we’ve gotten valuable insights into our customers that we didn’t get before. The thing we have learned most is that everyone on board has really got involved in social media and that’s what’s made this campaign so successful.” When a social media campaign hits the headlines, it’s great publicity for the company or brand behind it. Social media campaigns can be planned very effectively and are notoriously good value for money. The challenge The danger, of course, is that if you’re not careful, your social media campaign can turn into a brand management nightmare. And some brands have learned this the hard way. In the 2011 Olympics, Cadbury learned this the hard way. The company’s £11 million social media campaign was widely criticised by consumers, prompting Cadbury to cancel the controversial “Dairy Milk is gold medal winning” campaign. But, as part of its overall “Move over Coca-Cola”, Coca-Cola continues to deliver on its 2012 Olympic strategy to take its consumer message to a global audience. The lesson Social media can be tricky to get right and, as they say, nothing in this world is certain except for death and taxes. But by leveraging analytics and research, you can produce amazing social media campaigns. What’s your campaign doing for you? Are you seeing the results you need? Have you engaged your audience and won them over to your brand? What’s the plan for the future? Whatever it is you’re selling, from pens to clothes and from cars to trainers, a content marketing strategy can help drive success. It’s not just about content that will help generate leads and sales online, though. Content marketing helps to tell your story – whether it’s about how your product was created, where it was made or who it is for. It’s crucial to get the message right. If you’re stuck for inspiration, read more below about content marketing trends and how other successful brands are taking their content to new heights. Content marketing has come a long way in the past few years and is a big part of any thriving business. It has transformed brands from the likes of Coca-Cola, Ford, and Nike and others into an essential part of their marketing plan. Content marketing is the concept that a brand must deliver content, whether that’s a series of blogs, infographics, case studies, or any other content that has the chance to enhance the brand’s reputation. Content marketing is more than simply publishing and distributing information on the web. It’s also about delivering information in a way that’s appealing to the people who are interested in what you have to say. Brands that understand the need to provide great content are finding their business flourishing and growing rapidly. So what do you need to start putting together a great content marketing strategy? What kinds of content can help your brand out? You don’t need to be a business to use content marketing, either. Small and large businesses alike use content marketing tactics to grow their businesses. It’s essential to reach out and talk to your audience and, as content marketing grows, more and more businesses are finding that content marketing is the key to that interaction. Content marketing works for a number of reasons, including the fact that many people spend a lot of time on the web browsing social media, searching for news stories, and reading blog posts. Content is a way of drawing attention to your business and what you have to offer. A key part of this is to provide useful content that people find interesting and helps them to solve a problem. You also need to make sure that all your information and ideas are backed up with solid and logical research. If you’re producing too much content, it can be hard to see whether or not it is even really valuable for your customers. Research shows that businesses which use content marketing strategies will actually improve sales. Top tips for creating content Here are some top tips for your content marketing plan: Know your audience: Who are your customers? What age group do they fall into? Do you have the same target market in multiple countries? Knowing your audience is crucial, as this helps you determine what you should be offering. You want to be appealing to your audience, not irrelevant and useless. Know what interests your customers and what they need: This will also help you to know the best subject matter to use in your content marketing plan. Does your audience find the process of creating sports shoes interesting? What about the history of a particular model of car? It’s all about reaching out to your audience in the most natural way possible. What can you add? What’s special about your company and why should people buy your products? Let your audience know what makes your business unique and why they should choose you over another option. Know your competition: Check out your competitors and the content they are posting on the web. Analyse what you can learn from them and how they are reaching out to their audiences. Maybe there’s a specific subject area where you can stand out from the crowd, or there’s a particular aspect of your business that you can bring to the attention of your audience that they won’t have seen elsewhere. Make sure your content is engaging: It should be easy to read, digest, and understand. You should avoid too much jargon or long explanations in the middle of your blog posts. They should also be well written, if possible. Even if it’s your first attempt at content marketing, make sure it’s well written and the information stands up to scrutiny. Make sure you’re updating it: Don’t just publish one blog post or video or image. It’s all about the constant stream of updates. Be sure that, when you’ve posted something new, you’re giving people some kind of link to the new post. Keep people informed with regular, relevant updates. Be mindful of your budget and resources: It’s a very good idea to think about what you can do within your budget. Content marketing is a much broader idea than simple advertising, so keep in mind that creating good content takes time and time and time and time. Find out what your target market wants to know about and how you can provide that information to them in a way that makes sense. The content you put out there needs to be fresh, interesting, and relevant. It should have a hook that will draw people into reading it and make sure you have a clear call to action. Make sure you’re delivering interesting and useful content in a manner that will get people talking about your brand, and let them know about your products or services. There are plenty of online content marketing courses for both businesses and individuals to use. Here are just a few: This is a brilliant course from HubSpot, which provides lots of great information on content marketing. It runs you through the process of developing an effective content marketing strategy and gives practical advice on creating a blog for your website. Do you have a business blog? Does your business have a content strategy that you’re happy with? You might want to consider creating an infographic for your blog and using it as a way to promote your business. This course is a great example of how to do this using social media as a key tool. Content marketing offers the opportunity to do a lot more with your marketing. Let the people who follow you know what you have to say about your products and services. If your content marketing is working well, you will have success with your business. A lot of brands, big and small, have been focusing more attention on content marketing in recent times. And some of those brands are seeing great results. We recently noticed a trend at one of our favourite brands, Sapien. It’s the same brand that just won an award for its content. This article is one in a series of weekly content marketing trends. Sapien’s Content Marketing Team is a group of writers, illustrators, researchers and graphic artists who work in close collaboration to create engaging content for their customers. As part of a broader content strategy, their content marketing team is focused on creating meaningful and interactive content that has an underlying commercial angle to it. “Since the launch of our content marketing strategy we have seen significant rises in social media and social conversation, in the number of inbound leads and calls from our website.” When did you start using content marketing and how did you develop this as part of your strategy? “We have been utilising an SEO strategy to drive visibility through content for the last six years. But over the last 18 months we have been refining and developing the content marketing strategy in line with wider corporate strategy. We have been working closely with our marketing partners to develop a content strategy that works effectively across social media and traditional media channels. This content strategy forms the basis of our social engagement strategy, whereby content we create will be fully optimised for different platforms and devices and social engagement, such as Facebook and YouTube.” What kinds of results have you been able to achieve through your content marketing campaign? “In terms of engagement and interaction our content has been popular and effective. We have seen great results in terms of social shares and interaction through all mediums, from blogs and case studies to digital magazines and videos. We’ve achieved significant rises in social media, website traffic, inbound leads and calls from our website. All of this is having a positive impact on sales, and our conversion rates have increased significantly. We’re seeing good increases in both sales and call volumes from previous years.”