Think your content sucks? 3 ways you might be failing

It's a bloodbath out there

Last Sunday I gave in. Gave in to the endless repetition of “Dad, can I play on the iPad?” We’d spent some precious family time together (honest), so I left my kids happily playing something I’d convinced myself was vaguely educational.  Twenty minutes later I popped in to make some tea and found them watching a half-hour long video of someone old enough to know better unwrapping 101 kinder eggs one after another. 

So much for education. 

I can’t be the only one; this video alone has had over 420 million views. There’ll be another 300 hours of this stuff on YouTube by the time you’ve finished reading this post (thank you). 

Society doesn’t need any more content. We should just stop. Call it a day and revel in the amazing stuff that’s already out there. Whether you think that’s The Smiths, ‘Charlie bit my finger – again!’ or ‘29 secrets no one ever tells you about Birmingham’ (thanks Buzzfeed).

In this context it seems amazing that a brand would choose to enter the fray. To quote one of my colleagues “It’s a bloodbath out there”. Yet apparently 77% of companies are planning on increasing content marketing budgets (Econsultancy). Nearly every brand’s pushing hard to make themselves part of your feeds, through an increasing number of disparate, and often uncoordinated, channels. 

As our audiences consume content in different ways we’ve been faced with a plethora of new places to engage. YouTube and Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram. We advertise in them but people don’t really want to be advertised to in them. So we create content, and people start listening again, because we’re creating something of value, finally. 

The problem is, as content becomes more and more ubiquitous, it’s harder to cut through, and as a result it’s becoming less effective.

Three ways we’re failing

If you’re a marketer in a large corporation today you may be asking yourself what difference all the content is actually making to your brand. You may be asking yourself why the total is less than the sum of the parts. This might be because of three relatively common things:

You redefine your content strategy with every campaign 

This is might be because content is sold to you by every agency on your roster, as an answer to every brief, perhaps as a way of ‘targeting Millenials more effectively’. Sound familiar?

Each channel works in isolation 

Possibly because you have brand, marketing and social teams who, maybe they sit next to each other but they probably don’t talk to each other as much as they could.

You’re not consistent or memorable

McDonalds and Coke are two brands that fall into this trap. Yes you produce some hugely polished content, but I bet most people would be hard pushed to remember what type of content you produce. This is important, because if you want people to come back to your content again and again, rather than having to pay for it to be pushed into their feed they need to know what to expect.  

Earlier this year Econsultancy blogged “10 delicious digital marketing campaigns from McDonald's”; looking through them you’d be hard pushed to see the connecting tissue.  

Brands are broadcasters now

To cut through brands need something the best broadcasters and publishers have had for years, an editorial policy. 

Dove’s ‘Campaign for real beauty’ is perhaps the finest example of this. It’s been the backbone of their content since 2004. It means I know exactly what they stand for, and what to expect if I go to YouTube, Instagram, or Snapchat. This is invaluable in today’s content saturated world.

Perhaps a lesser-known example is GE. Their Editor-in-Chief Tomas Kellner talks about building a ‘culture of content’. This has enabled them to both empower and coordinate teams across GE to produce content, at scale, across everything from live-streaming platforms to old-school email. 

The seeds of this culture of content come from a shared understanding of what a good story looks like. Defining an editorial policy is undoubtedly a good place to start. When you’re thinking about your policy consider these elements:

Be known

Start by defining what you want to be known for. Understand what makes people passionate about you. Invest over the long term to produce content that exemplifies this in spades. 

Be seen  

Support what you want to be known for by creating content that enables you to be seen in more places, more frequently. Crucially, this also needs to be based on what you want to be known for. Not based on something someone else is doing in Snapchat.

Be found

Finally, consider what you should produce to help your audience understand you better. Analytics and research should help you get under the skin of what people are looking for. Make it as easy as possible for people to research.

Finally, consider whether what you’ll be creating is a perspective only you can bring.

Kinder, if you’re reading this, if the answer to any of these involves creating videos of people unwrapping your product, that (toy) horse has well and truly bolted…

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