Tag Archives: converged media

Leveraging Converged Media for Content Marketing

Posted on January 25, 2013 by | 4 Comments

It was not that long ago that marketing spent their advertising budget on telling consumers what they thought the consumer should know about a brand. Not what the consumer wanted to know.

However, in today’s consumer-driven world, brands’ audiences expect more. They want a seamless, consistent experience – it should be easy and organic to go from website to blog to wherever else on the web that the company is found.

Earlier this week, the Online Marketing Summit and PR Newswire presented a webinar titled “Leveraging Converged Media’s Impact on Content Marketing.”

At the heart of conversation between presenters Ardath Albee and Sarah Skerik was the importance of coordinating a consistent story across all media channels and creating quality, sustainable content that is straightforward.

In other words, it reinforced a common sense approach to marketing that is starting to evolve:  value and relevancy over static and boring.

“Content has to be awesome,” Skerik remarked during the presentation. And she’s right. It’s time to take a pledge to stop distributing bad press releases or “phoning in mundane blog posts” because they do very little to increase brand awareness.

Quality content has staying power and builds loyalty.  It shouldn’t just convert your target audience into a buyer, but also keep them coming back.  Other noteworthy points:

  • Consistent and creative storyline – Anyone can spout facts, tell a story.
  • Logo is less important – Tone, style, quality and relevance have more substance and tell a better story.
  • Channels are digital ambassadors for the brand and should be consistent, utilizing paid, owned and earned media.
  • Communications between brands and audiences is no longer a one way street – successful marketing today is conversational.
  • Creating valuable content will open up an exchange of information between audience and brand.
  • Content has to be awesome.

Consumers have more of a voice than ever before and they are using it.  Traditionally, when a consumer was unhappy with a product, they would just stop buying what was being sold and maybe tell their family or friends.  Now, when a consumer is unhappy they have multiple channels to vent their frustration.  This is also true when a consumer likes something.

Personally, when I find a product I like, I look to their website, like them on Facebook, follow on Twitter and more than likely will seek them out on Pinterest.  My goal is not to necessarily keep track of their every move but to show support and, let’s be honest, get the low down on coupons, sales or giveaways.

I will only do this if it is easy.  If I have to click too many times or have to hunt for a link, I will give up.  I am not going to work to find something that should be there already and both Ardath and Sarah echoed my thoughts as a consumer perfectly and offer wonderful insight on how to achieve this objective.

Quality over quantity is what will attract and keep new business and utilizing the many social media channels that are offered will only help to brand awareness.  It is important to remember that new social media sites are created daily and having the ability to adapt the message will only mean success over in the long run.

Finally, PR and marketing need to be on the same page.  It is a waste of time, effort and money if the two departments are not coordinating.

Did you happen to catch this presentation? If so, what was the biggest takeaway for you?

Of course, if you weren’t able to make it, you can listen to the archive of the webinar at the following link:  “Leveraging Converged Media’s Impact on Content Marketing”

To learn more about the topic of converged media, check out PR Newswire’s workshop, “Driving Qualified Audiences Into the Funnel Using Rich Media and Distribution Network” during the upcoming Online Marketing Summit. Click here to register and be sure to use promo code SMPRN1 to receive 30% off the registration rate.

Author Mary Johnson is the office manager in PR Newswire’s Cleveland office and is a member of our social media team, curating and tweeting technology news under the @PRNTech Twitter handle.

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Using Multiple Communications Channels to Increase Message Exposure

Posted on January 16, 2013 by | 1 Comment

Multichannel effectsIf there’s one thing I’ve learned during my long tenure with PR Newswire, it’s this: distribution matters.  However, the ways brands distribute messages has evolved.  It’s no longer an exercise in pushing a message for audiences to consume.   Content we “push” is now fine-tuned to audience interests in terms of subject, and we take care to build in links and multimedia to more fully explain, engage and inform.  We’re also relying heavily on the “pull” good content generates over time, as audience share content with their peers and social networks, and as the traffic and interest the content has generated morphs into a signal recognized by search engines.  Distribution is no longer one-way in nature.  It’s more like a traffic circle.

It’s important to keep all of this in mind as your finger is hovering over the button on your computer that will send, post, publish or share a piece of content, because if you’re relying on a single channel, you’re selling your message short.

Derived and aggregated content – the starting points

Distributing content across multiple channels can be simple or more complex, but there’s a common element – multi-channel distribution is based upon content that is either derived from the core message, or aggregated to support it.

Here’s an example. 

content mnrLast week, PR Newswire issued a blog post highlighting some of the top performing press releases for 2012.  However, we didn’t stop there.   Instead, we created several more pieces of content to illustrate and convey the message. Here are all of the assets – and channels – we used to promote this messaging.

Distribution is the special sauce:

We could have just stuck with the original blog post.  But by adding the video illustrating the top releases, including links to the releases within the post, deriving from that post the multimedia news release – and then distributing all of these elements via our press release and syndication networks, plus social channels –resulted in the message garnering almost 15 times the average number of views one of our blog posts usually generates.

Why does this approach work?

There are a host of reasons why the multi-channel approach to content publication and distribution works.

  • More channels, more eyes.   Sharing and distributing different content elements across channels ultimately reaches larger audiences.   The opportunity increases exponentially when you derive content from your original message.  For example, the blog post, video and MNR we did for “Content We Love” provided me with separate opportunities to tweet, share and post content related to our core message.
  • The opportunity for relevance.  Different channels serve different interests.  YouTube is a great place to demonstrate key points of your message visually, especially if you’re showing examples or how-to tips.  SlideShare, on the other hand, has a lot of utility for those doing research, and can be a great way to showcase data that won’t necessarily translate well to video.  The point is, keep each channel’s utility in mind and fine tune your content accordingly.
  • Search.  Search engines are obviously crucial divers of visibility.  And by creating multiple content elements, you give search engines more things to index and serve up to interested searchers.  It’s also worth noting that YouTube is also the second largest search engine in the world, and offers important search benefits in its own right.

I’ll be digging into the topic of leveraging content across channels to deliver business results on a webinar co-hosted with the Online Marketing Summit folks next week, and then again in person at the OMS in Feburary, where I’ll be hosting a workshop.  Here are the details:

Webinar (January 23): Leveraging Converged Media’s Impact on Content Marketing

Workshop: Driving Qualified Audiences Into the Funnel Using Rich Media and Distribution Networks 

Author Sarah Skerik is PR Newswire’s vice president of social media.  

 

 

 

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