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4 Ways Content Builds Brands

Content marketing works. I’ve seen it work first-hand for businesses and individuals. In fact, I wouldn’t have a successful business and 8 business books published by leading publishers (including the upcoming Content Marketing for Dummies) if content marketing didn’t work.

But how do you actually use content to build a brand? Keep reading to learn how content can help you build your brand and business.

Amazing content can do several things for a brand:

  1. Authority and Thought Leadership: Amazing content can establish your credibility and expertise, which subconsciously transfers to your brand.
  2. Word-of-mouth Marketing and Brand Buzz: Amazing content is often shared and discussed giving your brand more exposure.
  3. Search Engine Optimization: Amazing content is often linked to from other sites which boosts traffic to it and Google search rankings for it.
  4. Increased Business: Amazing content can help you build relationships with people that can lead to sales.

In a February 2011 survey of marketing professionals in the United States conducted by HiveFire, 42% said they are using content marketing. Of the 68% who were not currently using content marketing to build their brands and businesses, 85% of that group did admit to participating in content marketing activities without even realizing it.

The vast majority of businesses that use content marketing to build their brands do so primarily to increase brand awareness and word-of-mouth marketing. However, many businesses hit road blocks in content marketing simply because they don’t have the resources to create amazing original content as often as they need to in order to stay relevant in the fast moving online space. Whether that’s because they’re unwilling to pay an adequate rate to experienced freelance writers or they’re not looking outside their own walls for content support is not revealed in the study.

There are many “content mills” and content providers who offer content at rock-bottom prices, but you get what you pay for. If you’re ready to use content marketing to build your brand and business but you can’t create amazing content in-house, take the time to find a freelance writer who is qualified and experienced. Amazing content can help take your brand to new heights, but poor quality content can do more harm than good.

Research Offers Tips for Better Facebook Brand Marketing Results

Research from Buddy Media released this month and reported by eMarketer offers insight into how to increase engagement with Facebook users. The study provides interesting statistics for brand managers based on when, what and how to publish content on the most popular social networking site in the world.

According to a small study, the highest user engagement with posts published by brands happens before and after traditional work hours rather than during work hours when most brands actually publish content on Facebook. Since a big part of social media marketing success via Facebook is getting people to read your content, posting updates when fans are more likely to be using Facebook and see your updates in their news feeds is critical.

Following are several findings from the study related to Facebook use by brands and user engagement with those brands:

  • Time: Companies experience a 20% increase in engagement when they publish Facebook posts outside business hours–before 10:00 a.m. and after 4:00 p.m.
  • Day: Engagement rates are 18% higher on Thursdays and Fridays than any other days. Saturday is the worst day to post with a 18% decrease in engagement reported on that day.
  • Length: Shorter is better with posts of 80 characters or fewer experiencing a 27% lift in engagement rates.
  • Type: Posts that end with a question see a 15% increase in engagement. Including instructions such as “like,” “post,” and “comment” also helps to boost engagement.

The trick to using Facebook for brand marketing is to consistently provide succinct, great content and conversations that your customers want and need. That doesn’t just happen on Monday through Friday during normal business hours. However, it doesn’t mean that you have to publish content continuously throughout the day, every day. Too much information quickly turns into noise and clutter. Spread your brand Facebook updates out to a few times per day and at different times during the day to reach and engage with the widest audience. This is particularly important if yours is an international brand or your customers can be found in multiple time zones.

Go Mobile to Get Your Brand in Front of Mothers

New research from BabyCenter.com reveals that brands that want to connect with mothers, particularly new mothers, should go mobile. According to the survey, 68% of mothers user their smartphones while they’re shopping, which is much higher than the average smartphone user.

Furthermore, 46% of survey respondents said they want to get information about products and services while they are shopping — at the very moment that they’re making buying decisions. In fact, 46% of survey respondents claimed that they were moved to action after seeing an ad on their smartphone, tablet or other mobile device.

Among mothers who don’t have smartphones, they spend more time on the web via a computer than they spend using any other type of media (television, radio, magazines, and newspapers), so clearly brands need to be represented in digital media in order to connect with the buying power of the new mother audience who is actively looking for products, advice, and reviews.

The BabyCenter survey also revealed that 62% of respondents change brands when they have kids, so even if these women were your customers before they had babies, they’re not necessarily still going to be your customers after they have babies. Digital marketing is essential both to attract new customers and retain existing customers when it comes to the new mother demographic buying behaviors.

Once consumers, including new mothers, adopt mobile technology, it becomes an integral part of their lives. This trend isn’t going to end anytime soon. In fact, it’s going to keep growing. and more and more consumers will become more and more dependent on their mobile devices. If you don’t already have a mobile component to your marketing plan, you need one.

What do you think? Are new mothers one of your target customer segments for your brand? Are you connecting with them via mobile marketing already? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Image: stock.xchng

Make Customers Part of Your Logo to Build Brand Loyalty

The most powerful brands in the world are relationship brands like Apple and Harley Davidson. These are brands that people feel such a strong emotional connection with that they’re not only extremely loyal but they’re also extremely vocal about that loyalty.  Social media marketing and content marketing make it easier than ever for companies to build relationships with consumers that lead to brand loyalty and advocacy, but Strauss Food Group of Israel took the concept of connecting consumers to its brand a bit further in Israel.

Instead of just saying that consumer relationships are important to Strauss, the company showed it by making consumers part of its logo. Check out the picture below to see how Strauss did it.


There are 180,000 surnames in Israel, and Strauss (with its advertising agency, Shalmor Avnon Amichay/Y&R) made each and every one of those surnames part of its logo. Strauss markets itself as a family company, and the idea of sharing the logo with consumers was intended to make people feel like they’re part of the Strauss family, too.

The surname logos appeared in all marketing media, including billboards, print, online, and more. Importantly, Strauss didn’t forget the importance of building and retaining internal brand advocates. The company created posters using surnames of employees and displayed them around the Strauss offices and factories.

The campaign launched in March and Strauss reports already seeing an increase in the amount of time people spend on the company’s website, and the amount of interactivity on its site, particularly on what Strauss refers to as its online customer involvement platform, has also grown.

Of course, this type of promotion works best with a logo that is recognized by its icon without the company name attached to it. Without established brand identity recognition, the campaign wouldn’t attract the same level of attention and interest. In fact, it might go unnoticed entirely.

What do you think of the Strauss campaign? Could you do this with your logo? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Twitter Audience Is Fragmented and Led by a Small Group of Power Users

New research from Yahoo! about Twitter tells us a bit more about the evolution of Twitter usage and confirms some facts we already knew.

It’s not a surprise that a small number of Twitter users are responsible for the most consumed tweets. The Yahoo! study, “Who Says What to Whom on Twitter,” reports that 0.05% of Twitter users account for nearly 50% of all attention (meaning that almost half of the tweets that are published and actually read are published by just 0.05% of Twitter users). These power Twitter users are dubbed “elite users” and include primarily celebrities, people from the media, organizations, and bloggers.

One of the most interesting findings in the study reveals the trend in fragmenting the Twitter audience. In fact, Twitter use is reported to have “fragmented over a wider pool of content producers than classical models of mass media.” However, as the statistics in the preceding paragraph state, that fragmented attention is “highly concentrated” among the people that elite users reach through their tweets.

Another finding from the study that isn’t surprising is the fact that, “almost half the information that originates from the media passes to the masses indirectly via a diffuse intermediate layer of opinion leaders, who although classified as ordinary users [i.e., not elite users], are more connected and more exposed to the media than their followers.”

Finally, the report provides evidence that links to evergreen content like videos and music have longer lifespans thanks to continued sharing and discovery than other links shared on Twitter such as media-originated content links. Again, this is not a surprising finding, but it’s always good to have research to provide evidence to support what we already think.

So what can brand managers learn from this study? First, Twitter is an information sharing tool. It’s a content marketing tool that provides a social media element. However, it’s the publishing of original content and sharing of content that makes it so popular. The best brand Twitter feeds offer useful, meaningful information and links that the target audience actually wants to read, share, and engage with. Diversify your Twitter content to include original content, shared content, text, video, images, conversations, and so on. Be sure to include evergreen content in the mix and don’t be afraid to tweet  your best content again to ensure more people see it (Twitter streams move very quickly). Third, connect with online influencers and offer useful information that they are likely to want to share with their own audiences and are “more connected and more exposed to the media than their followers.”

Bottom-line, Twitter is just one tool in your marketing toolbox. Don’t expect it to drive a flood of business your way (although it can happen), but your brand should be represented and engaged. Take the time to understand how it works. This study offers great insight that you can use to better plan your own Twitter marketing strategy for your brand.

Image: deviantart.com

5 Steps for Greater Brand Focus and Long-term Growth

The strongest brands are highly focused. Consumers know exactly what the most focused brands promise to them the second they hear those brand names. These are the brands that offer a sense of security and stability to consumers which lead to brand loyalty and long-term brand growth. However, making sure your brand stays focused over time can be challenging as the world, consumers, and competitors change around you.

Following are five steps to continually test your brand strategy against to ensure you stay focused. They might seem rudimentary, but corporate executives forget them every day.

1. Know your target audience.

As time passes, your target audience is likely to evolve. You need to analyze these changes and determine when your brand needs to change as well. In other words, flexibility is key but don’t change for the sake of changing. Remember your brand focus and change only when it’s appropriate for the long-term success of your brand.

2. Test brand focus viability.

As the macro-environment changes, your brand focus might have to change in order to survive. Consider newspapers today. They’re a dying breed that didn’t change when technology and the widespread accessibility of digital information through the Internet exploded. Those brands stayed too rigid in their brand focus and ignored or denied the fact that the viability of that focus was coming to an end.  Today, many of those brands are struggling to stay relevant and stay alive.

3. Keep tabs on your competitors.

What differentiated your brand and gave you a competitive edge in the past, might not work in the future. You need to actively track your competitors’ activities to ensure your own focus continues to provide the differentiation you need for consumers to choose your brand over others. Competitive analysis doesn’t stop after your brand is launched.

4. Make sure your brand focus isn’t shortsighted.

Unless you want to reinvest a lot of money into launching a new brand or revamping your existing brand significantly in the future, you need to make sure that you’re always thinking in the long-term when it comes to your brand strategy. Strong brands can survive through far more obstacles than weak brands can. Therefore, make sure your brand is viable in the short-term, as you learned in #2 above, as well as for years to come.

5. Extend your brand carefully.

Brand extensions are the easiest way for a brand to lose focus. Don’t let the hope of entering a new market or expanding your product line in order to reach new customers and boost profits destroy your brand focus. Brand extensions should always appropriately reflect your focused brand promise. If you extend your brand in ways that confuse consumers, they’ll turn away from your brand in search of another that meets their expectations based on the brand promise. In other words, instead of making more money and getting more customers through a brand extension, you could lose money and customers.

No matter what you do, make sure you know what your brand’s focus and promise are and evaluate all marketing opportunities against that focus and promise to ensure they’re right for your brand in the long-term.

Image: stock.xchng