Content…how do we create it? Did you know that the best-in-class marketers do not come up with 100% original content all on their own? In a Curata study, the content mix is apparently “65% created, 25% curated and 10% syndicated” (H. Cohen, 2014).

What is curated content? Why is popular and what makes it successful? Heidi Cohen in her article advocates that curated content brings in an extra personal perspective to an already existing piece of content, which makes it fresh. It can be highly successful if distributed properly – since it is a value-added piece, you already have a wider reach of audience, it just depends on you to deliver it to the appropriate audiences! A tip given in the article is to follow the Derek Halpern 80-20 rule, where you spend 80% distributing the content properly and 20% creating it.

Some useful advice about how to create top-tier content are outlined in the Forbes article: 10 Lessons from the 10 Most Influential Content Marketing Brands. I personally find the following ones resonate most with what has been talked about in class:

1. Know your audience and listen up!

You have to know who you are talking to, what they like, need and want. Once you have that information, you will be able to go out and target them. For example, you can find the top influencers in that category, whether through looking at their klout score, # of followers/following etc. From them, you can understand your customers even more, and through them you can leverage their power in the community to advocate for you!

2.  Engage authentically!

Audiences like to be listened to, and they like to be responded to – it is a two-way communication street. Show them that you care!

3.  Know yourself.

In order to deliver something valuable to your audiences, to help them solve their problems, you have to know what you can do – that means understanding your competitive advantages, strengths and even weaknesses, inside out!

4.  Measure!

You need to analyze what works and what doesn’t in order to see if it was successful or not. Measurements not only gives you evidence you need for your boss to see, but it gives you the data to know what needs to be improved.

Lastly, some tools to help you along finding content for curating, take a look at this extensive list proposed on the Content Marketing Forum.

Is Forrester’s Marketing RaDaR on your radar? Understanding the consumer life cycle or decision journey is crucial for marketers because at different stages of this journey, different strategies will be targeted. Forrester developed a new model called RaDaR (an acronym for “Reach and Depth and Relationship” channels) which I think is extremely easy to understand and a valuable resource! For a more in-depth understanding, read the article by Nate Elliot here.

According to them, the customer journey is split into 4 parts:

1. Discovery of a product,
2. Exploration of the product,
3. Buying of the product and lastly,
4. Engaging with the company and community connected to the product

Forrester then approaches this cycle by applying a more general marketing channel which parallels different parts of the cycle, which is in the name itself, Reach and Depth and Relationship channels. So what does each of those channels represent?

First, you have to have REACH channels to “get your product into [consumer’s] consideration set” (Forrester, 2013). This part parallels to #1 in the customer journey, discovery. Meaning that you use channels such as word-of-mouth, in-store displays, TV commercials to get their attention and know your existence!

Next, you have to give them DEPTH about your product and how you can give them a solution, which corresponds to #2 and #3, the exploration and buying stage of the cycle. This is where you physical store, or your website comes is essential – it is the stage where you show off your skills as a sales! What value do you bring them?

Lastly, you have RELATIONSHIP channels, which of course parallels #4, engage, in the consumer life cycle. After they become your customers, you want to remain active in your interaction with your customers, for example, they may become your fans and advocate your brand, then that is earned exposure and then the cycle starts again. This channel includes the use of your social media platforms (ex. Facebook, Twitter), your loyalty programs or mailing lists.

RaDaR is intimately tied to the idea of how you would develop your social media strategy. A Social Media manager for a fast-food chain presented to us a similar skeletal concept for online strategies, which is Attract, Engage, Influence. Sound familiar? You need to reach out to customers to ATTRACT them in, after you have their attention, you ENGAGE with them to let them have more depth about your product and what you can bring them, then you INFLUENCE them by making a purchase and can continue influencing them once you have a relationship with them.

Sounds easy enough right? Remember to keep these key cycles and channels on your radar!

I have stressed over and over again the importance of having quality content, so naturally, the next topic should be about content marketing!

Content marketing is more than just posting quality content, it requires precise planning (through the use of tools such as content calendars). It is a strategy for the long-term – to make sure that what you want to say is conveyed in consistent messages. It is a strategy to “attract, convert and retain customers” according to Joe Pulizzi in his article called 3 Components of a Content Marketing Editorial Calendar that Works. At the end, you want this content to add value to your company and drive profit. In a Forbes article, Joshua Steimle advocates that the return on investment is extremely high – using his own company as an example, he says that with the use of content marketing, his company grew more than 1000%. He attributes the success to the fact that before salespeople needs to go out and make a sale, clients are already flooding in because they have been exposed to the value that the company can provide to them.

There are various ways to create content marketing. A few on the list may be blogs, videos, webpages, and infographics (as mentioned by Joshua Steimle), however, I want to dig in deeper about visual content, infographics in particular. We all know that it is usually easier to capture someone’s attention if a photo or video clip accompanies the post.

So what’s the big deal about why visual content is more appealing? Why are inforgraphics gaining so much popularity? Well, for one, “90% of information transmitted to brain is VISUAL” and “80% of people remember what they SEE and DO” as opposed to only “20% of people remember what they READ”. 67% of people are more easily convinced of what is presented if visuals are provided. Users of inforgraphics “grow traffic 12% faster” than those who don’t. Infographics are great. If that wasn’t compelling enough, try reading through this “The Power of Visual Content” infographic that provided me the information listed in this part. Be honest, didn’t you retain more facts from reading that than this plain text?

See, aren’t infographics awesome? Try to incorporate it into your content strategy!

With each change of the Facebook algorithm, the average organic reach plummets even more. According to social@Ogilvy, this average will reach close to zero by the end of the year. Keeping that in mind, here are some tips for Facebook users and companies alike to combat the algorithm and hopefully up the engagement in your online social marketing strategy!

1. Content, content, content!

I cannot stress how important it is to have quality over quantity. Great content will be noticed, and when it is, it will naturally lead to more engagement and shares from your fans, or as Aaron Schwartz from Modify Watches in an article on Mashable says, “the best content will always rise to the top”. Another great way to think about the significance of content is laid out by Jay Baer from an article on Inc., “People are on the internet for one of two reasons…, either to solve a problem or to be entertained”. So make sure your post is either a solution or at least can elicit a laugh or spark some kind of interest!

2. Use of smart tools to plan your posts

There are many useful tools on the internet (some of which are even free!) that everyone should use. They can help find the optimal time for posts to be published (such as Hootsuite or Buffer) or even help you plan out what to post by discovering which content is most popular (such as TrendSpottr or BuzzSumo).

3. A/B Tests

Like good old science experiments, testing out your posts to see which one gets more responses and interaction among your fans will help you improve your posts. Many companies fail to execute A/B tests, and post content without analyzing historical results, however, as mentioned in our eMarketing class, sometimes the smallest adjustments to a simple post, such as the addition of “–>” will increase the amount of eyeballs and clicks!

4. Facebook Ads

Paid media does exist for a reason, and although many companies may think that it is a waste of money, but spending a little effort (money-wise) may bring surprising effects. It will help reach more audience with greater accuracy as said by an article called Facebook Organic Reach: 5 Facts for Businesses or if you are a more visual person, this video from Digital Marketer does a great job summarizing the usefulness of boosting posts!

From a company’s perspective, we know that staying relevant is important – you don’t want to be posting articles about eating healthy and staying fit when your company is selling donuts, or other high-calorie food. Moreover, when it is a sensitive day or topic, such as 9/11, the best strategy may be to remain silent – learn from this AT&T example from 2013 for what not to do.

Now, Facebook has been making progressive updates to its algorithm that aims to make sure the News Feed is as customized as can be to each individual’s interests, a “how relevant is your post within a certain time-frame” metric is taken into account. In other words, if you are planning to post something about the latest NHL games or the hottest headlines, make sure it is done in a timely manner, or risk Facebook bumping you down if it considers that post to be time-sensitive. Just as how Facebook is making it easier for people to make purchases online with the “Buy” button, they have also made it much easier for users to “Unfollow” your company if they don’t want to see your posts at all. It is becoming more and more important for companies to keep their customers happy and engaged rather than just treating their Facebook posts as another avenue for sales. A social media manager of a large Canadian fast-food chain gave a useful tip during his presentation to our class. He said a good ratio is 9:1 – for every promotional sales post, companies should ensure to have 9 non-promotional sales posts.

I personally don’t mind seeing promotional posts on my News Feed, because I am able to ignore it and continue on with my entertainment without being frustrated, and I believe many other Facebook users are similar to me. This is extremely detrimental to companies because for users like me, after falling into the habit of just ignoring a particular company’s posts, I will not even stop and consume posts, even if they are not promotion related. Unconsciously they are already on the “black-list”. Facebook will also be able to tell with its algorithm that I do not engage with promotional posts, therefore, that company’s posts will probably cease to exist on my News Feed.

Before I end off, here is a little peak at how you could be more successful with your posting strategies – put together very simply and clearly in this presentation called “Right Conversation, Right Time“. Stay tuned to my last post in this series about how to combat the Facebook algorithm!

Facebook algorithm!

Social media users are bombarded by excessive media messages every day – in a study by the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) showed that on average, if users were to consume all the data delivered to them, it would take at least 15 hours! Facebook is one of the online platforms that people spend a significant amount of time each day swiping their thumbs through their newsfeed – consuming posts from friends, family, businesses and news alike. With so many possible combinations of messages to see, who dictates what shows up on a person’s newsfeed?

It’s no surprise that Facebook has a group of computer gurus that changes the algorithm, which made of thousands of metrics that decides what users would be most interested to see. Let’s take a look at how the consumption of news has changed. 30% of American adults receive their news through Facebook according to Pew Research Center. What is more interesting is that people no longer search for whole editions of the newspaper or magazine, they instead look for individual pieces. An interesting question that was posed in the article How Facebook is Changing the Way its Users Consumer Journalism is “Are you creating content for the way that content is consumed in this environment [digital world]?”

Is your content appropriate for the environment?

Businesses have realized that moving online means that different types of customization needs to occur when taking their game online. Using the journalism example again, people may be reading on their mobile phone, or on their iPad, and the experience on each device is altered. News publications used to have stories that were not particularly interesting but because a “filler” was needed, these stories were included. However, this will not happen online, because it will detriment the company’s exposure on Facebook. This is due to the metric of “higher-quality content” that has been added to the Facebook algorithm. According to the article, viral sites such as Upworthy and Elite Daily were impacted negatively when this new algorithm first came out.

It is essential for businesses to understand the metrics that they are being rated on when posting through Facebook, and as mentioned in class, just having ONE post that a viewer might pin as “unfollow” will harm future posts’ reach. Stay tuned to my next article regarding more Facebook tips!

Most businesses are in the internet marketing game, however, whether or not they are executing it right is a different matter. We know that in the technology savvy world today, keeping up with the new trends in technology, platforms and satisfying the ever-growing customer expectation is beginning to be more and more difficult to achieve. From lectures, we know the importance of having the 7Cs such as community, content, context, connection etc. is essential to building a strong foundation for a company’s website. But besides these basic elements, what else contributes the success of internet marketing for businesses?

Content Marketing!

In the article which talks about Content Marketing, it tells as that statistically, marketers that are successful with their content campaigns spend twice as much than unsuccessful ones – around 39% vs. 16%. This is a cautionary sign for marketers – don’t be afraid to spend more budget! While spending money is important, where should companies focus their efforts for content marketing? Not surprisingly, the article suggest social media. “85% of companies use social media as their number one tactic” with effective companies using an average of 7 social media platforms to share their content. As in class, we looked at the significance of using social media as a place to connect and build community with customers. “Conversation” was the big take-away, because although it is something that should be pretty much common sense, we take it for granted and undervalue its weight.

Sephora Beauty Insider

In 5 Top Tips for Content Marketing Success, it reiterates and builds on how to successfully build good content marketing, which is also applicable to creating a good social media community with customers. My favourite two is: Bring the Customers Inside and Get Emotional. Similar to the first part of class, where we talked about “Paid, Owned and Earned media”, there is a slight shift toward earned media through the use of user-generated content (UCG), and this is exactly what bringing the customers in talks about. An example of this that always comes to my mind when I think about UCG is the Sephora Beauty Insider Program. Getting emotional refers to not being afraid to elicit feelings from your customers, and although each person may have different reactions, what’s important is that you are “exciting the right people, then it’s ok to let some people go”.

Keeping in mind these additional building blocks for internet marketing will ensure that companies are on the right path with their online strategy.

In the past few years at Sauder, the word “customization” was constantly drilled into our minds, and this year is no different. In our eMarketing class, we were exposed to the extent that customization through social media platforms has evolved. Long gone are they days when you have mass automated “customized” messages which thanked customers for their business, people in these days expect to see human to human interactive messages, if you are going to send them a message at all. Marketers really need to keep an eye on what they are trying to achieve through the use of social media platforms. To companies, these platforms should not just be a business channel, but be a two-way interaction arena. It should give content, but also share related news and trends. Engagement with customers is also a must – whether this is through response to comments, or “retweets”. This will ensure that customers do not feel alienated or feel that they are simply another hay in the stack. Of course, the semi-customized, automated messages, such as the ones that is possible through Hootsuite is satisfactory every now and then, but don’t fall into the trap of over-using it, because it can be painfully obvious to your listeners that you are not putting enough effort in this relationship.

A conversation is a TWO-way street

However, customization has taken on a whole new level in paid advertising, such as what “Kiip Rewarded Video” offers. Online games will award players for completing specific levels, and the software even knows when the optimal time to show the advertisement is. An example given from the article is a Trident chewing gum will be the reward if the video is related to garlic.  Not only are there crafted messages that can occur through social media platforms, but potentially, the new age of customization can allow tailored advertisements and corresponding rewards to be possible.

What is important to keep in mind is that companies know what their customers want and link it to relevant trends. An article in the Globe and Mail called “How to know what your customers want before they do” conveys this concept really well. Customization is about understanding the customers and what they need and giving it to them. If companies are able to anticipate the needs, then they will be ahead of the game. A fitting quote from this article that is also highly related to the eMarketing course is: “Real-time marketing isn’t a one-size-fits-all-proposition”.

One-size-DOES-NOT-fit all

How will you up your customization game?

Tailor to your audience and customers – don’t be generic!

Talk about customized shopping without any actual human interaction. This is what the world is coming to. Before online marketing and applications that knows your personal preferences – from clothes to food and groceries – consumers relied on sales signs and sales people to personally pitch to us the promotions and what products suited our needs.

After that, we had stores that tried to integrate a fun, interactive shopping experience to combat the trends towards online shopping. An example of this is what Burberry did for its flagship store in London. It brought in huge screens, speakers and everything digital that knocks your senses out which wow-ed consumers and the luxury apparel industry.

Now, fast-forward to the present day, we have RFID and beacons.  Moreover, just a few weeks ago, Apple launched the Apple Pay platform. Although the Apple Pay system isn’t widely adopted yet, it has huge potential. From first-hand experience, Apple Pay really makes the transaction faster and easier. Just last week, I went to go buy something from the Apple store, and one of the Apple experts taught me how to use the platform in less than 5 minutes, and now in the future, all I need is my phone to make a transaction, which can be finished at the touch of my finger. Not only is the process fast, but it can potentially decrease the need for sales people because the specifications and item details are also all available on the smartphone.

RFID technology

Beacon technology

Now imagine this in-store shopping experience:  From the moment you walk in, your smartphone gives notification about discounts, sales, what is trending and which celebrity is wearing what. Lastly, the completion process is as simple as clicking a button on your phone. This is what MobileROI is hoping to accomplish. To see more regarding this, please visit: For Mobile Marketer MobileROI, Apply Pay is the Missing Link.  In addition to the consumer perspective that I was describing above, the MobileROI platform also has the marketers and business owners in mind.

from Venture Beat Article

They also provide the ability to segment, personalize, predict and most importantly, measure through the use of their platform. Similar to what was talked about in class regarding digital marketing ROI, without measurement (traffic origin, campaign performance, KPIs etc.), it is hard to quantify the success of each objective.

I am eager to see the adoption of these new technology savvy shopping tools. As a consumer that loves my in-store shopping experiences, I am excited to see how businesses will integrate these platforms without losing the satisfaction which is brought through the human interaction.

Eager to see what will happen in the future!

Which way would you choose?

The Xetum Watch

Going digital is undoubtedly part of all companies right now. Most retail companies have a social media platform, such as Twitter and Facebook, or a website in which has eCommerce capabilities in hand with their brick-and-mortar stores. However, there are also many brands that have decided to go with the online-only route. While doing some research about brands like this, I came across an interesting one – Xetum. In a Forbes article called “The Online-only Watch Era“, the writer, Arial Adams, describes how this brand overcame the challenges in launching a completely new luxury watch brand that relies solely on the eCommerce platform. For me personally, deciding to buy a $1000 watch in-store is already a very difficult decision, let alone buying one that I have never touched or seen in person, online. However, Xetum was able to successfully launch its business and some of the strategies that the founder, Jeff Kuo, mentioned which helped his business succeed is directly tied to what was mentioned in class:

• “A buying experience that is as comfortable as possible” (A. Adams, 2012) – have websites and social media channels that is consumer-focused (photos with different views, exchange/returns)!

• “Conveying emotional appeal online” (A. Adams, 2012) – community and communication through social media platforms such as Pinterest and Facebook and constant maintenance of all the platforms!

However, while the digital trend is rainbow coloured and full of potential, what will happen to the traditional retail businesses? Many people has speculated that eCommerce will “drive traditional retail towards extinction“. But maybe not. In a recent article on Brandchannel, American Express Shares Brand’s Clicks to Bricks Stories with Online’s Day Off” advocates a “clicks to bricks movement”. Famous online-exclusive brands, such as Birchbox and Rent the Runway have made a decision to enter the physical retail game. Businesses have begun to realize that omnichannel approaches – bringing both an online and offline strategy into a business – will be the big winner in the future.

Interestingly, these online brands, who are moving towards incorporating an offline presence, are advertising this exclusive “Online’s Day Off” event online. That was a handful right? All I am trying to say is, this proves how important it is to have both elements in a business – they are complementary to each other, and not a substitution for each other. Balancing the right amount is the key!

Find the right balance!