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We’re all familiar with Samuel Coleridge’s late-18th century “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” – the tormented sailor punished at sea, a dead albatross around his neck, dying of thirst while surrounded by water. Today, we live in oceans of data, yet struggle to quench our thirst for relevant content.
Recently, I was enjoying some cheese and wine after dinner. As I was about to put English Stilton on a water cracker, a colleague I was traveling with suggested I try the wheat cracker instead. "The Stilton will over-power that biscuit," she said. "I think you'll find the heartiness of the whole wheat will better stand up to the pungent blue cheese and sweet fig." Now, I'm far from a gourmet, so I gladly accepted this well-informed advice. But my culinary ineptitude is hardly the point. What struck me was the breadth and depth and diversity of choices we are exposed to every minute of our lives. From the time we are born until our dying day, we are bombarded by - engulfed in - an overwhelming stream of ideas, choices, and information, from innumerable sources: visual, audible, tactile, and olfactory, and from an ever-increasing number of sources. This ranges from television to the Internet to the rants and ramblings of other human beings to the sounds, signals, salutations, or suggestions that assault our senses throughout all of our waking moments, rewinding and replaying, and we struggle to choose.
The point is, the explosion of technology over the past decade has made this ocean of data deeper and wider - and treacherously so. I am struck by the observation that 90% of all the world's content had been created in the past two years. The initial reaction is one of wonder and excitement - so much "content" in such a short time. Yet that observation makes no judgment on the quality or veracity of this content: are we to believe that the great works of countless millennia of human creativity: from Plato to Shakespeare to Da Vinci and Einstein - have been replicated - tenfold - in the past two years? Hardly. These great works of human intellect - from centuries ago and continuing today - will always be precious and desirable. But the ever-increasing quantity of data available today threatens to drown that information which is truly important, meaningful, and relevant - to you. For we each have different passions that swim in these vast oceans. And as these oceans get deeper and the tides higher and currents swifter, it is increasingly difficult to capture from these streams that which is personally relevant. Fact is, technology is not always synonymous with improved quality of our lives. Consider the Concord, which promised a future of supersonic air travel - still unrealized despite its maiden voyage nearly fifty years ago. Just as technology advancements have not materially improved the speed of air travel in our lifetimes, technology's advancements in the ability to create data have not improved our ability to separate what is banal from what is relevant.
In short, our lives depend on our capacity to recognize and process the increasing streams of data that surround and assail us, and the actions we take based on our assimilation of this data - the art of discerning what is relevant from the vast majority that is personally absurd. And since the course and quality of our lives so depends on how effectively we discern the pearls from the scrap, even incremental improvements to the means have fundamental impact on the ends.
We believe Trapit is much more than an incremental improvement to the way groups and individuals can process data – it’s a tool that is revolutionary in its ability to assist in the filtering of an endlessly expanding flood of data. Curation is key in this hunt for content that matters to you or your audience. You can learn more about how Trapit can help evaporate this ocean and why you should be curating here.
Content Marketers Overwhelmed by the Challenges of Content
The first annual Trapit survey "Curation: What does it mean to marketers?" shows that, as we suspected, it’s tough out there for marketers when it comes to content. With so many different social channels and the blazing pace of the internet, keeping up can be overwhelming. And with so many marketers trying to keep up with the demand for content, the amount of it being shared is only growing, which makes planting unique and engaging content even more difficult. How do you stand out in an ever-growing crowd?
One of the keys to overcoming this hurdle, as the survey indicates, is curation. Very few companies would be able to churn out 15 pieces of quality content per day without a little help from carefully-curated content. And why should they? Three-quarters (74%) of those surveyed believe that curation is an integral part of a good content strategy. Most have not found the sweet-spot of balancing curation and original content yet, but it’s clear that that is where the future of content is heading. Marketers know that curation is a valuable tool to get them where they want to be - sharing 15 pieces of valuable, relevant content to their audiences each and every day.
For more on the Trapit survey Curation: What does it mean to marketers? download the full report.
An Important Announcement on the Evolution of Trapit
When we launched the beta version of Trapit back in 2011, it was with the lofty ambition to create a uniquely personalized web for each and every person. We knew that lurking beyond the shallow social echo chamber, crappy search results, memes, and trends is a vast undiscovered web of high-quality, original content with no way of reaching its intended audience, an audience of people frustrated with the growing lack of personal relevance in the web experience and their inability to connect with good content on the subjects most important or interesting to them.
What became abundantly clear from the initial engagements with our new business friends is that enterprise customers demand enterprise-grade solutions, far more capable than our free "consumer" offering. So we rolled up our sleeves and got to work building a new, super version of Trapit we now call the Content Curation Center - chock full of advanced capabilities, customization options and analytics. Our customers love it and Trapit content discoveries now reach an audience of over 100 million people a month through their implementations.
This is all very exciting, and while we are as ambitious as a team can be, we must face the realities of our small size. It is imperative to our success and our ability to provide the ongoing innovation and quality of service our business customers demand that we maintain a rigorous focus. It's true that in the time we've been working on the Content Curation Center, we've left the free service untouched, no longer reflective of our latest technology advancements nor our standard of quality. After an extended deliberation and with heavy hearts, we’ve decided to end the availability of our free “consumer” apps for web and iPad effective Wednesday, January 15, 2014.
We sincerely appreciate your patronage and support over the past few years and wish you well in your pursuit of great content.
Optimally curated content can be a wonderful thing. You've got your original content that you create, a tremendously important asset that you want to highlight every chance you get. Augmenting that, you have curated content that you're sharing, building trust and further establishing and legitimizing your own thought leadership in the field. And it's this balanced combination of the two that enables you to reap the best of the benefits from both worlds: your audience seeing that you've got both your finger on the pulse of your industry and the tools, resources and know-how to blaze a path through that wilderness.
The articles you share can serve many purposes, including:
educating your audience about a widespread problem in your field,
showing them a project or applied use case that leads some of them towards success,
sharing a breakthrough or innovation that positively affects them, or
showcasing a product that may offer a solution to some of their problems,
but at the end of the day, you're not just after clicks, you're after conversions, or people who come to you for a product-or-service that you provide. And the best way to do that is to share articles that don't just highlight an interesting problem, project, innovation or product in your field, but ones that highlight problems, projects, innovations or products that you offer a solution for.
That's what thought-leadership is all about. It's not just for sharing tidbits from a widespread conversation, but for framing that conversation around your strengths and offerings. Because when you put out your own original content -- sometimes with a call to action as well -- you want to maximize your audience's response, and that's only going to happen if your audience is well informed about both what you do and why that's important to them. So don't just curate for interesting stories alone, frame that conversation around your assets and capabilities, and give your audience the context they need so they can be confident choosing you for their solutions.
Discovery is a great buzzword, but what does it really mean? To us, it means collecting and sharing great content from all kinds of sources, big and small, to share insights, open up dialogue, and create interest. Why curate? That is a question that we are often asked and a debate that is still kicking in the content marketing world. There are many reasons to curate content from other sources, but one of the big ones is that it can help give your audience an element of discovery. Everyone has social circles online, and within those social circles, the same content (articles, viral videos, etc.) often gets shared over and over again, meaning that you’re not seeing much content that is new, exciting, or different than what everyone else is seeing. That makes sharing content a lot less fun, too, if you don’t have something fresh and interesting on-hand. For brands, there is an opportunity here to seek out exciting unique content and share it with their followers. If that content is new and interesting to that audience, they are much more likely to share it within their social circles because you have given them the element of discovering something great.
1. Curate!
This tip seems obvious, but it’s important. Curating content from sources other than your own gives your audience a sense of trust that you are sharing the cream of the crop of content, even if it comes from somewhere else, and that you take pride in showcasing what you consider quality content. Creating wonderful original content is important, too, but curating allows you to be inspired by others and share that with your audience as well.
2. Share
Share your findings with your audience on whatever social channels you use. Different content might work well in different places, but wherever you choose to share, be sure to give credit to the original sources and perhaps offer a few words about why you or your brand thought the content was worth sharing.
3. Start the conversation
Once you’ve shared the unique, curated content that you discovered, invite your readers and followers to engage with you in a discussion about the content and why it’s important or helpful. Engaging with commenters and users in a conversation about whatever niche your brand falls into will encourage trust as a topic authority and will also give you insight into what kind of content they might want to see in the future. Both of those things can help grow brand loyalty among the followers you do have, and attract those that you don’t.
If you and your brand can follow these steps with careful curating and thoughtful sharing, your audience will see the value that you and your social properties offer them. They will see that unlike many brands who only share their own content and fail to incite conversation, you are taking an interest in all of the best content out there on your subject matter, and are excited to share that content with people who will appreciate it. Giving your audience a sense of discovery every time they see your brand sharing content will undoubtedly foster positive engagement and keep them coming back on a regular basis.
For more detailed information on how curation can help your brand, click here to download our e-book 5 Reasons You Should Start Curating Today.
I recently read up on an interesting argument that took a stance against the future of curation in today’s content marketing world. The article raised some valid points on brand building, encouraging businesses to strive to be more than filters of the web’s already-public content and to become more of an authority figure on the creative front of its industry. The writer’s main concern over curation stemmed from the question, should a brand choose ‘to be the curator or the curated?’ My response is simple, why not choose to be both? Rather than take a black and white approach where it’s one content marketing strategy or the other, a brand should strive to be as versatile as possible, finding the ideal combination of both content creation and curation that most effectively grips hold of its audience’s interests.
The Dilemma: Avoiding Content Gaps and Consumer Abandonment
Although I wholeheartedly agree with the writer that content creation is integral for a well-rounded marketing campaign, it’s much easier said than done to keep those creative juices flowing for the long haul if all content output is manufactured internally. What if your staff doesn’t have (or runs out of) time, inspiration and financial resources to keep the ball rolling - then what? If that inkwell happens to run dry and triggers a lag in the content flow, the goal of establishing consistency has been abandoned, and in effect could very well result in audience members abandoning the brand online. Remember, for consumers with social media-adapted attention spans, it’s as easy as an unsubscribe, unlike, or unfollow button to say goodbye. Treat content like the nutritious social fuel that it is. Consumers desire it, and in today’s day in age, need it to survive the day. Feed consumers regularly and become part of our consumption routine, but don’t force feed junk food data simply out of necessity to throw something out there.
How much original content can your brand create? That is never an easy answer to address as inspiration comes in waves, topic relevancy shifts and evolves, and free time to be creative is sparse one day and wide open the next. Brands need the curation tools to lean on when the time calls for them, when content creation becomes a pain point for a company’s content marketing agenda. I argue if a brand has already paved its avenue of interest, why not let others ride alongside if they also know that same avenue like the back of their hand? Perhaps even better. Sharing fresh, relevant content that comes from an outside source doesn’t take away from a brand’s authority as a subject matter expert, even if coming from an unknown blogger or business competitor. If anything, it only builds layers atop an already established expertise, telling consumers that this is a brand that cares less about clicks and SEO hounding than it does about bringing the audience the best information available. By curating the great work of others, a brand is not only pushing the market along with original ideas, but riding along with it, breathing in the many voices speaking up within the industry. It even seems to humanize a brand a little bit when they too identify themselves as readers and consumers of content, not just writers and product pushers.
Summarization and Annotation = Reach & Collaboration
One of the more underrated uses of curation in the field of content marketing comes when there is a nice collaborative mix of both curated and original content all within the same published piece. You often see bloggers partake in this method as they grab snippets from a noteworthy article and implement them in their blog post as a platform to address their personal reaction and commentary. However, for brands, this strategy doesn’t need to be used in a manner that says, this is what so-and-so wrote, and this is why they are wrong. Rather than annotate outsider content to set the stage for a fiery rebuttal, use this strategy to show praise to the original source, or furthermore, to provide additional context and value. We’ve all seen how excited folks become when they are retweeted by a famous person or entity, just imagine the reaction after a brand shows love to user-generated content by sharing and adding them to the conversation. Curation doesn’t have to feel like piggybacking someone else’s work and should be looked at as a convenient outlet for inspiration when content creation attempts are lagging. Find an awesome animated video discovered on the web? Perhaps that video could be reposted, but with a twist, given a stat-loaded infographic, a clever cartoon, or a brief passage on whythisis a great contribution to the conversation. This is a great chance for brands to establish its voice, sharing feelings on why it chose to endorse the piece of content that it did, and why it should strike importance to the audience following.
The field of content marketing is a crowded room these days, it seems all brands are jumping on the bandwagon to find links to feed their various social media engines. As a consumer, I don’t expect all brands to pump out exemplary content on a daily basis, but I do expect them to have a firm grasp on the latest dialogue within their industry. Curation tells us a brand is paying attention, while creation shows us its fierce level of passion. Quantity is important, because it holds my interest in a fast moving internet and keeps the brand fresh on my mind, however when it comes time for a brand to speak with its original voice, quality is paramount. Creation and curation shouldn’t be competitors, they should be teammates.
To curate or not to curate - That is the question?
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I have been attending different events and listening to the arguments about what kind of content should be leveraged. The debate revolves around these questions: do I create? Or do I curate? I am truly curious as to why certain marketing leaders feel that the only way to preserve their brand, their values, and their voice is through what they control and content they create. My curiosity continues when the discussion leads then to “to curate or not to curate?” And those same leaders are quick to argue that if they curate, they are no longer original, creative, or controlled.
My argument goes something like this: For goodness sake, with social networks, who can control anything anyway? People are going to read what they want and take away what they believe to be good, bad, or indifferent. So my belief is that the real marketing leaders will take hold of a balanced approach to getting their messages to their audience. They will curate, and they will create. They will leverage different channels to get their story told. They will understand who is at the other end of those channels, and make sure that what they say is compelling and making an impact on the reader. The best will tell fun, exciting, enduring stories and they will be the first to engage with something that is different. Their new cocktail is one that is intoxicating, memorable, and engaging enough to keep the audience drinking more. The perfect balance of one shot of created mixed with 2 shots of curated.
I love marketing because it allows us to be creative. I love the Internet because it brings us new and interesting stories. I love to create content because I have a story to tell. And there’s no reason why those can’t all combine in perfect harmony.
"There's only so much I can do." It's probably the most common lament out of my mouth, and even though my case is probably not identical to yours, it's a sentiment we can all relate to.
You see, I'm a scientist -- an astrophysicist -- and a science writer. When news and stories about the Universe on both the largest and most fundamental scales break, there are a slew of individuals and organizations who look to me to cut through the noise and separate what's true (and worth listening to) from what's skewed, sensationalized or an outright scam. Yet no matter how much content I produce myself, even as an expert in the field, I could never cover it all.
But that doesn't mean you have to sacrifice covering the stories that you yourself don't have time to do justice to. Just because there's a limit to what you yourself can write and create given all your other constraints doesn't mean you can't be a trust-building thought leader when it seems that you can't keep up; it means that you need to embrace letting others do the dirty work for you. And that means seeking out and sharing the high-quality content (by your expert standards) created by others.
It's a move that seems counterintuitive at first glance. But the hard truth is you have a finite amount of time and resources at your disposal, and there's a finite amount of content that you could (and should) generate yourself. But part of being an expert is being able to recognize quality when you see it, and a judicious choice of good stories to share can help fill-in-the-gaps both when something is beyond the limits of your resources and also when something is even slightly beyond your own personal expertise!
There are far too many pseudo-experts out there using smoke-and-mirrors to draw attention, but eventually the lack of substance catches up with them all. You're not one of them, so why would you use the same cheap tricks and tactics they do, when you could be building trust instead? When you speak with that established foundation of quality behind you, the world will listen to what you have to say. And because you knew what your limits were -- and you knew how to deal with it -- you can step up and say your piece when it counts the most.
Coming from an agency background, the bread and butter was always around original content creation. Well, I’m here to say that I still think compelling creative and content is a key component to a marketer’s success, but just because it is original, doesn’t mean it is good or has the desired effect.
For example, I was scrolling through my Facebook feed for the first time this morning and I saw an urgent post from a family member: “If you use a cell phone regularly, you really must get this information”. So I clicked and read the article where I was led to the end and found it was really a lead generation tactic for a doctor. I am not saying that cell phones don’t cause health issues, and who knows, we all might be dinosaurs in billions of years because of it, but this approach to drive new patient leads for this doctor is probably a good example of attracting some and alienating others, or having it backfire all together.
I am not sure if Good Content means anything. Good Content is closely linked to a good, centralized Content Strategy and that obviously involves a deliberate consideration of your targeted audiences, what end result you desire, and where to find them.
1. Audience and Campaign First: Consider your audience, then even further segment and think through desired outcomes. What is the desired end goal? Sales leads? Influencing around thought leadership, reputation or market reach? Then, what will the best content approach be to gain the desired effect? Sales leads can be driven by compelling original content if you are a brand marketer, but if you are B2B, perhaps 3rd party curated content can provide more credibility and allow you to market at a higher frequency.
2. Identify your Channel/Tactics: Where can you find your audience? Do you have web properties where you can market to this audience, or do you need to create one? Are you better off reaching your targets on social media networks or using a paid content model on a conglomerate of media properties? The answer is probably a blend, but you probably want to have a different voice and approach depending on the medium.
3. Sequencing and Testing: Once you have identified your audience segments, campaign and distribution channels, you should minimize content creation efforts by testing curated or smaller-effort messages in social streams or via blogs, before investing a ton of time on large scale, original creation efforts. Quicker testing strategies can give you insights into what is resonating with what audience segment allowing you to optimize your marketing team’s efforts and results throughout the campaign.
4. Cross Channel Analytics: Having content in the center of your strategy means that you need to have a centralized analytics engine in place that tracks what content is trending across all audience segments and delivery channels. Marketers who are moving in this direction seem to be using Omniture and Google Analytics.
If you do it right, you’ll consider your audiences across social, web, mobile, and email and do some testing, so they can let you know what they think of your content by their reposting, re-tweeting, and commenting behavior. If you can think through your approach with the end in mind, test tidbits of concepts, before sinking a ton of time and resources into something, you’ll find a winning end game. But let’s face it - ‘good content’ will always be in the eyes of the beholder.
We all know the importance of good content. Brands are all publishers now, and creating compelling content on different online channels is paramount to building and holding onto a loyal following. But what does your content say about your brand? Does what you post on Twitter align with the style of your company blog posts? If you’re not sure, it’s time to do a little thinking about brand personality and building a unique and cohesive content voice. Here are three ways to get started on defining and implementing what you want your content to say about your brand.
1. Decide on your brand personality
2. Make a style guide
The bigger your company is, the more important this step will be. You may feel good about your new brand voice and how to get that across, but chances are there are more than a couple people on your content-creation team. By creating a style guide for everyone on your team to reference, you can much more easily present a united brand voice no matter who is doing the writing. Create a living style guide that includes the basics of grammar, formatting, and how you use company terms, but also be sure to include some information about your brand voice and how to achieve that style in your content. What is the level of formality? Should your writers focus on real-life examples or use creative storytelling to get their points across? Who is the exact audience that they should focus on addressing? Make sure anyone on your content team understands the approach that you want to take. Having an accessible style guide for your contributors to reference can help keep everyone on track with creating content that is indicative of your brand voice.
3. Implement it across all channels
Your company blog may be the most obvious place to concentrate on brand voice, but in order to for that voice to make a serious impact on your audience, it needs to be consistent across any and all content channels. Whether you are writing an “About Us” page for the company website, a post for the corporate blog, or Twitter and Facebook posts, there should be a clear sense of continuity in the style of your content. Different channels require different approaches, sure, but your content on every different channel should always relate back to that original brand personality that you created. Even though this will not be the case for most brands, it should feel like the same person either created or had a hand in your content on every different channel.
Knowing your brand’s personality is critical when you are a content creator. Creating a cohesive strategy for everyone to follow will help your brand build a consistent and unique voice that will then build trust among your followers. Your audience will come to know you and your brand for a certain style and personality, and that will keep them coming back for more. It’s a lot easier to become invaluable to your audience when your brand feels like a trusted old friend with personality to spare.
Content is Still King; Is Your Corporate Blog a Welcome Mat?
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Whether you lay claim to a local startup, a small business on the rise, or a Fortune 500 giant, operating a company website without a featured blog is wasting away a grand content marketing opportunity in today’s digital age. Making the effort to host a company blog with a steady stream of relevant content serves as an invaluable tool for establishing sustainable brand awareness, enhances influence in a targeted field of expertise, and to further engage a connection with a growing readership who may become loyal customers in return.
However, driving a prosperous business blog is not easily done overnight and often comes with many pain points along the road to content marketing success. Here are a few business blog tips worth fancying.
Don’t forget the folks on mobile devices
Back in 1999, just 38 million people had access to broadband internet. Today, over 1.2 billion have it on their mobile phones. Odds are, when a newcomer finds his or her way to your company blog for the first time, there is a solid chance they found it while navigating on a mobile device. If the blog’s mobile layout is cramped or cluttered and the method of consuming content is more confusing than it is convenient, expect the attention span of an average user to swiftly jump ship without looking back.
On top of the social media buttons that jump to official microblogging accounts like Facebook and Twitter, it’s about time for business blogs to recognize the importance of offering readers more versatility as to how they subscribe to blog content. Sure, joining email lists can be enticing if user interest is very high on a particular brand, but promoting a more advanced form of RSS syndication that dissects a blog’s content is a game-changer. For example, rather than offering one solo firehose feed that collects all content, why not offer a plethora of feeds broken down by topic, by author/contributor, by multimedia type, by article length, etc. The fact users are forced to subscribe to all content that may include publications like event announcements, job listings and press releases, when all we may really want is to be notified when the blog’s next tutorial video comes out, makes subscribing to anything at all less appealing.
Use curation to fill in holes where content creation lacks
Consistency and commitment are of utmost importance when trying to build and maintain trust between a blog and its readership. Unfortunately, one of the common trends that brings a business blog to its demise is the pressure that comes with producing high quality content that never skips a beat. Under certain circumstances, content staff can be limited and writer’s block happens to the best of us, which is why blogs need to be more open to the idea of publishing content created outside the walls of the company. The Delta Airlines blog is a great example of one source reaching out to another in order to keep incoming content fresh and robust. Providing a hat tip reference to the National Geographic Travel blog, Delta Airlines is able to stick to its path as a travel destination influencer all while taking a break as the blog’s content creator on that particular day.
Engage, engage, engage!
Lastly, I wanted to dish out a few more examples of awesome blogs that simply get it when it comes to audience engagement. Bucketfeet, an artist inspired shoe company uses its blog to get fans involved by asking people to email images of themselves modeling the brand’s shoes in their day-to-day activities. The most artistic images get featured on a popular Kicks of the Week post. 37Signals, a tech company specializing in team building and remote collaboration, takes a similar route to Bucketfeet by asking users for submissions to be featured on a future blog post. For example, readers were asked to submit a painful story of a terrible work commute experience. As an incentive for making a contribution, the blog offered a $100 gas card to the best (worst) response.
In today’s digital age, customers expect more from their brands than simply being tossed a sales pitch telling us why we should buy their product. By implementing content marketing strategies across a blogging platform, brands are able to create an identity that shows the business strives for more than simply economic prosperity. Without truly reaching one’s audience, that identity remains detached from its true potential.
Any time there's something you need to tell your target audience, you automatically find yourself in competition with all the other content-creators out there vying for their attention. And to get it -- to get their eye on you instead of anyone else -- there are competing considerations:
Being the first to get your story out there,
Coming up with a message that will resonate with relevancy to your audience, and
Writing the highest-quality, most intrinsically valuable piece that you can.
In a world already overloaded with content, the final consideration is by far the most important.
Think about the vast majority of the content that's created: the republished press releases or AP/Reuters wire stories, the unoriginal churnalist pieces put out by content farms, and the run-of-the-mill clickbait you see practically everywhere you look.
Is that how you want to represent yourself to your target audience?
Of course not. Your goal should be relevance, not repetition. Your goal should be quality, not quantity. And if you're going to put the effort into writing a high-quality piece, you should take the time to make sure it's not only timely, but timeless as well.
There's an incredible value to creating a piece that information seekers will find valuable for months or even years to come, something that's far more valuable than getting a few extra thousand passing pageviews from a user who'll forget whose site they were on within minutes. If your goal is to build trust, establish yourself as a thought-leader, and to provide enduring value to your target audience, then quality is the one virtue on which you should never skimp.
It's your name and your brand; what do you want it associated with? In our fast-paced world of information overload, quality is one thing you can count on to never go out-of-style. Let others vie for the gimmicky page views and visits; you'll be too busy ensuring that the ones you get are the ones that count.
zeebox Partners with Trapit to Power Personalized Content Feeds
We at Trapit are thrilled today to announce our partnership with zeebox, a social TV app that is reinventing how viewers watch TV. Zeebox, which is available on the web as well as on mobile devices, gives viewers a live newsfeed about the show they are watching as well as helpful information like which friends are also watching that show and contextual background on the current episode. The app uses the power of the web to become your always-changing TV sidekick, making watching your favorite shows more interactive and more social. And now, with Trapit’s Content Curation Center, zeebox is using our rich database of over 100,000 sources and our powerful AI technology to power its news and content feeds.
Trapit’s Content Curation Center is designed to help businesses bring the right content to their audiences at exactly the right time. With powerful discovery and curation tools, Trapit works to find the most relevant content for your brand and help you deliver it to your customers with ease.
Curate Content from Other Sources and Become a Topic Destination
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Bring Your Audience What They Care About
Like we talked about last week, finding your niche in content is paramount. Zoning in on your area of expertise can help you build a devoted audience instead of one that is just made up of casual passers-by. As many of us learn in life, trying to please everyone rarely works to your advantage. The same can be said for content. Whether it’s social media marketing, new indie music, or vegetarian cooking, staying laser-focused on your niche will attract an audience that is as passionate about the subject as you are. Creating original content for your brand with this kind of specificity in mind translates to getting that content into the hands of the people who really want it. But the people who really want content in your area of expertise don’t just want content from you. They want all the high-quality content in that niche topic, and they will go where they need to go to get it. Why not make your brand the only place they need to go?
Become the Destination
We’ve already established that creating high-quality original content around your area of expertise is a major player in attracting an audience, but to go one step further and hang on to that audience, curating content from other sources can make your brand stand out from the crowd. The Internet is a big place, and even the most niche topics have plenty of content to choose from. That fact combined with a good case of digital ADHD means that your audience is likely bouncing around from site to site to get all of the content they crave. If you break the mold and start giving your audience quality original work and valuable content from other thought-leaders in your area, chances are that audience will stick with you. By hand-selecting the best of the best content (including your own) in your area of expertise, your brand will become an authoritative resource for content, instead of just one of the many. Curating from all over the web can make your brand the only click your audience needs to stay informed and well-read on your subject area.
As the saying goes, “If you build it, they will come.” If you present and curate the best content in your field, both yours and from others, the audience will come - and they will stay.
Embracing your Content Expertise: Carving a path in an overloaded world
Image via Jeff Cain of http://shedresearch.net/.
"If you want something done right, do it yourself." That's the age-old adage, and in a perfect world where you had an infinite amount of time and energy, that would be your ideal option in all matters. Whether it's in matters of health, environment, law, politics, technology, business, or entertainment, you didn't spend a lifetime cultivating your expertise so that someone who mastered SEO, got an early scoop, or attached their name to a major news outlet could influence the opinions of your target audience. But the amount of time and money it would take to simply do all that communication yourself makes that an untenable and unsustainable solution for the long-term.
And to be honest, in the vast majority of cases, it's not a good expenditure of your energy. With hundreds of thousands of sources on the internet generating new, original content every day, how can you stand out? How can you avoid being just another voice lost among the chorus?
Rather than just seeing, sharing and commenting on the same couple of articles that everyone else is reading, what if you could carve your own path?
All that expertise you have means that you know what the important aspects of the current newsworthy topics are, how they fit in to the greater scheme of your field, and what impacts they bring about. Remember that it's a social world out there, and you do yourself a service every time you embrace the legitimate and positive contributions of others in your niche area of expertise. Instead of firing off an article of your own creation every time an new topic arises, what if you could choose from a selection of nuanced articles to share? You'd choose not necessarily the most popular or common, but those that were the highest quality, the most relevant, and -- most of all -- the most valuable to your audience.
Expertise isn't only about being informed and intelligent in your communication, it's also a developed, discerning eye that can spot the diamonds-in-the-rough, enabling you to elevate the stories that deserve the most attention. You're working hard to inform your target audience, build trust, and establish yourself as a thought leader, but are you getting a maximal return on your investments of time-and-effort? Don't try to fight the ever-growing fields of content, but recognize that the cream-of-the-crop is there, just waiting for you to pick it. So embrace your expertise, and deliver your audience only the best of what's out there.
Over the past few months here on the Trapit Blog, one recurring theme that has really sparked my interest has been the evolving trend of businesses using content to market their brand image and more specifically, how this angle of industry is growing increasingly creative in using content to engage with targeted audiences. Sports franchises in particular have been an active participant in this field of marketing, always trying to establish a deeper connection with its fan base, players, and organization. As I sit down to write on this year’s NBA Media Day, it has me thinking about how much more sports teams can do to get the most out of their content, and how 2013 should be the season for brands to step their game up.
The Modern Fan Experience
I began thinking a lot about sports and brand image this past month as I watched my hometown franchise make a controversial business move that seemed to rub the city the wrong way. After holding strong for 18 years, the Portland Trail Blazers sold the naming rights of their spirited Rose Garden Arena to a health care conglomerate, giving the building a new bland moniker - the Moda Center. Microsoft co-founder, and multi-billionaire owner Paul Allen called the move a chance to “enhance virtually every aspect of the fan experience.” It had me thinking, what could possibly be accomplished that will truly have an impact on this so-called fan experience? It is already known that the organization plans to redesign the arena’s iconic water fountain, make improvements to traffic flow for public transit, and update concessions in the arena’s concourse with hip local food options, but I visualize a greater opportunity to hammer home an authentically improved fan experience. It all starts with content and the right way to deliver it to a fanbase.
Damming the Content Flow
Image via
Curation is King in a Tablet Takeover Era
Sure, it’s a fair assessment that the Trail Blazers already provide enough content on the fast-moving internet through a plethora of social media accounts and a web-based official site. They actually possess a firm grasp on social media strategies and understand what fans want out of their Trail Blazers content. However, there is a disconnect in understanding how fans are choosing to consume their content in today’s evolving digital age. When the night is winding down, the common fan wants to kick their feet up to digest content, and it’s an undeniable trend that fans are choosing to do so on a tablet or on smartphones, but less and less from a desktop computer. In fact, over a third of American adults (age 18+) now own a tablet - a number that nearly doubled from a year ago. This number rises even higher to 56% when surveying households earning at least $75,000 per year, perhaps a demographic with a little more pocket change to contribute fan allegiance with ticket stubs. The point is, fans today desire tablet-friendly content, yet the vast majority of sports brands, including the Trail Blazers, have not chosen to build apps that serve as a convenient one-stop-shop fan experience. Instead, the data remains spread all over the web and frankly it gets exhausting trying to keep up as a multitasking monster to get the most out of your team’s happenings. It is making our attention spans bounce off the walls, and giving high-quality content a shelf life far shorter than it deserves. We need a place to call home away from the arena - an idea of curated stomping grounds where we can drop by to become more knowledgeable and well-rounded as fans.
Expanding Universe of Data, a Good and a Bad Thing
Here at Trapit, we often hear the phrase “90% of the world’s content was created in the past two years.” It is a statistic that is difficult to wrap your brain around, but serves as a daunting truth for the direction the internet is heading. This increasing overflow of data--far too much of it being wasteful clutter--calls for brands to strive for better curation of the quality content that fans desire to sustain a close connection with their teams. With brands using tools like Trapit’s Content Curation Center, this process becomes vastly simplified. Its smart engine implements both RSS connectivity and sophisticated artificial intelligence that puts in the work to discover who or what else on the web--from fans, to bloggers, to columnists--is talking Trail Blazers basketball. It strips down the tediousness of search and SEO hierarchy, and provides more time and ease for the human element to focus on getting creative juices flowing. Perhaps what the CCC does best is give curators the ability to fine-tune this wildly growing internet and weed out the expanding volume of junk data that is making the hunt for quality content more and more infuriating for fans to navigate.
When the Trail Blazers take the court this fall season, certainly the fan experience will be improved. I’m sure the concourse will be modernized, the food will be tastier and perhaps the team will tally up a few more in the win column, however; the moment I head home I know there will still be a void in my fandom that will continue to be unfulfilled. I hope that one day, I will be able to open my iPad and click a button to enjoy anything and everything Trail Blazers content. It will be there, archived for when I am away, so I can come back and feel like I am still in control of the pace in which the internet moves. Until that happens, a well-rounded fan experience will continue falling short of what the modern fan expects out of its sports brand.
User-Generated Content: Turning your audience into brand ambassadors
When it comes to content marketing, there’s a fine line between a brand knocking one out of the park and whiffing at the pitch. Sticking with the baseball analogy, as a brand steps up to the plate, simply making contact is not enough. The goal is nailing that sweet spot, making a perfect connection--not with a leather ball--but with the audience. However, fans of a brand want to do more than observe from beyond a fence. Brilliantly, brands today are recognizing that great content marketing campaigns often stem from creative ways of boosting audience involvement. To truly feel engaged with a brand, sometimes a fan needs to be the one gripping the bat.
User-Generated Content Selling the Nike Look
Fans and Pros Take the Wheel with Mercedes-Benz
A la Nike, Mercedes-Benz developed a fantastic method of creating audience involvement with their “Take the Wheel” competition this summer. After selecting five of Instagram’s “top” photographers, the group was given five days behind the wheel (of the new Mercedes-Benz CLA) to snap pics of anything life on the road inspired. The total number of “likes” accumulated decided the winner of which photographer got to keep their new set of wheels. Despite how awesome it would be to win a free car for taking photos, you could argue that Mercedes-Benz was the real winner. Newfound fans flocked to its social media account in droves through the #CLATakeTheWheel tag, benefiting both the reach of the participants and brand itself. The campaign curated and published the best images on its website, bringing in great brand exposure from a much younger age demographic that high-end luxury automobiles don’t naturally cater toward.
Curating a Following on Etsy’s Pages
However, not all user-centric campaigns are as easy as creating hashtags for fans to filter content through, which makes for a simple everything in one place curation process. Take Etsy’s freshly launched “Pages” for example. With a very Pinterest-esque feel to it, select users (more notable than the average fan) are able to curate both personal and user-generated content on pages organized by creative themes such as vintage, typography, gifts, or even specific color schemes like “red.” Although the launch seems like a surefire hit, Gigaom writer Laura Owen questions the long-term sustainability of such a feature, due an increasing deluge in an over-flooding marketplace, coupled with the concern of potential “curation fatigue.” With many Etsy Pages contributors already owning Pinterest boards and other various social media outlets, discovering new content to feature in real-time can get overwhelming and time-consuming. Unlike Nike and Mercedes-Benz, the curators are the ones mining for gold, not the audience.
Though there are many noticeable distinctions between Nike, Mercedes-Benz and Etsy's content marketing strategies, the three tend to revolve around a familiar theme: harnessing a recognition of one's audience and acknowledging the value regular consumers can provide for a brand on the creative front. User-generated content data will continue its rapid growth in today's evolving digital age and, back to the baseball analogy, they should be seen as ducks on the pond…
It's up the brand to drive them home.
-Geoff
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