Cision 2013 Ebook ContentMarketingforPR

POWER
YOUR
STORY
Content Marketing Essentials for PR
an ebook from
Copyright Cision, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 6/13
us.cision.com 866.639.5087
ca.cision.com 877.269.3367
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POWER YOUR STORY:
table of contents
What is Content Marketing?
Taking your content to the next level
What is content marketing?
The basics
Creating & Curating Valuable Content
Know your audience
Deliver real value
Brick vs. feather content
Conquering writers block
Curating Content
Publish
Optimizing Your Content
Search Engine Optimization
On-page optimization: all about keywords
External search factors
Putting it all together
What About Social?
Engaging with your audience
Infuencer Identifcation
How to engage with your infuencers
Participate
Mention
A special note on advocates
Using social for content ideas
Cision Blog
In the beginning
Continued growth through content
Paid amplifcation
Amp It Up!
Why do you need amplifcation?
4 benefts to amplifcation
Examples of amplifed content
A/B testing
Analyzing and Measuring Your
Content Marketing Efforts
Creating goals
What is the value of a page view?
What are the proftable actions on your website for Lead Generation?
Bringing it all together
In Summary
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WHAT IS
CONTENT
MARKETING?
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Content marketing is to 2013 what social media
marketing was to 2007. Five or 10 years ago, some
PR pros and marketers bought into the concept of
integrating social media into their campaigns and
some did not. There were long arguments over whether
or not bloggers should be considered journalists (an
argument youd be hard-pressed to win now.) Today,
its hard to imagine a PR or marketing campaign
without a social component; social has just become
another piece of how we power our story.
As websites and social networks look for new models
to provide content and still drive revenue as more
and more content moves online, branded content
will continue to rise and provide communicators with
unique opportunities to amplify their stories.
Dont get left in the dust; begin exploring how to get
started in content marketing now.
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taking your content to the
next level
Allianz Global Assistance, a leader in travel insurance, knew
they had a great story to tell. Their website already contained
engaging posts for travelers like The Super-Quick Guide for
Applying for a Passport, Six Tips for Cheap International Travel
and Ten Surprising Essentials to Take on Your Cruise.
They were on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube. They
shared relevant content with their community and were a
trusted resource. But they werent sure how to get to the next
step in building their brand with a new audience and all with
limited resources.
Content marketing has easily become the most actively
researched area for our business, explained Daniel Durazo,
director of communications for Allianz Global Assistance.
A tightened budget had already pushed Allianz to stop
outsourcing their media distribution and PR efforts, but it was
content marketing that ended up being the key to their success.
Allianz started using paid amplification to place links to their
posts as recommended stories on top publisher websites-- like
USA Today, the New York Times and TMZ-- through an algorithm
that served up their stories to readers who were most likely to be
interested in their content. (But more about that later in the Amp
It Up! chapter of this ebook.)
What Dan quickly found was that the Allianz content was
attracting a new audience and bringing people to their website.
Once they began feeding an RSS feed of their Travel Tips to
premium publishers through paid amplification, the Travel Tips
section quickly began outranking their own website on Google.
The RSS feed is turnkey, Dan explained. Once our content
began hitting the big name websites, we immediately saw an
increase in all of our metrics and increased visits to our website
by 20 percent.
Creating great content was not the end for Allianz; it was just
the beginning
We had this vague idea that we needed to do
something with content marketing, and kept hearing
about content marketing, but didnt know what to
do to take that frst step.

Daniel Durazo
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Americans now spend as much time online as they do watching
TV, according to Forrester Research, yet only 15% of media ad
budget money is spent online.
According to a study by Shopper Science on behalf of Google,
The average shopper uses 10.4 sources or information (ranging
from recommendations from friends & family to magazine articles)
to make a decision, in 2011, which is up from 5.3 sources in 2010.
what is content marketing?
Content Marketing isnt new. Content marketing is the process
of developing and sharing relevant, valuable and engaging
content to a target audience with the goal of acquiring new
customers or increasing business from existing customers. Its the
vital link between awareness and a profitable customer action
and its something that marketing professionals have been doing
for decades -- via email campaigns, collateral and traditional
advertising. Now, with the advent of social media, online ads and
other amplification tools, content marketing has become the
latest trend in the PR & marketing industry. You cant go online
without seeing an article or blog post mentioning this buzzword
and why your company should be putting together a game plan
(if you havent done so already).
When Google published the Zero Moment of Truth
ebook in 2011, they established quite a few surprising
facts about consumer behaviors:
What ZMoT tells us with these facts is that traditional PR and
marketing alone is not enough to satisfy the voracious appetites
of consumers for content when they make a decision to learn
more about us, seek a referral or buy our product. We need
digestible content readily available to consumers, and, not just
on our website, but, where they are seeking information and
digesting content.
70%
of Americans look at product
reviews before purchasing.
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POWER YOUR STORY:
As Jay Baer, marketing strategist, speaker and author and
president of the social media and content marketing consultancy
Convince & Convert, describes in Youtility: Why Smart Marketing is
About Help not Hype:
Most marketers want to jump right in and begin pushing content
via all owned media channels. While there is no better time
than the present, its important that before you begin promoting
your content on any platform that you have a solid plan and
measurable goals. In other words, it has never been more
important to develop a strategy for your brand before you dive in.
Creating engaging content on a consistent basis is probably the
hardest part and the number one reason why
There are 5 essential components to any Content Marketing Plan:
Even with so many new tools like Facebook, Twitter
and beyond, few businesses are actually doing
anything markedly different than they used to.
Facebook is a fancy photo scrapbook and Twitter is
often just a tiny press-release machine. Its the same
shouting with a different megaphone.

the basics
creation, curation, optimization, amplification
and analysis.
of B2B marketers
outsource their
content creation.
65%
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Its not easy to continually produce interesting blog posts and
other pieces of content (not to mention the type of content
that your audience is going to want to consume and share
across their own social channels); but were here to help. This
ebook will offer you tips for planning ahead for your campaigns
and ways of repurposing content that youve already produced
for other platforms.
Curation is another vital element of any Content Marketing
Campaign. Online content curation is a great marketing tool
with unusually broad filtering capabilities and information
selection that can be used to develop and promote a business.
By promoting external stories, it allows you to get in front of
your audience and be seen as a thought leader and not just
someone who always promotes your own brand. Take other
articles from around the web that you think your audience would
be interested in and promote them across your channels. Youll
be seen as a resource to your fans and followers, nurture existing
relationships and youll begin to make friends with influencers
across your industry.
Beyond creating and curating this content, you need to be
ready to optimize this content on the Web. Your content needs
to be easy for consumers and search engines to understand
and find. A great article may have a headline that is esoteric
and clever, but it doesnt mean that anyone will ever search for
(or find) it, which will stop your audience from discovering your
content. SEO helps search engine algorithms and social sites
figure out why your content is relevant to your audience.
So, what do you do once youve created, curated and amplified
your content and youre ready to share it? Amplify it! Many
of you are already organically sharing your content on and
engaging with your audience on your social channels, but did
you also know that you can promote your blog posts and other
curated content on a huge network of publisher sites? Well talk
to you about some new amplification methods that have come
on the scene to help you gain visibility on thousands of sites
including Time, CNN and Fast Company.
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Last but definitely not least, measuring the results of your content
marketing campaigns is probably the single most important
thing you can do, yet 33 percent of B2B marketers and 41
percent of B2C marketers cited the inability to measure as a
significant challenge.
Tools like Google Analytics have made it easier to measure
engagement, but how do you decide which key performance
indicators (KPIs) are most important to your brand? Should you
care about unique visits to your website or is social sharing most
important to your company? Well help you figure out what KPIs
to measure and how to gain visibility into how your content is
performing. Then, you can use the results to modify the content
you are creating based on what gets the most attention and
engagement from your audience.
B
2
B
B
2
C
33%
41%
CREATING
&
CURATING
VALUABLE
CONTENT
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or at the very least, persuasive writing. And persuasive writing is
what PR and marketing professionals do on a daily basis right?
Your audience might not be obvious to you. You may even think
your online audience is a downright mystery. Dont worry! There
are many resources out there that can help you identify the
consumers of your content.
To start pinpointing demographics and behavior, Jason shares
that there are broad-based research projects like The Social
Habit that provide statistical insight into Internet and social
networking site usage, mobile usage and content consumption
habits. The Pew Internet & American Life Project is another set
of studies that has done extensive and continuous research
with regard to how the Internet-at-large is being used, with
demographics, habits and content in mind.
There are also many free analytics tools that will allow you
to identify your brands audiences on specific platforms. For
instance, Google Analytics can give you a sense of whos visiting
your blog or website where your audience is located, how they
were directed to your posts, what theyre reading and what their
attention span is for certain topics, to name a few factors.
Facebook Insights can paint a picture of the demographics and
reach that may dictate your social community. There are also
emerging tools, like Demographics Pro, which charge a monthly
rate and go deeper to segment your Twitter audience, as well as
Twitter analytics services that have recently started charging fees,
like Crowdbooster.
Aside from the numbers-based demographics, there may be other
audience-revealing questions you want answered before you
commit to producing certain types of content. Is your audience
comprised of customers, prospects or stakeholders? If youre a B2B
Jason Falls of Social Media Explorer goes as far as
to say that knowing your audience is the No. 1 rule
for writing
Creating valuable content cannot be accomplished by accident.
Before you put pen to paperor fingers to keyboard, as these
times would have ityou need a strategy. And crucial to your
strategy is knowing your audience.
creating & curating
valuable content:
know your audience
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These may be questions you answer in time. The longer you
are producing and publishing content, and the more you are
interacting with your audience via online comments, e-mails,
events or social media, the more obvious they will become. Here
are some examples of how to uncover your audience:
Youll begin to piece together an audience profile that doesnt
just reveal demographics, but the needs and motivations that are
drawing an audience to your content.
When you know your audience, youll know what stories to write
and curate, what stories to share, what works and what simply
doesnt. It may take trial and error, but it will help you clearly
define contents role in your business goals. And like most goals, its
important to monitor and measure your contents performance, so
you can evolve with your audience.
Get customers and prospects to fill out a form with demographic
information in order to access your content.
Use analytics to reveal the most trafficked or read stories on your
company blog.
Ask your audience! A poll or survey could help you plan your
content when youre getting started.
want to know whos downloading your white papers or
tip sheets?
want to know who your blog audience is?
want to know what stories to cover next?
deliver real value
You know that you have to write and produce content for an
audience. Thats a start. But how can you be sure your content is
delivering real value to your audience?
what type of content does your audience like
to consume?
company or if youre a B2C company, is your content audience
mostly other companies or direct consumers? Simply,
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POWER YOUR STORY:
For one, the conversation cant be one-sided. Business 2
Community stresses that both the content creators and audience
need to engage with one another in the content-value
exchange. In order for there to be value, there needs to be trust.
The kind of trust that is associated with reading an informative,
sincere or well-crafted storynot an advertising missive that brags
about how great your company or product is. How do you go
about instilling this trust?
If your content incorporates these things, it stands a good chance
to be read, viewed or listened to, and youre one step closer to
reaching your marketing goals for that content.
At this point, you may be unsure what types of content you should
be writing or producing. Frankly, there are tons of options, and you
may be wondering what types of content would best fit your B2B
or B2C brand.
It must be timely and relevantwhatever content youre
producing has to address an issue, trend or problem that affects
the reader, their company or their industry, at present.
It must be well-written and well-produced, and include a certain
expertise that is unique to your brand. You want to give a
perspective or advice that has meaning to the audience, while
informing your brands identity.
It must be both varied and consistentsubject matter should
rotate depending on whats fresh, newsworthy or lively, but the
editorial style and sensibilities, and frequency at which you are
producing content for an audience, should remain stable.
You must call your audience to actiontheir interaction with your
brand shouldnt end with the first exposure to your content, and
you have to figure out how to hold the audiences attention.
Your content must be a lot of things at once:
If you deliver to your audience a value they
cant get anywhere else, they will keep
coming back.
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A few types of content marketing include:
Direct email newsletters
White papers
Apps
Branded webinars or podcasts
Videos
Case studies
Events
Blog posts
Tip sheets
Social media posts
Web pages
Infographics
E-books
Much more than the old-fashioned press release, huh? You might
want to try some of these, or even a mix of all of these, at some
point in your business plan.
brick vs. feather content
Now that weve listed different types of content, you may be
wondering what types perform the best, are easiest to produce,
or provide the biggest return on investment. Thus enters the
age-old trick questionwhich weighs more, 10 pounds of bricks
or 10 pounds of feathers? And how the heck does that apply to
content marketing?
Chris Sietsema at Convince & Convert explains
bricks as those larger content productions such as
research reports, events, white papers, video series
and mobile apps. Essentially, these are the content
contributions that take more time and money to
produce, but could see a large payoff. Feathers
are the smaller, low-stakes pieces of content,
comprised of simple text and photo content and
usually shared on blogs and social media. Both
bricks and feathers have their advantages and
disadvantageswhich is like saying, they weigh the
same10 pounds.
Chris Sietsema
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Bricks can serve well to establish a coveted sense of thought
leadership for your company. They also tend to fare better in terms
of SEO rankings, measurable metrics and content lifespan. When
you consider research, white papers and apps, these tend to be
examples of evergreen contentthe content that will always be
relevant to your audience, according to Search Engine Journal.
But these larger, better-planned, higher-budget content pieces
can require many people and resources to produce, with little
guarantee as to its traction or popularity.
Feathers, by contrast, do better to show your role as a news
maker as Sietsema points out, with less resources required, a
lower opportunity cost and a quicker turnaround time. Though, the
content dispatches that are considered feathers may have a short
lifespan and a diminished SEO potential.
When considering bricks, feathers or a healthy mix of both,
keep your resources in mind. Do you have the time, money and
people-power to reach for that brass ring of thought leadership?
Do you have the ability to produce daily posts that are newsy,
entertaining and appeal to your social audience? Both Convince
& Convert and Social Benzene provide insightful infographics
that further break down the effectiveness, difficulty and usage of
bricks and feathers.
conquering writers block
Dont worryit happens to the best of us. Breathe! Writers block,
while inconvenient and sometimes painful to those experiencing
it, can be a great opportunity for your brand to vary your
content, try your hand at creating new types of content or dip
into the archives.
Take a step back and assess - what type of content does your
audience like? Sometimes finding a story idea is as easy as going
back to the analytics dashboard, finding your most popular,
clicked-through, talked-about content piece, and grabbing
a keyword to ignite an idea for a new story. Havent done a
multimedia post in a while? Try your hand at an infographic,
video, or image-based content. Havent been social in a while?
Try your hand at user-sourced contentsuch as polls, surveys,
contests and testimonials.
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While this might sound counterintuitive, dont
be afraid to ask others to write or produce the
content for you. Thats rightgetting an expert,
guest blogger or commenter to fll in is a great way
to cheat writers block, as well as getting noticed
for your thought leadership and connections.
And of course, dont forget to repurpose your older content.
Companies often face writers block because theyve been
actively producing content for a long time and lose sight of what
they may already have. Did you sponsor a panel event that may
translate well to a tip sheet? Did you reply to a testimonial that
might work for an e-mail newsletter? Would snippets of a white
paper make for a good blog post? Be sure to scour your archive
for content that fits a current opportunity.
If youre looking for more ideas on how to conquer writers block,
check out this Cision Blog post, 15 Ways to Beat Blogger Fatigue.
The tips dont just apply to bloggers, but content creators as well.
Not to mentionthis is a great way for us to repurpose our own
content! (See what we did there?)
curating content
Heres something you may have not considered. Thought
leadership is more than great content creationits also about
curating great content. Ever hear the maxim, You can know
someone by who their friends are? That generally holds true when
it comes to content. You can get to know a company or brand by
who they read, who influences them, who they admire, who they
engage with or whose content they share.
If you want to be a content leader, it cant be all about
broadcastingyou have to listen too. You have to recognize the
best practices in your industry, the experts who shape your mission
and business goals, and the people who are handily capable of
entertaining or informing your own thought leadership. As Beth
Kanter points out,
on Facebook, the average user posts 90 items of
content each month.

Beth Kanter
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With this overabundance of data, a content curator offers high
value to anyone looking for quality content. Because content
takes time to read, view and process, there is a value attached to
the content creators who display this sense of focus and attention
in curation.
How do you tackle content curation? Start by reading blog rolls of
interest, following the experts in your industry on social media, and
keeping up with news articles and trends. The more you read, the
more youll find out who the experts are for certain niche topics
in your space. In your blog or online resources, you might want
to start making blog or reading recommendations, roundups of
news, linking to other content creators online properties and
using content creators platforms to continue the conversation
and initiate a relationship.
You can do this by simply choosing a blog reader and adding a
few dozen blogs to your feed that are relevant to you industry,
brand or organization. Cisions SVP of Digital Content Heidi
Sullivan shares her own strategy:
You may also decide you would like to publish tips, advice,
infographics, guest posts or republish posts (all with permission, of
course!) by the content creators who would have the greatest
influence on your audience. Content curation can deliver that
aforementioned value-exchangein that it provides a fresh
perspective to your audience, while getting them to see you in
an esteemed light.
I dont have enough time to read 50 blogs every day. I
get that. Im busy as are most PR pros and marketers.
So Ive chosen the 30-or-so blogs that I really do love
(and I probably add one or two a month) and I scan
through the headlines every morning, choose what is
relevant to me, and read through the post. I probably
read 6-10 posts a day and it takes me about half an
hour before I start my day. It keeps me updated on
the latest trends and connected to the people that
truly infuence my industry.


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publish
So are you ready to push the Publish button? Ready to send your
e-mail to clients and prospects? Is your content seconds away
from going live online, in a webcast or on a social channel?
Just remembercreating and curating valuable content is
a process that takes time. Like most elements of a strategic
business plan, after you publish your content, its important to
monitor and measure your resultshow the audience responds,
whos engaging with what types of content, and what types
of bricks and feathers are landing or floating in the context
of your content marketing plan. Monitor, measure and then
repeat your successes and modify your missteps.
Of course, creating and curating valuable content is just part of
the battleyou also have to find a way to lead people to your
content and, to be colloquial, get some eyeballs on the page.
OPTIMIZING
YOUR
CONTENT
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Why would companies go to such lengths to get their
content to rank highly? Lets look at the numbers.
optimizing your content
According to Wikipedia, search engine optimization (SEO) is the
process of affecting the visibility of a website or a web page in
a search engines natural or un-paid (organic) search results.
Sounds pretty scientific, right? What happened to using our
creativity to create great content like in the previous chapter?
In fact, if employed well, SEO can actually require more creativity
and finesse than creating the content itself and have a
significant impact on the success of your content.
Optimizing content for search engines will help get your content
in front of more people who are searching for topics related to
it. Optimizing content for readability pulls your audience in and
keeps them on your content - often times resulting in the reader
sharing that content with their own audiences, which amplifies your
content even further.
Great content can only meet its true potential if it can
be easily found and consumed.
search engine optimization
SEO, has been around since the first search engines. In that time,
the trades and practices of SEO have changed significantly
as search engines and SEOs have played a cat and mouse
game with each other. Search engines strive to provide the best
content for what people are searching for. SEO professionals
work to make sure their own - or their clients - content is easily
found. The changing nature of SEO has created a multi-billion
dollar industry.
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of adults online use search engines.
of online consumers use a search
engine to look up product
information before making a
buying decision.
of adults online use a search engine
every day.
of people click on the frst link of a
search result.
92%
61%
59%
53%
The importance in getting found in search engines is undeniable.
As such, some SEO companies have taken to exploiting loopholes
in search algorithms to get content artificially ranked higher. This
practice had short-term benefits for SEOs, but each time a new
search engine update would come out, it would knock some
of that artificially boosted content out, and potentially deindex
entire sites from the search engine.
With its Panda and Penguin updates, Google seems to have had
the final laugh. Old SEO loopholes like link farms seldom work
anymore, and now were seeing a shift from companies calling
themselves SEO agencies to Digital Content or Inbound
Marketing agencies. Why the change? Because when it comes
to SEO, theres nothing more important than fresh content.
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on-page optimization: all
about keywords
Now we know why SEO is necessary, but how do you get started?
Well, the foundation of SEO is keywords.
Keywords are the terms that people type into a search engine.
When creating your content, define what the content is about
in a few keywords. If youre writing about your brands new
organic dog food, you can use the keyword dog food, but
you may be better off being more specific and using organic
dog food instead. Make your keywords something that people
unfamiliar with your brand will search for. Using your brand name
as a keyword will only net an audience who already knows your
brand. With good keywords, youre targeting those who dont.
A great way to look up the popularity of keywords is
Googles Keyword Tool. Its an industry standard tool
and its free!
So should you worry about SEO? Yes! If anything, SEO is more
valid now than it ever has been. If your content isnt being found
in search, youre missing out on a huge audience. The 61% of
consumers who use search to make a buying decision will never
see your product or brand. Thats a huge missed opportunity.
Once youve figured out your keywords, remember to optimize
from the top down. Search engines read content like human
beings - in English, thats from the top down, left to right. As they
scan the content of the page, search engines are looking to
determine what a page is about.
The three most important places they look are:
Your title tag
The first paragraph of your content
Your headline (H1 tag)
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Include your keywords in these three key places, preferably
toward the beginning of each. If possible, try to use your keyword
within the first one or two words in your title and headline.
A few other tips and tricks when working with keywords and editing
your content:
Use Alt and Title tags with images
Search engines are getting smarter, but they still arent to the
point where they can determine the 1,000 words a picture
is worth. Help them out by including an Alt and Title tag that
describes what is in the image. This helps get your images
indexed in image search, and also is used by screen readers that
are used by people with visual disabilities.
Link to other content using relevant anchor text
When linking to your website or someone elses website, do not
do this:
Want to learn more about our premium organic dog food?
Click here!
Search engines use anchor text (the text that is linked in a
hyperlink) to help decipher what the linked page is about. Click
here does not describe the page that you are linking to. Instead,
link what youre describing:
Learn more about our premium organic dog food.
This link tells search engines that the page youre linking to is about
organic dog food.
Include a meta description of your page
Meta descriptions are invisible to users who are reading your
posts, but they play an important role in search engine results
pages. Your meta description is your elevator pitch to users on
a search results page.
By default, Google search results include your meta
description text and highlight the keywords someone
searched for.
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These simple techniques make a big impact on how well search
engines can read and categorize your content. There are other
factors that determine how well a page ranks - according to
Google, there are over 200 factors - but getting these basics right
is a great start.
external search factors
Although it seems that youve already done a ton of work
optimizing your content through keywords, links and more, your
SEO work has only just begun. There are dozens, if not hundreds,
of external factors that search engines take into account when
ranking content. Here are a few that you can work on:
Inbound links
The number and quality of inbound links to your content helps
determine its popularity and importance. It is a major factor that
search engines use to rank where your page will show up in search
results. This is why its often said that...
...inbound links are the currency of the Web.
SEOs have tried many techniques for building links, including
buying links from websites, spamming comments on blogs with links,
creating link farms, etc. As search engines have gotten smarter,
these techniques have had a diminishing effect on rankings. But
the one thing that has remained a best practice is to constantly
create valuable new content.
Creating valuable new content increases your likelihood that
others will link to it. The more people who see your content,
the more links and social shares your content may receive. The
more links and social shares it receives, the higher it should rank
in searches. The higher it ranks in searches, the more views it
receives. Repeat.
Search engines put a lot of emphasis on the authority of a domain
when determining how content is ranked. A domains authority
is made up of all of the inbound links and social shares to every
page on the domain. When you have a popular piece of content
that gets a lot of great traffic, social shares and inbound links, that
piece of content is actually helping other pieces of content on
your site rank better. As they say, a rising tide lifts all boats.
This is a purely organic way to receive inbound links and is the
preferred method by search engines everywhere.
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The power of a domain
Look up just about any noun in Google and you will see a link to
wikipedia.org toward the top of your search results. Wikipedia.org
as a domain has established millions of inbound links because of its
vast content. Even pages that dont have many inbound links on
Wikipedia still rank higher than pages with more inbound links on
other sites because the Wikipedia domain is such an authority.
Google Authorship
In the summer of 2011, Google Authorship launched to the world.
The idea was to establish a direct link between an author and his/
her content. Linking all of your content together under your profile
gives it extra credibility and visibility. It also displays your content
with your profile picture on search results pages, which can
increase the likelihood that people will notice and click on it.
Optimizing content for readership
People get bored easily. Liven up your content to keep
readers engaged!
Deliver value in your content
As mentioned previously, the #1 rule of content marketing is to
deliver content that is valuable to your audience. If youre not
delivering real value to them, youre just wasting your time and
theirs. Ask yourself, What piece of information will people be
able to take away from this content that will help them in the
future? If that answer is only, Information about my product,
youre doing it wrong.
Get to the point
Use the inverted pyramid approach to writing that journalists use.
Start with the most newsworthy information and give details later.
26
POWER YOUR STORY:
100 extra words only gets 4.4 seconds of attention.
Drop the jargon
Use terms that your audience knows. Jargon can be confusing and
will push the reader away from your content.
Break information into sections
This makes your content easier to digest and allows your reader
to scan to pieces of content that interest them. Use sub-headlines
where possible to distinguish sections of copy.
Multimedia
Break up long paragraphs of text with images. Use imagery to
explain something that would otherwise take 1,000 words. Graphs,
infographics, photos, headshots, videos, presentations, etc. go a
long way in making your content more readable and shareable.
Pull out key pieces of information
Highlight important pieces of content within your site. Since most
people are simply scanning your content, pulling out key facts and
figures will help engage the reader and bring them back into the
details of the content.
Make sharing easy
Include buttons on the page that allow your readers to easily share
the content with others. Definitely include Facebook Likes, Twitter,
Google+ and LinkedIn. For more visual content, include a Pinterest
Pin it button.
Keep it short
With the exception of an ebook or white paper, keep your online
content short. Get to the point because every...
27
POWER YOUR STORY:
Pull readers to other actions
Now that you have the readers attention, keep them engaged
by recommending further action. Related articles are a good
start, but also think about how to move them to the next step of
the buying cycle. Dont force it upon them though. A simple link
to your related product or to sign up for a newsletter will help get
people who want more information to it as seamlessly as possible.
Combining ease of readability with some basic SEO techniques will
help get your content found and shared organically on the Web.
However, in the age of social media, theres no reason to just sit
around and wait for traffic to come your way.
putting it all together
There is no doubt about it: SEO is a lot of work. But SEO is an
absolute necessity. Great content is only as effective when its
read by your target audience. Ensuring that your content can be
found when that audience is searching for it is key.
A few years ago, Darren Rowse of Problogger wrote about an IM
conversation with another blogger who argued that SEO wasnt
necessary if you produce good content. He wrote, While I see
where the blogger comes from and I agree to a point that search
rankings look after themselves when you build a useful blog Im
also convinced that knowing some basic SEO and implementing it
on a site can have a significant impact.
What Darren is getting at here is that there isnt a clear division
between SEO and great content. Great content is optimized for
your audience to find it. Knowing some of the basics will help you
reach the next level.
Paul Boag, co-founder of the web design agency Headscape in
the UK, wrote an article about the SEO for Smashing Magazine and
highlighted that, The inconvenient truth is that the best person
to improve your ranking is you. He adds, Your primary objective
should be better content, not higher rankings.
Staying up-to-date on SEO tactics and continuing to focus on
producing great content is worth the investment of your time
and will remain the first step in getting your content to your
target audience.
WHAT
ABOUT
SOCIAL?
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POWER YOUR STORY:
what about social?
social medias role in
content marketing
engaging with your audience
Content marketing and content creation has never been more
predominant than it is right now. With the advent of social media,
most marketers want to jump right in and begin pushing content
to all of their social platforms as fast as possible. While its tempting
to use social media as a place to simply shout your message, it
defeats the true purpose of the channel. Consistent engagement
with your audience is the vital key to success in social media and
will establish your brand as a source of valuable content.
As you push your content through your social media platforms, it
will organically spark conversations with your audience. Keep in
mind that these are social platforms and you should be engaging
them. The goal with content marketing via social media is not only
to offer something useful but to have a two-way conversation.
Address questions that your followers may have, thank them for
retweets, comment on their thoughts about your content. With sites
like Twitter, you may be limited with how you can respond. If thats
the case, link them back to content that youve created that will
address their question.
It can be a daunting task, but be sure to respond to the majority
of comments and mentions you are receiving on social platforms.
This is especially important and perhaps most obvious on sites
like Facebook and Twitter, but ensure that you respond to blog
comments as well. Keep in mind that this also applies to individuals
that may have a differing opinion on some of your content.
One way to engage your audience and offer an avenue for
debate is by hosting a weekly Twitter chat. Consider this content
marketing on the fly. If you arent familiar, a Twitter chat is an
interactive conversation set at a specific time via Twitter. Each
participant uses the same predefined hashtag in their response so
the conversation can be followed via that hashtag. This gives you
an opportunity to pose topical questions and get your audiences
feedback on pertinent issues within your specific industry. Its a
great way to get your audience involved with your Twitter handle,
to establish your brand as a thought leader and get content ideas
for future posts.
A healthy debate keeps things objective and allows for
another point of view.
What About Social?
30
POWER YOUR STORY:
Facebook is where the majority of online social time is spent. In
fact, a recent study showed that...
So it goes without saying that your brand has to have a presence
on facebook. However, it is also the most personal social network
of the bunch and your brand will be competing with your
audiences family and friends for attention--so you must offer
something exceptionally useful with your posts or you will get lost in
the shuffle.
This is where the idea of being a Youtility comes into play. Jay
Baer describes a Youtility as marketing so useful, people would pay
you for it.
of all time online is spent
on facebook.
of time on social network
is spent on facebook.
83% 10.8%
Sell something and you make a customer. Help
someone, and you make a customer for life,

Jay Baer
What About Social?
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POWER YOUR STORY:
Establish yourself as a valuable resource for your audience and
you will distinguish your brand from the competition and be seen
as much more than just another company in your space.
The Chicago RedEye mobile app,
is a great example of a Youtility. The application includes one of
the most accurate train and bus trackers for the Chicago Transit
Authority which informs commuters of when their next ride will be
available. It also includes a dining and drinks section that uses the
GPS in your smartphone to suggest places to eat or drink around
you. Conveniently, all the RedEye news and classifieds are also a
click away.
As previously mentioned, social media is inherently social and
we need to act as we would in other social situations by
engaging with others, being helpful and openly discussing trends
in our industry.
infuencer identifcation
While posting your message on your own shared pages may get
the attention of your biggest fans and advocates, one of the best
ways to build audience on social media is through identifying
and engaging influencers. Though building these relationships
takes time, the benefit of having a person with an influential voice
advocate for you is more than worth the commitment.
How do you determine the influencers in your space? How will
you measure their influence? These are great questions to ask and
questions you should have the answers to before you begin your
social content marketing journey.
What About Social?
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POWER YOUR STORY:
Identifying influential blogs in your industry can be as easy as
searching for keywords or topics of interest on a blog search tool
like Google Blog Search. Look at the numbers:
These are all key indicators of a blog that youd like to get
mentioned on in the future. When it comes to Twitter, you
can easily establish the users that youd like to turn into brand
ambassadors. Run a Twitter search on a topic or hashtag and
look at the users that come up. How often do they mention your
industry? Do they have influential followers? How many followers do
they have? How often do they tweet? What is their tone and how
often are they interacting with others?
LinkedIn has a section on their website that allows you to follow
posts from users they view as top influencers across a variety of
sectors. Its tough to become a recognized influencer on LinkedIn,
as the list contains the likes of Barack Obama, Jack Welch and Sir
Richard Branson; however, LinkedIn has started taking applications
to expand their list of influencers. Only those with quality content
will make the cut, so you can rest assured that anyone listed as an
influencer on the site network is the real deal.
Regardless of platform, however, one fact almost always bubbles
to the surface: influencers talk to each other. , When talking
about Cisions custom influencer reports--which use dozens of
social metrics based on keyword analysis to identify the most
influential people in a particular space-- Cisions social media
manager, Lisa Larranaga Denten, said, The numbers dont lie.
Once Ive identified a group of influencers based on metrics, I
always notice that those influencers talk to each other, link to each
other and cite each others work.
How often do they post?
How many people Like, Share or Re-tweet each post?
Does this blog share their number of subscribers?
How many people are commenting and engaging with the content?
What About Social?
33
POWER YOUR STORY:
Influencers talk to each other within a particular niche community.
Immersing yourself in that community will help you spot trends as
they emerge. One of our favorite statistics (that we originally read
on Rohit Bhargavas Influential Marketing Blog) is that an average
of about 1% of any population will be active content creators, 9%
will be participants and the other 90% will simply consume that
content online. If that stat is true, then our influencers are the ones
producing content, commenting and sharing.
The moral of the story is that influencers are out there and the best
way to reach them is by truly knowing and participating in your
digital community.
Using a social media monitoring tool or media database can
prove to be an invaluable resource and an investment that all
companies should be willing to make. Monitoring social media
for mentions of keywords that are important to your industry will
give you an idea of who is influential in the space. Cisions media
database provides an influencer score based on a number of
different criteria which allows users to get an idea of how influential
a contact is.
Lastly, after youve identified the contacts you consider influential,
read their content and take notice of who they cite to determine
who they consider influential. Who is influencing your influencers?
Often times you will discover contacts that youve missed and you
can add them to your list!
how to engage with your
infuencers
Forming relationships with your influencers is important because
the impact and reach of your content is amplified when your
influencers share it also. It helps the message/content resonate with
the community because it has been endorsed by a trusted third
party. This is particularly important because according to oBixMedia,
of consumers say they rely
on social media to help
them with buying decisions.
7
4
%
What About Social?
34
POWER YOUR STORY:
So how do you go about turning your influencers into brand
ambassadors and content subscribers? Participate and engage
with their content, then mention and recognize them as influential.
participate
mention
The best way to forge relationships with influencers is to actively
engage their content. This includes commenting on their blog
posts, retweeting them and liking their posts on Facebook. This way,
you gain recognition through participation and they will be more
apt to reciprocate. Then, when you reach out to them to pitch a
story or push your content to them via email, they will be familiar
with your brand because of your prior interactions.
Through actively participating and engaging with an influencers
content, you will undoubtedly come across some things you think
would be beneficial to share with your audience. When this happens,
its a good idea to give your influencers recognition. This can be as
simple as giving them a retweet or mentioning them in a blog post
and linking to their content. By recognizing your influencers, you will
often receive some mutual respect and a chance to add another
subscriber and convert them to a brand ambassador.
a special note on advocates
Sometimes your best infuencers and advocates
are right under your nose: your customers and your
employees. Identify who enjoys sharing information and
empower them to begin sharing your message. In early
2013, Cision formalized this process through a great tool
called GaggleAMP. GaggleAMP allowed us to invite our
advocates to join a gaggle where they could easily
share messages on our behalf on their Twitter, LinkedIn
and Facebook pages. We could share blog posts, news
and interesting content from others in our industry more
quickly with our community and give them a one-click
solution to helping us spread the word. Not only did this
help grow Cisions community (and drive over 10K clicks
to our content), but it helped those advocates grow
their own spheres of infuence in their communities.
What About Social?
35
POWER YOUR STORY:
using social for content ideas
Creating enough content is a challenge that most content
marketers face. It is important to engage on social networks, but
its just as important to listen. As mentioned in the Creating and
Curating Valuable Content section, by monitoring what people
are discussing on social media, you can often get great ideas
for your next blog post or YouTube video. Look for common
questions that customers in your industry are asking and create
your next blog post addressing these issues. That way, the next
time you see someone mention that topic, you can link them
to your content which directly relates to what they are talking
about. It can be seen as proactive customer service, yet you
are offering useful content at the same time.
What About Social?
36
POWER YOUR STORY:
You can also drum up a blog post recapping the best news stories
from your industry for that week or comprise a list of the best
industry specific blogs based on what your audience has been
discussing. These posts often dont require a lot of time but still
offer extremely useful content and have great sharing potential.
Mark Schaefer mentions the importance of getting involved on
LinkedIn forums and describes it as a goldmine of opportunity
to create micro-content. Subscribe to groups specific to your
industry on LinkedIn, and peruse the forums to get involved in the
conversation. Schaefer explains that simply answering questions
is providing meaningful content that can attract attention to you
and your website. If there is a question or discussion that you
think could warrant a blog post, make that a topic for the week.
What About Social?
CISION
BLOG
38
POWER YOUR STORY:
What I think theyve done so well is participate and pay
forward; they understand what it is to build community,
both online and offine.
cision blog: a case
study in the evolution of
content marketing
in the beginning...
When Cision Blog first launched in October 2008, founding
bloggers Heidi Sullivan and Jay Krall felt like they were writing into
a void, pushing content into the blogosphere, unsure if anyone
was listening. And they needed people to listen. Cision Blogs
main goal was (and still is) to raise awareness of Cision and build
brand loyalty by sharing expertise in our industry. The blogs
tagline expresses the commitment to that goal: insights to help
communicators navigate the evolving media landscape.
What Heidi and Jay quickly realized at the time was the power
of social karma in building a community around the blog:
sharing others content, commenting on other blogs and building
relationships with influencers brought a community to Cision Blog
that increased traffic, retweets, inbound links and comments,
much like the strategies you read about in the chapter What
about social? (We eventually got smarter about this by using
GaggleAMP and involving even more internal advocates, which
you can read about in the previous chapter as well.)
PR and social media expert Shonali Burke, president of Shonali
Burke Consulting and founding blogger of Waxing UnLyrical
watched Cision closely at the time:
Now that weve been in the social sphere for some years, its
interesting to see how far weve come. I remember, back in
2008, meeting Heidi Sullivan and Jay Krall in Detroit (which is
where the PRSA International Conference was held that year)
for the first time. Cision was always a big player in the media
research, monitoring and database world, but I remember how
much of a community they had already started building online.
That year, they did a presentation with Jason Falls (who Id also
met for the first time) and I remember thinking, These people
know what theyre talking about.
They were the early adopters for our field; some competitive
firms, some of which are doing very well today, werent even
on social media platforms back then. In fact, I remember doing
some benchmarking research at the time, and Cision stood out
as the leader of the pack. They were clearly the one to watch.
And yes, this was when I had no business relationship with them!
Cision Blog
39
POWER YOUR STORY:
continued growth
through content
As the blog continued to grow, the bloggers found that the more
content they posted, the more people came to the blog. We
had reached a new place in the evolution of the blog, Heidi said.
We finally understood that to continue to build our community we
needed to continue to increase our quality content, but we were
short on the time to produce it all. It was a different challenge than
having a lot to say but not knowing if there was anyone to hear it.
Over the next few years, Cision added six additional bloggers to
Cision Blog, in addition to numerous guest posts, interviews and
features, all which helped build their community and increase
traffic as outlined in the previous chapter, Curating and creating
great content.
Regular features and different types of content came with the new
voices writing for the blog as well. Our site visits have increased
by 95percent since launching our weekly Fashion and Beauty
When I had no standing whatsoever in the social media sphere
(to the extent I have any now, but I wont play the false humility
card), people like Heidi and Jay were friendly and collegial. It
wasnt that we suddenly became the best of friends or anything;
but there was a willingness to share information, to help out, that
made a huge difference to all of us who were trying to figure this
new world out. Cision Blog was one of the earliest of its kind, as
were its social channels and activities on those channels.
Over the years, what impressed me was the way Cision kept
this up. My guess is theyve had peaks and valleys; which firm
doesnt? But theyve made a concerted effort to build and
maintain relationships, and that means a lot. Their community
managers regularly comment on other blogs, they regularly
engage on Twitter and other social networks, and they actually
reply to emails (what a shocker!). Ive even had Cision staff
willingly guest post for me on my blog, even though its not a
huge, money-making, A-list blog. Over time, all this adds up;
because when you are asked for your expert opinion on
competitive services, who are you more likely to refer to? Yes,
thats a rhetorical question. And I have to say that in all our
various conversations over the years, never once did Cision offer
any kind of quid pro quo.
Cision Blog
40
POWER YOUR STORY:
Its not so much about content frequency, but rather
about content volume. The number of questions and
information needs possessed by your prospective
customers (and even current customers) are far more
numerous than is commonly believed.
For argument, lets say you have fve customer types
(personas). Lets further assume that you have defned
your sales funnel into fve steps (pretty common). For
each of those audience types, and for each of those
steps, what questions must be satisfactorily answered for
the prospect to move to the next stage? Conservatively,
lets assume its four key questions per step.
So, that would be:
pieces of content, minimum. And the overwhelming
best practice is to answer each question in multiple
formats. If you think you have enough content, you
almost assuredly do not.
5 x 5 x 4
=
100
audiences steps questions

feature and PR & Marketing Wins, Moves & Other News, said Lisa
Larranaga Denten, social media manager at Cision. In addition,
were able to put the spotlight on bloggers and PR pros we
interview and it strengthens our relationship with the community.
Jay Baer, marketing strategist, speaker, author of Youtility: Why
Smart Marketing is About Help not Hype and The NOW Revolution,
and author and president of the social media and content
marketing consultancy Convince & Convert explains how the
volume of content you produce has a direct impact on your
business success:
Cision Blog
41
POWER YOUR STORY:
paid amplifcation
Flash forward to today and a little more than four years after
Cision Blog launched: the bloggers are consistently producing
content nearly every weekday and engaging on social sites with
the community. As the growth of community for the blog stabilizes,
the bloggers are faced with a new challenge: How do we get our
community to the next level?
Like Daniel Durazo of Allianz Global Assistance, Cisions bloggers
had been reading a lot about content marketing, native advertising
and branded content, but werent sure where to start. Jeremiah
Owyang and Rebecca Liebs research report, The Converged
Media Imperative for Altimeter Group outlines a new unification of
paid, earned and owned media:
Cision blog already focused on quite a few aspects of
this cycle including:
Content Strategy
Engagement
Periodic Reporting
Real-Time Measurement
Publication Across Channels (like on social sites and linked on
Cisions homepage)
Cision Blog
42
POWER YOUR STORY:
But what about Amplification? This was adding the paid aspect
to the earned, shared and owned media that the Cision bloggers
were managing, to have a truly converged workflow, and
seemed to be the missing link for growing the community that
read Cision Blog.
Cision began using paid amplification to place links to their blog
posts on premium publisher sites like Time, PC World and Bloomberg
Businessweek. Cisions partners had developed an algorithm that
predicts what stories a reader is most interested in and places links
to those stories on articles that those readers are viewing. (More on
this concept in the following chapter, Amp it up!)
In the frst four months of using paid amplifcation on
premium publisher sites, Cision was driving tens of
thousands of new visitors to the blog and had doubled
the traffc to the site. Paid amplifcation wouldnt have
worked without the great content the blogging team
was producing, but it was just the fuel to throw on the
fre to bring Cision Blog to the next level.
Cision Blog
AMP
IT
UP!
44
POWER YOUR STORY:
The terms can get a bit confusing, so frst, a quick
glossary on the terms that youll hear when thinking
about paid amplifcation:
All of these terms are closely related, but it is important to
understand them as you dive into content marketing.
Amplification:
Merriam-Webster says that to amplify is to to increase the strength
or amount of; especially: to make louder. In content marketing
terms, amplification refers to tactics that help our content reach the
audiences we are targeting. One form of this is native advertising.
Native Advertising:
A method of advertising that is typically less intrusive than
traditional advertising, where the advertiser attempts to gain
attention by providing valuable content in the context of the users
experience. Remember old school advertorials in magazines? This is
a similar concept on the Web.
Branded Content
Branded content is quite simply, content produced by a brand
that is placed in a traditional news medium.
The key to native advertising is that it fits seamlessly within a users
experience that the consumer doesnt feel like they are being
advertised to. There are two parts to accomplishing this:
If the news is that important, it will fnd me.
amp it up!
amplifying your content across
the web
Youve just read about the Converged Media Imperitive from
Alitmeter Group. Paid and earned media are becoming one
But, as PR pros and marketers, how do we fit into the Paid
media landscape?
Essentially, there has been a huge uptick in advertising content, and
as content experts, it is necessary for us to figure out how this works.

A college student in an article by Brian Stel-

ter in the New York Times, March 2008
Amp it Up!
45
POWER YOUR STORY:
why do you need amplifcation?
Essentially, traditional PR and marketing tactics are no longer
enough. News is customizable and aggregated; i.e. we are
experiencing the end of news as an event: we dont always sit
down to watch the 9 oclock news or pick up a print newspaper
to know what is going on that day; we have alerts set up and
delivered to our smart phones, articles shared through social sites
and real-time news round-ups from sources we trust.
As consumers, we now think the news will find us. As PR pros &
marketers, we need to ensure our content is being delivered to
our target audiences where they are; instead of hoping they will
come to us.
Peter Himler, founding principal at Flatiron Communications,
contributing writer for Forbes.com and president of the Publicity
Club of New York describes how the evolution of native
advertising for PR has been fueled by the new ways consumers
digest content:
The quality of the content. Self-promotional content tends not
to be received as well in a native advertising format. Telling
a story and highlighting something interesting, entertaining,
unique or news-worthy will make your content a good fit for
native advertising.
The way that the content is presented. Unlike traditional
advertorials, native advertising can be specifically targeted
to consumers interested in reading your content. In the Cision
Blog case study, we discussed using paid amplification on a
premium publisher network. In this case, links to Cision Blog
articles appear as content that is recommended for you.
Promoted tweets on Twitter are frequently attached to certain
keyword or hashtag searches. Sponsored stories on Facebook
are in the news feeds of friends who have interacted with the
brand sponsoring the story. YouTubes in-stream advertising is
frequently search-term based. Basically, you only see native ads
that you have expressed an interest in based on your browsing
history, what you are searching for and the connections youve
made on social sites.
Amp it Up!
46
POWER YOUR STORY:
Use your content to get potential customers thinking about
your brand as a resource of valuable information. Youll build
a relationship with them before the end of the buying cycle so
youll be front of mind when theyre ready to make a purchase.
acquire more customers:
In native advertising, your stories appear as suggested content
in the sections of online news sites that your potential customers
are reading most and your social posts appear when people are
searching keywords or when their friends are already engaged
with your brand.
Drive readers directly to your newsroom, blog, website or
stories written about your brand. Engage with new audiences
who are interested in your branded content. Your best content
will be showcased more frequently to readers, helping drive
high-quality engagement.
target the right people:
build high-quality traffc:
2.
3.
4.
Given the reality of how consumers today derive their
news and information, i.e., from a large, splintered
and ephemeral media ecosystem, communications
professionals must look beyond the editorial
placement for building a positive, branded digital
media footprint for their clients. This includes owned
and (God forbid) paid media schemes, as well as
hybrids of the two, which include native advertising/
sponsored content and contributed (by-lined) articles
and op-eds.

4 benefts to amplifcation
Amplification allows you to promote your content on channels
where your audience is already engaged. Here are the benefits
to paid amplification:
Once youve created your story, you need to share it. Promote
your article using paid amplification to publisher news websites
and social sites to find your audiences where they hang out.
grow your audience:
1.
Amp it Up!
47
POWER YOUR STORY:
In this article from Time.com, the stories that are appearing as You
Might Also Like, From Around the Web and Recommend for
You are all paid amplifications of earned or owned media stories,
placed on an article. An algorithm looks at the readers history,
what articles they are reading and what people who are similar to
them have clicked on in the past to determine which paid stories to
place on the article they are reading.
examples of amplifed content
You may be asking how this actually looks put into practice. Here
are a few examples of amplified content in action:
Amp it Up!
48
POWER YOUR STORY:
When Heidi Sullivan logged into Facebook in the screenshot above,
the top post was related to her friends William and Catherine liking
Fab.com, accompanied by a fun video from Fab.com. You can
see the small sponsored tag to the bottom right of the video,
indicating that Fab.com paid to have this placement appear in a
prominent place in Heidis news feed.
Amp it Up!
49
POWER YOUR STORY:
In this screenshot of Twitter, when you search remove grass stains
the top tweet you find is from Wisk Deep Clean, including a coupon,
to help you get your shirt clean.
This YouTube search for Superman includes top videos like What
if Superman Punched You and the official trailer for the movie from
Warner Brothers, but, at the top, includes two native ads from Gillete
(Man Of Steel Shaving He Can Do It All) and LEGO (LEGO Man
of Steel). Whats great about these two native ads is that they are
entertaining and compelling content that raise awareness of both
brands, while still providing interesting and relevant content.
Amp it Up!
50
POWER YOUR STORY:
This article on crowdfunding from Forbes is actually part of a
branded content series from FedEx called FedEx Voice and
articles are all about small business. FedEx gains visibility with Forbes
audience while still providing valuable content.
Amp it Up!
51
POWER YOUR STORY:
a/b testing
As you can see from the previous examples, there are myriad ways
to amplify your content. But what works best for you? Sometimes
its hard to know until you try.
Digital marketers have been using A/B testing for years. Essentially,
it just involves trying similar things in two different ways to see which
one is more effective. For example:
Remember the converged media chart from Altimeter group
in the Cision Blog case study? This testing is all part of Real-
Time Measurement & Iteration. If we are constantly looking to
determine which content is the most effective with our target
audience, our native advertising will be even more fruitful.
Getting started in social amplification doesnt have to use your
whole budget. You can start out by taking a popular Facebook
post and promoting it for $50 over a week. Of course, the
more money you spend, the greater return you will see in your
investment, but its a good way to see whats working as you
get started.
So dont be nervous create your strategy, build your content and
start amplifying!
Amplify a story on publisher sites using one headline, then try
another, and see which one generates more clicks
Write a piece of branded content for a news website and
then promote a few Facebook posts from your brand page to
discover which gives you a better return on your investment
Promote a tweet using one search term or hashtag, then try
the other
Amp it Up!
ANALYZING
&
MEASURING
YOUR
CONTENT
MARKETING
EFFORTS
53
POWER YOUR STORY:
creating goals
In order to understand how you can start measuring this success
lets start by looking at the definition of content marketing, as
defined by the Content Marketing Institute.
A marketing technique of creating and distributing relevant
and valuable content to attract, acquire, and engage a clearly
defined and understood target audience with the objective of
driving profitable customer action.
Based on this definition your content has four separate ways to
interact with your audience:
In order to understand these four interactions you will need to
create goals for each. When creating goals you will want to
follow some specific steps such as the SMART methodology.
SMART is an acronym that stands for Specific, Measurable,
Acheivable, Relevant and Time-Bound. By following this
process for creating goals, your goals will remain accurate
while balancing expectations and workload.
2.
3.
4.
Attracting current and new members
Acquiring the audiences information and attention
Engaging with your audiences questions or comments
Driving their profitable actions through your sales force or website
1.
analyzing & measuring your
content marketing efforts
Now that you have published and amplified your content across
owned, earned and paid media channels, you may feel that your
job is complete; however, it is just the beginning. For example,
if you purchased a bottle of weight loss pills that promised you
would lose 20 pounds in 2 weeks, you wouldnt assume two
weeks later that you lost the weight after taking them. You would
hop on the scale before you took the pills and then two weeks
later to make sure the product fulfilled its promise. This same
mentality needs to be applied to any of your marketing efforts;
you must first establish a benchmark of your current progress and
then measure at predetermined intervals as you continue on your
marketing efforts to gauge their success.
54
POWER YOUR STORY:
Specific:
You will want to ensure that goals are clearly defined so you
will know what to measure. For example, if your goal was to
increase your brands awareness this would be WAY too general
to accurately measure. However, if your goal was to increase
your brands websites awareness across Facebook, Twitter and
Linkedin; you now have a specific product and channels that you
would need to focus on.
Measureable:
If you were asked what is the temperature outside? in the United
States you would probably respond back that its 75 degrees
Fahrenheit but if you were in Europe you may respond back that its
about 24 degrees Celsius. In order to make goals measurable you
will need to determine what metrics you will want to track before
embarking on any marketing efforts. This way you know what you
will want to keep an eye on and will ensure uniform results. For
the goal of increasing your websites awareness across Twitter,
Facebook and LinkedIn, you would want to measure the referral
traffic coming from those specific channels on your website.
Achievable:
For your goals to be achievable they must be realistic but
attainable. This means they must not be too easy that it will
take minimum effort but not too lofty where you will never reach
them. To ensure your goals are attainable look at your resources,
budget, talent and previous benchmarks to determine what can
be accomplished. For the goal you would aim to double your
websites referral traffic from Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn in
order to show an increase in your brands awareness. (?)
Relevant:
Making sure your goals are relevant ensures they are in line with
your overall business objectives. If you are a B2B business that
sells paper, it would be disingenuous for your overall goals to just
create posts on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn accounts about
celebrity gossip. While this may increase the overall growth of your
accounts, it will not be the client base that is necessarily making
the buying decisions on your industry products.
Time-Bound:
All goals should have a time frame associated with them so you
are held accountable while still showing progression of your goal.
For the example you would aim to double your websites referral
traffic from Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn by the end of the year
in order to show an increase in your brands awareness. (?)
55
POWER YOUR STORY:
As you can see from the above example, by following the
methodology you are able to go from a very general goal to
something that can be accurately and easily followed to completion.
what is the value of a
page view?
As you continue to produce content for your marketing efforts,
you should notice an increase of traffic to your websites, landing
pages or newsrooms (if not, you should reexamine your goals and
content.) While having an increase in traffic is always a good sign,
(unless youre a publisher) so you will need to examine the value
each page view provides.
To start tackling this issue you must start at the end of your sales
process or end goals. You can start to understand the value
of your content by looking at its ability to direct visitors to a
specific action that leads to buying decisions. These buying
decisions can easily be tracked when a user clicks on the call
to action button when they visit your website. These actions
range from hard ROI metrics such as the Check Out buttons you
will see across many e-commerce sites, to sign ups for demo
options you will see across B2B sites, and finally to soft metrics
that include subscribing to your content via an RSS feed or a
social network. Its nice and easy determining how many call
to actions were taken on your website by defining these actions
as a goal, using site analytics tools such as Google Analytics,
Omniture or Webtrends. These tools will automatically total how
many users clicked on those specific actions and can even
show you how users came to click on that option. By clearly
identifying these actions and understanding how much revenue
is associated with each action you can begin the process of
understanding the value of a page view.
Once you have decided on your goals for your website the next
step would be to determine how many individuals clicked on
those goals and where those clicks came from. For example, if
you generated $100 in revenue by 10 clicks on your websites call
to action over the past 30 days, you can deduce that each click
is worth $10 . Once you have determined the amount generated
page views dont pay the bills
56
POWER YOUR STORY:
for each click you must determine where those clicks came from
using the referral traffic. Referral traffic is an online metric that
allows you to understand where your visitors came from when
they arrive on a particular page or select a particular action.
Using your site analytics you can segment out the referral
traffic so you could see where the 10 clicks came from in the
above example and what pages were viewed. Using your site
analytics you can see that four of those clicks came from direct
traffic, three came from twitter and the remaining three came
from your companys blog. Now by looking at this referral
traffic you can see that $40 came from your actions on Twitter
and $30 came from your company blog.
This is a basic example and tracking the path of a visitor may
be difficult and complex in reality, but this example can get you
thinking about ways that you can start tangibly tracking your
content marketing efforts through to conversion or action.
Understanding the path visitors take on your website on the
way to a purchase is essential for any marketers content effort
in order to understand which content has done the best and
which content still needs work.
What are the proftable
actions on your website for
Lead Generation?
As Jay Baer pointed out,
because no one data point can successfully or satisfactorily tell
you whether your program is working. Instead, you need to create
an array of metrics that are selected from four primary buckets.
content cannot be measured with a single metric
57
POWER YOUR STORY:
Moz breaks these metrics down into four separate buckets.
How many times was your content shared across a social
network? This is the next step in understanding the value of
a page view since social shares will demonstrate the benefit
your content provides. If your content is being shared that
means someone finds it valuable enough to share it with their
own social networks. (ex. Tweets/Re-tweets, Facebook Likes/
shares, Pins, etc.)
How many eyeballs page did your content receive? This is the
most basic metric to start measuring your content marketing
efforts, since your content will not be successful if no one is
looking at it. Typically, most marketers are already looking at
these impressions but they cant stop there. (ex. Page views, new
visitors, unique visitors)
how many visitors are signing up to learn more about your
products or services? With these metrics you are able to start
pulling your page views into your sales funnel as inbound
leads. Agencies and brands can track this by including a
referral link within their Cision Social Newsroom in order to see
how many leads come from their content! (Webinar leads,
product trials, email subscribers, etc.)
share metrics:
consumption metrics:
lead generation metrics:
2.
1.
3.
58
POWER YOUR STORY:
How many of those content marketing leads convert into sales?
Each lead your content provides is only valuable if it closes. So
look at not only which content provided the most leads but
which content provided the most converted leads! Following
these steps you can provide a hard ROI on all of your efforts.
As you may have noticed, these metrics line up with the Content
Marketing Institutes definition of content marketing and can be
used to measure your results.
sales metrics: 4.
bringing it all together
The most important factor in measuring the success of your
content marketing campaigns is having measurable goals.. But
dont forget this is a process that you will have to test over
time, so if you dont triple your followers or generate millions in
sales overnight, dont be frustrated. Test, measure and try again,
until you find the content creation and amplification process
that is most effective for your brand.
in summary
PR and marketing are evolving rapidly, and creating and
amplifying content is at the center of the evolution. You dont
want to be left behind, assuming that content marketing is simply
a nice-to-have; it is an imperative for the future of our industry.
As PR professionals and marketers, we own our brands stories.
Now we have more tools to share those stories with the world.
For more resources, information and tools, visit http://us.cision.
com/content-marketing.

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