone, today I will have my third post. I will continue to talk about content marketing. As we all know that content marketing is becoming more and more important in today’s market. No matter it is traditional manufactory or newly high-tech company are all pay a lot of attention to content marketing. Then, there is a lot of competition. So, what kind of content will make your marketing success? I am not sure that I have a correct definition or opinion but I want to show some good examples that I think these companies have good content for their marketing.

The first one I want to introduce is Snickers hunger symptoms.

Since the Coca-Cola released its “name bottle” in 2014, more companies began to work hard on their packaging. Snickers was one of the best examples which Snickers also came out a good packaging idea. Snickers replaced its brand name on packaging with 21 hunger symptoms. These 21 newly named bars are Cranky, Grouchy, Confused, Irritable, Impatient, Complainer, Whiny, Curmudgeon, Ornery, Testy and Snippy, Rebellious, Feisty, Sleepy, Loopy, Goofball, Forgetful, Drama Mama, Dramatic, Princess, Spacey.

Original Post by SNICKERS YOU’RE NOT YOU MOVES ON

To me, somehow, I wish to share these kinds of bars to my friends. I am not sure if you ever played such game or mischief that you wrote down a disparaging word on a piece of card and labeled it on your friend’s back without noticing him. Then you could enjoy people were laughing at him when he walked around with that label. So, I would like to share the named bars because I have the same feeling as I label card on my friends’ back. This may just like what Snickers brand director Allison Miazga-Bedrick said: “We believe the new bars will inspire people to not only quickly identify their own symptoms and satisfy their hunger, but give them a new, fun way to call-out friends and family on who they become when they're hungry, too”.

The second one I want to introduce is Manjushree tea stories.

Drink a cup of hot tea while reading a story, if you are not a fan of drinking tea, you won’t understand how joyful of it. Manjushree combined two together. Manjushree Tea Stories is a bespoke collection of short stories and poems. Penned by renowned wordsmiths of the region, every story reflected the character, style, and flavor of a particular Manjushree tea. But instead of regular storybooks, special packs were designed to resemble a book. Each came with 10 sachets. And every sachet carried a short story or poem. To reveal the story, one had to remove a teabag from the sachet and dip it into a hot cup of water with the wrapper placed over it. Once the hot steam made contact with the wrapper, the story was revealed. As a tea drinker, I still prefer to read my own stories while drinking a cup of hot tea, but the idea really attracts me to buy a box of Manjushree tea and see how it works. The reason I want to try out Manjushree tea is that I can feel how Manjushree understands and cares about what I am thinking and enjoying as a tea drinker, rather than I just want to try the tastes.

The last, I want to introduce is GoPro Licensing.

In the year 2015, GoPro launched its video platform GoPro Licensing. Users can use GoPro to record high-quality videos and show them on the platform. Also, the user can sell their videos to GoPro or other media companies. The difference to YouTube, the purpose of GoPro Licensing is not to attract more viewers but users can more directly search and label their own contents in order to more accurately pinpoint the buyer or seller. GoPro Licensing is a professional platform, so they have high-quality requirement of video content. Whether it is a media company or GoPro users, to enter the platform, they need to apply to GoPro.

Original Post by PHOTOGRAPHY ROUNDTABLE

 I would say GoPro Licensing is a successful platform for content marketing, no matter if it is actually for the company to change the business type from selling the product to selling UGC. This platform highly connects customers and its products. People want to upload good quality videos for either money or just share experiences, they will have an idea that a GoPro may help. Just like the company said: In the future, more contents of a TV advertisement may come from user-generated content. One day, when you are watching an advertisement at home, you suddenly see that some contents are made by yourself, how cool it is.

Original Post by PHOTOGRAPHY ROUNDTABLE

[dailyeagleye]

Learnings From Coca-Cola Content 2020 Initiative Strategy Video

Hello, I am back. This is my second blog and I will talk something that I learned, found and felt interesting after watched Coca-Cola Content 2020 Initiative Strategy Video.

The video is to introduce people that Coca-Cola is going to make a change. The change is they will move from creative excellence to content excellence. This video also became a model for people to study Coca-Cola’s content marketing. After the video posted, I can see that many people asked Coca-Cola why they do content marketing? It’s like a prerecorded voice, everyone from Coca-Cola has one same answer: to support 2020 initiative strategy. Under this initiative, Coca-Cola wants to double size their business, become the most popular and reliable drink brand, and play a key role on the issue of the sustainable development of world water resources.  So, this is the first thing I found, the change from creative excellence to content excellence is to support Coca-Cola’s 2020 initiative strategy and this is the case for change.

In addition, to approach the initiative by content marketing, I found that Coca-Cola completely changed its website which was set up since 1995. They named it as Coca-Cola Journey. From the visual and dynamic content, you will think you click wrong to the CNN website. Homepage put on the current event photo with a brief intro, also has some interviews of famous people’s life. This may just like Coca-Cola previous Digital Communications and Social Media Manager, Ashley Callahan said, “Coca-Cola wants to be the HUB through using the power of the internet to collect stories to trigger interactive.” Ashley Callahan also provided that, since the first year Coca-Cola launched the new website, over 9.2 million visits, 54,000 shares and 8500 comments. I think this means people are interested in how Coca-Cola’s change. One thing interesting, when you search the Coca-Cola Journey, you will need longer time to find out company introduction, investor, relationship. They are on the top of the inconspicuous line. Normally, such information is at the major spaces.

Here I have two screen cuts. One is the Coca-Cola home page and the other one is the Arrowhead’s home page. Compare two pictures, we can easily understand what is Coca-Cola trying to do.

Coca-Cola’s home page has nothing about branding but news, events and many other stories. Somehow, you don’t think this is a company’s official website. On the Arrowhead’s home page, the first impression is, this is the official website of Arrowhead. I think this difference could tell what is Coca-Cola changing.

From the 2020 video, Coca-Cola also mentioned about liquid content. It is the elements of content that move freely among themselves but do not become separate stories, rather like molecules that become gases if they become to separate. Our stories must remain connected. This is the definition given by Coca-Cola. The way I understand this is as Coca-Cola is changing from Creative excellence from to content excellence, we see such 30-second video advertisements fewer and fewer. 30 seconds is so short, cannot tell everything.

This kind of 30 seconds advertisement can be seen on Chinese TV program 5-10 times a day. 

 And I think this is a step to move from one-way storytelling to dynamic storytelling. On the other hand, through Twitter, YouTube or Facebook, consumers themselves can become a channel to disseminate information and stories. The brand story created by consumers will be way better than Coca-Cola told by itself. I think this is just like the 2020 video mentioned, Coca-Cola is becoming the publisher and publishing a big story book which is contributed by Coca-Cola’s consumer. Then, marketing people are now becoming editors.

Picture originally posted by Jeremy Waite

One last thing I would like to mention is the 70/20/10 investment principles for liquid content. The meaning of 70/20/10 model is Coca will have low-risk content which is where 70% of their investment should be. This is the bread & better content. It pays the rent and it is the passport to the 10. This content should consume less time resource, perhaps 50% of the time. Then they have 20% of their content. And this will where we innovate what works. This engages more deeply with the specific audience, still with broad scale. Then they have high-risk content. This is 10%. These are brand new ideas. These will become tomorrow‟s 20% or 70%. We need to declare leaning intent upfront. We need to be prepared to fail. And we need celebrate both failure and success. I really like this 70/20/10 concept. This is like that how you build a tower. You need a big base to make sure you can go higher to make more people can see the tower from far away. In the meantime, people may just stay at the first several levels, but there is some people would like to go higher to enjoy more views. The highest part of the tower may be broken and fall down, you still have the big bottom will keep working.  

All above are things that I want to share after I watched Coca-Cola Content 2020 Initiative Strategy Video. Here I want to share another video which is Coca-Cola Happiness Machine. I like this video is because no one tells me to try a coke or a Coca-Cola vending machine but I want to do it because I really enjoy everyone’s smiling face. I really want to see if I can have the same happiness when I purchase a coke from a machine even though I don’t think I can. 

[dailyeagleye]

Content Marketing VS. Regular Marketing

Picture original posted by Internet Secrets Made Easy

This is my first blog here, and I am going to talk something about Content Marketing and Traditional Marketing. 

What is Content Marketing?

From the book Epic Content Marketing, author Joe Pulizzi has given out the formal definition: “Content marketing is the marketing and business process for creating and distributing valuable and compelling content to attract, acquire, and engage a clearly defined and understood target audience with the objective of driving profitable customer action”. There several keywords for content marketing which are creating, distributing, valuable, compelling, attract, acquire, and engage, define, understood, target audience.

What is regular marketing doing?

Everyone may familiar with the regular marketing or traditional marketing. Regular marketing, companies invest big budget to create the advertisement on TV, radio, newspaper or outside banners which are called mass communication. They want to use the frequency of occurrence to leave a strong impression in the consumer’s brain and have consumers to purchase products. This is a kind of one direct marketing, consumers are in a completely passive position. Also, the companies are looking consumers not consumers are looking for products. In addition, the way of regular marketing to get customers can only be through traditional media, but not directly to the customer. The traditional media just a third party help you promote products, then what else they will do? Nothing. They have no responsibility for customer service and you want them to do more promote, you need more money for them. One thing needs to state, regular marketing also create content but most time these are branded content. They mainly focus on advertising. So, for regular marketing, you need cost a lot, through a third party, one direction sale, hard to get feedback and bad customer relationship maintenance.    

What is content marketing doing?

Compare to regular marketing, content marketing is from your own ultimate website, social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and many others. For most of the social media platform, you don’t need to pay a dollar. In addition, content marketing is based on creating and distributing valuable and compelling content to attract, acquire, and engage a clearly defined and understood target audience with the objective of driving profitable customer action. So, you are targeting your potential consumer by publishing useful information which is not branded. Just the information that is useful. People who found your information is valuable will initiative come to you. This means you are converting audience to consumer efficiently. Also, because of you are running your own social media platform, you are having more opportunities to interact with customers. You have more chance to build up the relationship with consumers, maintain a good relationship and efficiently to get feedback from consumers. Content marketing is a two-way sale and you directly sell products to consumers, not through a third party.

How content marketing depends on valuable and compelling?

Just like I said in what is content marketing, you are not spending money to spread out your product or brand. You will need to attract and make people engaged. In able to do so, your content needs valuable and compelling. When people feel your contents are useful or interesting, they will share it to their social media platform and more and more people will know you. Once more people engaged in your content you have more opportunities to sell your products. To better understand how content marketing depends on valuable and compelling, I will use some examples.

The first example is Adidas GamePlanA. This is actually a blog site. I found this by I read one of the articles from the blog. I am a person who didn’t buy an Adidas product for years except for the Yeezy. I almost forgot there is a famous sports company out there. But the blog brings Adidas back to my eyes. In this blog, you can find out many stories that as an athlete is telling you the work life. I would say the most attraction is not from articles but from the blog page itself. I can’t image how Adidas can relate to a blog page before I found it. Once I found it exist there, I was surprised and feel interesting.

Adidas’ GamePlanA 

The other example is Canva which is a design app. You can design card, flyer, poster and many other things. You can either use the template or create your own. I don’t know much about it besides just use its features. And I would like to introduce to people around me even though they may not need a design app because of Canva’s Sign-in page. I never knew another website has the same feature. I don’t know how to describe it. You can feel it by yourself. The link is below.

Canva

That’s all  I want to say. Hopefully, you may have the better understanding about Content Marketing. Thank you.