But fear not; there’s a secret weapon that can lift your brand above the noise: customer storytelling. It’s not just about spinning a good tale; it’s about building trust and creating connections by allowing your customers to do the talking for you.

Because it turns out that only 30% of consumers trust companies. That’s not a great percentage. So, if you run ads listing the six reasons consumers should choose your product, the consumer won’t believe you. However, if you have a verified customer post the six reasons they love your product, consumers will start to trust you.

And companies that are able to gain the trust of their customers outsell their competitors by up to “400% in terms of total market value” and customers are 88% more likely to buy again if they trust the brand.

Sure, you should still talk about yourself, share your origin story on your “About Us” page, and fill your product pages with all the product features your heart desires. But when it comes to telling potential customers why they should buy your product, the message is better received when it comes from actual customers.

While there are countless reasons why customers should be at the center of your marketing strategy, here are the top four reasons customer storytelling will help your business.

1. People trust customers (and even influencers)

Let me tell you a story of when I was trying to choose a travel credit card. I had been researching for weeks, and I just couldn’t decide. Then, a travel influencer on Instagram said she used the Capital One Venture Card. My research was then complete, and I immediately got the Capital One Venture Card.

Was that the best travel credit card for me? Who knows? But someone I trusted said it had good travel rewards, so I went for it.

The thing is, this story isn’t unique. According to a study from Oracle and Brent Leary, “80% of consumers have purchased products in direct response to social media content.” When it comes down to it, consumers are skeptical of businesses, so it’s no surprise they trust social media influencers, peers, and celebrities to give them advice on new products.

The reason influencer marketing is so effective is because influencers have already built a loyal following of people who trust their opinions. So, when an influencer introduces a product, their followers assume they have used the product and are promoting it because they love it. And most of the time, their followers can ignore the fact that the influencer may be getting kickbacks for promoting the product.

The real value of customer storytelling stems from the fact that real people don’t talk like brands. Instead of highlighting the latest technology, newest features, or energy efficiency, real people talk about how the product makes their lives better.

2. Big brands use customer storytelling because it works

I know what you’re thinking. Of course, big, established brands can rely on word-of-mouth marketing—they’re already household names. The truth is, customer-centric storytelling is a sound marketing strategy for any company. But just for fun, let’s check out some word-of-mouth marketing examples.

Tesla’s customer-driven marketing strategy

When was the last time you saw a Tesla ad? The answer should be “never,” because they don’t use traditional advertising and don’t spend any money on paid ads or endorsements. Tesla’s entire marketing strategy relies on customer referrals. Initially, Tesla offered extravagant rewards for referrals, including exclusive access to events, early delivery of new models, and even limited-edition vehicles. But they revamped the program in 2019 to offer more attainable incentives like Supercharging credits, FSD access, and discounts on new vehicles.

Duolingo’s polyglot fans

Duolingo acquires about 80% of its users through word-of-mouth marketing. Duolingo’s gamified approach, coupled with a witty social media presence, has created a loyal and enthusiastic user base. The app’s ability to quickly demonstrate language proficiency has fueled a viral loop, with satisfied learners sharing their success stories and encouraging friends to join.

This organic growth is evident in Duolingo’s impressive user acquisition costs, which are significantly lower than industry averages. By focusing on creating a product people love and leveraging the power of social sharing, Duolingo has proven that word-of-mouth can be a formidable force in driving business growth.

Dyson’s vocal customer base

By consistently introducing groundbreaking products like the bagless vacuum cleaner, the bladeless fan, and the Supersonic hair dryer, Dyson has cultivated a reputation for technological superiority. This innovation, combined with a strong emphasis on design and engineering, has created a loyal customer base eager to share their experiences.

While Dyson launched their brand in the 1990s with traditional marketing, they now let product quality and customer satisfaction drive word-of-mouth. Their focus on WOM marketing has intensified in recent years as social media platforms have amplified consumer voices.

3. Customer marketing strategies provide long-term SEO value

We already mentioned how your “About Us” page and product pages are the perfect places on your website to toot your own horn. These pages are also great for SEO because they’re packed with keywords and phrases. But you also want to include customer-generated content on your site so the SERPs can be filled with authentic, trustworthy content about your brand. Here are some customer-focused pages you might want to add to your website:

Customer reviews

Did you know that 90% of customers read reviews before they buy a product? When you allow your customers to speak for your brand, you get more user-generated content on your site and more engaged followers. It also helps improve your SEO and provides fresh content for search engines to spider.

These reviews can either be in written or video form. And always make sure to post your video reviews to YouTube so you can rank for keywords in two places.

Bonus points: Scour social media for customer reviews and mentions of your brand. Be sure to engage with your customers (both happy and angry), so these interactions will also end up in search results.

Case studies

While case studies aren’t traditionally written by customers, they do allow you to show potential consumers how other people use your product to build their business and make their life easier. If you’re a B2B brand, try to highlight well-known and trusted brands who use your product or service.

Testimonials

Testimonials are the fancy cousin of customer reviews. Brands usually request written or spoken statements from their happy customers to feature on their websites. While they’re not as candid as a traditional customer review, they do provide customer-centric content.

4. Word-of-mouth marketing still reigns supreme

As mentioned above, only 30% of consumers trust companies. On the other hand, 88% of consumers trust brands when a friend or family member recommends it. This means that if you want your customers to trust you, they need to hear about your brand or product from someone else, preferably a trusted friend or family member.

And the first step to building great word-of-mouth around your brand is to create a great product that people want to tell their friends about. When you provide quality products and good service, your customers will talk about your brand if they have a good experience.

Today, people are all too ready to share their opinions about products and brands. The trick is to provide a good experience to each of your customers, so they’ll want to share all their positive thoughts and feelings about your brand. Inspire rave reviews that can spark your next customer-driven marketing strategy. And the next time you think about creating a marketing campaign around your latest product features, consider focusing on your customers and highlighting their experiences.

Ask the Content Strategist: FAQs About Customer Storytelling

How can businesses implement customer storytelling if they don’t have a large customer base yet?

Small businesses can start by leveraging testimonials from their earliest customers. They can also engage with their audience on social media, encourage satisfied customers to share their experiences, and use these stories in their marketing materials. Partnering with micro influencers can also be effective.

What is a micro influencer?

A micro-influencer is a social media user who has a smaller, yet highly engaged, following, typically between 1,000 to 100,000 followers. They are often considered experts or enthusiasts in a specific niche, such as beauty, fitness, technology, or travel. Their recommendations are often seen as more credible and authentic, as they usually promote products they genuinely use and like.

What are some effective ways to encourage customers to share their stories?

Businesses can create incentives such as discounts, contests, or loyalty programs for customers who share their stories. Additionally, they can make it easy for customers to leave reviews by providing links and clear instructions. Highlighting customer stories on social media and in newsletters can also encourage others to share their experiences.

What are some common mistakes businesses make when using customer storytelling?

Common mistakes include over-editing customer stories to the point where they lose authenticity, not obtaining proper permissions from customers before using their stories, failing to follow up with customers after they share their stories, and not integrating customer stories across various marketing channels for maximum impact. Businesses should ensure stories remain genuine and respect customers’ contributions and privacy.

For more tips on customer-focused marketing, subscribe to The Content Strategist.

The post 4 Reasons To Add Customer Storytelling to Your Marketing Mix appeared first on Contently.

Spotify’s Wrapped feature, which delivers a personalized breakdown of users’ listening trends from the year, still holds the top spot when it comes to most engaging year-in-review content — so much so that many of us, jokingly or not, are already anticipating what our 2024 Wrapped is going to look like in the middle of the summer. And the format is so successful that even its many imitators have gained traction. Other music streaming platforms like YouTube Music and Tidal eventually released their own versions, and even non-music brands, like the fitness app Peloton, followed suit.

It’s no wonder these year-end user-generated content campaigns have garnered such positive feedback; they are endlessly shareable, and users love personalized experiences. But, of course, creating your own highly individualized wrap-up could be a huge undertaking, depending on both your industry and how much customer data you have access to. Here’s how to implement the spirit of these highly personalized year-in-review reports in your own EOY campaigns.

Plan your year-in-review content now

The earlier you start planning your year-in-review campaign, the more intentional it will feel for your audience. That doesn’t mean you need to get it ready to publish now — after all, there’s still plenty of the year left to go, and you don’t want your review to feel incomplete. But starting now gives you ample time to research what you want to include in your review and create a workable outline to flesh out come late November or early December fully.

Starting as soon as possible is especially important when culling data from different sources. You’ll want to set parameters for all stakeholders to adhere to, such as sticking to data from a set period of time (perhaps January 1 to October 31 of this year). Your proprietary data is a great place to start. For instance, marketing and engineering can give you customer and user insights, and finance can give you detailed spending reports.

Shopify is a great example of a B2B brand breaking down high-level data into a digestible year in review that’s relevant to the goals of its base. And with a combination of written content, video, and data visualizations, Shopify’s Commerce Trends report gives users a choose-your-own-adventure experience — while still remaining aesthetically consistent and without being overwhelming.

Personalize your recap for your audience

A year-in-review report is a great opportunity to encourage prolonged engagement and brand loyalty. It’s a place to share the value you’ve provided for your audience — not brag about your revenue numbers. (Though an internally shared wrap report with company-wide wins isn’t a bad idea, either!)

And even if you’re not putting together an individualized experience, you can still tailor your wrap-up to your target audience. A brand-wide year in review can still feel personal for users by focusing on their favorite, most-purchased, or top-reviewed products, or industry trends and insights that will affect their purchasing decisions in the year ahead.

You could even create a year-end recap that hones in on geographical location, age group, college students, or some other demographic. Google’s Local Year In Search allows users to access the year’s search trends in their hometown, or anywhere they feel like searching. This is a strategic way to provide a personalized customer experience without creating an individual-specific breakdown.

One of my personal favorite examples of year-in-review content (which I look out for every December) is the New York Times’ “Best Books of the Year” hub. Not only does it provide a roundup of its top book reviews from the past year, but it also provides breakdowns by genre. Users can select which sections to read based on their own interests.

Highlight your best work — while boosting traffic

Finally, a year-in-review can be a strategic way to share your brand’s best work from the past year, whether that’s blogs, research, graphics, etc. — and boost traffic to that content while you’re at it. A retrospective can help generate a sense of “playing catchup” among your audience. Below is a great example from New York’s The Cut: by highlighting their “most-read” stories, they can play off of their readers’ sense of FOMO (and deliver them excellent content at the same time).

You can also choose to repurpose existing content in a different format. For instance, if your data security firm has published lots of research this year, you could highlight the top findings in a quick-hit video or infographic for social. Or, if you have been keeping a blog filled with consumer finance content, you could create a landing page hub linking to these blog posts, positioning them resources for anyone looking to improve their finances in 2025 and beyond.

When to avoid a year-in-review campaign

Of course, year-in-review content might not always make sense. Every business owner knows that there are good years and bad years — and if there aren’t enough positives to share, it might not be worth dwelling on the negatives.

Also, if you are considering providing individualized year-end recaps to your audience, be careful about what data to focus on. Facebook ran into hot water when its “On This Day” feature started reminding people of bad memories, like sharing an announcement about the death of a family member. You want your wrap-up to be something customers look forward to, not dread.

Finally, avoid bait-and-switch tactics here. One reason Shopify is such a trusted name in the ecommerce space is because of its credibility as an industry expert. Its Commerce Trends report isn’t peppered with CTAs to get started with the platform — it simply sticks to the facts and what’s actually important to its target audience.

Ask the Content Strategist: FAQs on year-in-review campaigns

How can smaller businesses with limited data resources create year-in-review content?

Smaller businesses can focus on key metrics and customer feedback they do have, even if it’s less comprehensive. Highlighting a few significant achievements or trends can still engage their audience.

What tools can be used to gather and analyze data for a year-in-review marketing campaign?

There are various tools available, such as Google Analytics for web traffic, CRM software for customer insights, and financial software for revenue tracking. These tools help streamline data collection and analysis.

How can a year-in-review report be promoted to maximize engagement?

Promoting the report through email newsletters, social media, and on the company’s website can increase visibility. Collaborations with influencers or industry partners can also help reach a wider audience.

Feel like you’ve missed a year’s worth of content marketing strategies? Catch up by reading The Content Strategist.

The post Pull Off a Year-in-Review Campaign People Will Actually Share appeared first on Contently.

Two million podcasts. 48 million episodes. The podcast shelf is that crowded, according to October 2021 data.

If you’re investing in podcasting as part of your marketing mix, how can you ensure yours will break through? Let’s dive in.

Defining podcast success

“Breaking through” can mean different things depending on your objectives. If you’re looking to use your podcast to grow your customer base, then reach and metrics such as downloads are paramount. If, however, you’re seeking to shift brand perception, you might look for improvements measured by engagement and follow-up research.

Benchmarks for successful podcasts are lower than you might think. According to Libsyn’s stats, just 123 downloads puts your show is in the top 50 percent of podcasts. Reach 2,900 downloads, and you’re in the top 10 percent.

According to Brian Swarth, head of marketing for podcasts at Cadence13, Pineapple Street Studios, and 2400Sports—three podcast studios owned by audio powerhouse Audacy—listenership is the primary goal. In addition to downloads, success on Apple charts is a useful metric internally and with business partners. Swarth noted that while the chart algorithm is still pretty opaque, he believes one key to climbing up the charts is velocity: the rate at which people follow and listen to your show, not just the volume.

He also looks to see if the podcast is part of a broader conversation.

Just 123 downloads puts your show is in the top 50 percent of podcasts. Reach 2,900 downloads, and you’re in the top 10 percent.

“Is it relevant to the culture or propelling culture to progress?” Swarth said. “Our 70 over 70 podcast is a breakthrough not only because it was successful from a listenership perspective, but also because everyone I know is talking about it and media outlets have been eagerly covering it.”

Stories in podcast experimentation

Jered Martin, co-founder and chief operations officer of OnePitch, a public relations SaaS platform, launched his show Coffee With A Journalist in March 2019.

Since then, it has grown from 5,000 downloads to more than 40,000 over more than two years. Aimed at PR, marketing, and communications professionals, Martin promoted the podcast where they were most active. “A lot of our guests are on Twitter, and the people who work with journalists are on Twitter,” Martin said.

In addition to downloads, success on Apple charts is a useful metric internally and with business partners

“First we ran ad campaigns, which didn’t perform well. With a limited budget, our reach was stifled. We got traffic, but it wasn’t converting,” he explained. Recognizing that people were searching for the guests, he shifted efforts to organic means—including SEO—which worked. Tagging guests who have large followings amplified reach, as did posting in industry-specific LinkedIn groups.

By year two, OnePitch added a newsletter to promote new episodes and tease upcoming guests, all of which contributed to an uptick. Providing an advanced view “made it easy for people to say yes or no to listening,” said Martin.

Andrea Kilin, global social media manager and executive producer of Discovery Matters, a podcast by life sciences leader Cytiva, also found conventional tactics such as paid social didn’t work at first. She and her team rethought how to tackle word-of-mouth. The team tapped into Cytiva’s strong company culture and asked its thousands of associates to share new episodes and help source guests, which provided positive momentum.

“The podcast is an expression of our curiosity,” said Kilin. “It shows why we do our job.” Instead of barraging employees with more emails, the podcast has a dedicated and active internal Microsoft Teams channel.

For Stacey Simms of the Diabetes Connections podcast, success is not measured by numbers, but rather by the impact she makes on those with Type 1 diabetes. To market the show, Simms focused on events as well as social media groups, threads, and hashtags.

She recommends avoiding spamming these groups with episodes. Instead, authentically engage, understand the rules of each group, answer questions ,and then when relevant, share that you’ve done an episode on that topic. “As your show gets more established,” Simms said, “other people will even point out your show.”

Five podcast growth strategies for you

Here are five archetypal strategies, with example tactics. Each includes a likely outcome and level of investment ($=low, $$$=high).

Strategy one: The idea markets itself

Find an audience’s content need gap and the marketing will take care of itself. What do listeners want to know about? You could guess, or as podcast host and educator Will Francis suggests, use audience research tools such as Answer the Public, Buzzsumo, Google Trends, or Reddit.

One key early marketing decision is the show’s name, recognizing the difficulty of showing up in search results and directories. An unusual name, such as my podcast Cidiot, is easier to find than my other podcast about marketing careers I co-host with Josh Boaz, called Rising.

Other moves might be repackaging content as quotes and infographics, creating a trailer, and building an email list for organic pushes.

Outcome: Highly engaged, valuable audience; may grow slowly ($)

Strategy two: throw money at it

Media spend with paid podcast ads can be the quickest but most expensive approach. Swarth sees this working in tandem with other approaches. With higher awareness, he often sees higher conversion of paid ads. Many channels run paid advertising. Examples from an American Marketing Association training session I recently attended were:

• Overcast: Text ads
• Spotify audio ads: 30-second trailer
• Instagram: Teaser video for your next episode
• Reddit: Sponsored post in a relevant niche sub-reddit
• Twitter: Sponsored tweet targeted at followers of a similar, established show
• LinkedIn ads: Sharing what people will learn

Outcome: Large audience built quickly, will require sustained efforts ($$$)

Strategy three: be where the ears are

More and more shows and platforms are offering up options for other shows to partner with them. Groups like r/PodcastGuestExchange on Reddit can help you connect with other podcasts for appearances, and most podcast networks offer promotion tactics. PocketCast paid placements, for example, offer features that run for a week and charges $2,000.

Outcome: Medium-size audience, likely highly engaged, lower conversion ($$$)

Strategy four: be where the topic is

This strategy markets to the passion. If your show is about tech, then answer a question on Quora. If it’s music, then create content for TikTok or sponsored content in a music newsletter. There’s also growth of podcast promotion or distribution via YouTube.

For her insulin-related podcast, Simms is promoting an episode about handling Halloween candy in a parents forum.

Outcome: Larger audience with higher engagement ($)

Strategy five: third-party power

Indirect works. Accolades are a tactic with third-party endorsement. Cidiot numbers ticked up after winning best regional podcast in a local publication and whenever I’m quoted in media as an “expert” of moving to the country.

In addition to getting employees behind the podcast, Cytiva’s Kilin plans to generate word of mouth through giveaways with listeners. 

Outcome: High quality audience, likely slow to build ($$)

Finding your formula

The answer for marketing most new podcasts will be a custom recipe made up of several of the above strategies. There are many benefits in the numerous low-cost tactics, as well as some of the higher cost investments, but it’s the nuanced orchestration of the right ones over time that will help your show break through.

The post 5 Ways to Grow an Audience for Your Podcast appeared first on Contently.

Why? Because the answer is obvious: Repost. Always. Or almost always, at least.

Today, we’re talking about the advantages of reposting an article that runs on your blog or digital publication in its entirety on another platform—like Medium, LinkedIn, or even email.

If your goal is to get as many people to read your content as possible, it just makes sense—whether your goal is to build your brand, attract new customers, or a combination of both.

Let’s look at some of the most fruitful places to repost your content.

1. Email

As social algorithms send less and less referral traffic to publisher sites, it’s worth remembering: email continues to beat social media in terms of engagement and accessibility.

Not convinced? Consider these fun facts:

• Email newsletter click-through rates average 2.14 percent across industries, compared to Facebook’s 0.07 percent.
• Only about 5.2 percent of your Facebook followers are likely to even see your post, while email reaches roughly 85 percent of recipients, with open rates that average 22.86 percent.

The best way to build an owned audience is by getting people to subscribe to your newsletter. Most brands and bloggers simply include teasers of new posts in their newsletters, prompting readers to click through for the rest. There are certain advantages to the teaser method. Most notably, it drives people to your site where they may buy or sign up for something you’re promoting.

The problem with this method is that a lot of people won’t end up clicking through. It requires effort on their part, and they’re more likely to say, “eh, forget it”—or tell themselves they’ll save the post for later, never to return—than take action.

This is why including the entire post in the body of your email might actually be a better strategy if your primary goal is to engage your audience. Substack, for instance, has taken off in large part because audiences seem to enjoy the experience of reading entire pieces of content in their email—so much so that they’re willing to pay for it.

Here’s a pro tip: If you really want to encourage click-throughs to your site, include links to related blogs or other content at the bottom of your email. You should always emphasize any action you want your subscribers to take in the “P.S. section” anyway, so use that space to inspire them to keep reading.

2. Medium

There are a lot of advantages to posting on Medium, but the most important one is that it has the potential to get your piece in front of people who’ve never heard of you.

One reason for this is that Medium posts rank really high in search engine results (in fact, nearly 50 percent of Medium’s traffic comes from search). If you optimize your posts for specific Google searches, you’ve got a good chance at some major views.

Medium’s robust, user-friendly interface is a dream. You don’t have to design anything, worry about how a piece will look or behave on mobile, or consider an image’s impact on loading times. You just paste your writing, add whatever images you like, slap on some tags, and presto. You can even import your original post from your site (I’ve experienced some glitches with this tool, but it’s still a good starting point).

Once it’s live, if enough people “clap” for your piece, the algorithm will recommend it to more readers. If you think the piece has the potential to really spread, it might even be worth linking to your Medium post rather than your site on social and in emails, and asking your subscribers to “give it a hand,” if you will.

3. LinkedIn

Depending on your industry or niche, LinkedIn can be the ideal place to repost your blog content. If your company is business-to-consumer, you can still see great engagement on the platform, but if you’re business-to-business, your content can excel, in part because you can track the demographics of your audience (including industries, job titles, locations, and traffic sources).

Basically, you can slingshot your message into the heart of your target market. What’s not to love?

In fact, LinkedIn is responsible for driving 46 percent of social traffic to B2B sites, with about 98 percent of content marketers taking advantage of the platform. Plus, in an era of exceptionally low trust in news found on social media (as well as some pretty meager trust in user privacy), LinkedIn’s ranking as the most trusted social media platform makes it a wise content marketing choice for any business.

You only get 1,300 characters in a post (LinkedIn is in the process of increasing the limit to 3,000 characters, but it hasn’t been rolled out to all users yet), but with articles (also known as LinkedIn Pulse), you get 110,000, which makes it easy to repost a blog.

To publish an article, simply click on the “Write article” button in the “Start a post” section at the top of the platform:

This will open a more Medium-like editor:

Unlike posts, which have a relatively short shelf life, articles stick around for awhile. They appear in Google search results, as well as on your profile page. They also have more sharing options than posts—in addition to sharing them in messages and via their feeds, users can also share articles directly to Facebook and Twitter.

In the past year, LinkedIn has added a key feature —allowing users to post stories from company accounts as well as personal ones. Assuming you have admin privileges, you can hit “Write article” and you’ll be asked which page you want to publish a story from. Select your company page and you’ll be pushing longform posts out to your company followers. The benefits of this are numerous and it gives you the flexiblity to either build your own brand or engage with your company’s loyal following.

The platform is also rolling out its newsletter feature to everyone, giving you the chance to deliver a full article direct to follower’s inbox and build an audience of subscribers.

If you want to rock engagement on your LinkedIn articles, here are a few quick tips, courtesy of a study by OkDork on what successful LinkedIn articles have in common:

• Go long-form—articles with about 2,000 words get the highest likes, views, comments, and shares. (Perfect for blog posts.)
• Use headings—ideally, five of them.
• Publish how-tos and lists—people love them (look no further than this very article).
• Use images—apparently, eight is the magic number.
• Publish on Thursdays—this is when your posts are likely to get the highest number of views (Sunday is the second-best day).

4. Facebook

Recent controversy aside, Facebook remains the largest social media platform, with more than 2.8 billion monthly active users.

I think of posting on Facebook as a bit like playing the lottery—if lottery tickets were free. The chances of getting much of a return in terms of engagement are low, but you just might hit it big.

I experienced the rush of the win firsthand in 2016, when a blog I linked to on Facebook went viral, leading to more than 500k unique visitors landing on my then-very-new website over the course of two weeks.

The post, which was prompted by Donald Trump’s Access Hollywood scandal in which he bragged about sexually assaulting a woman, was about my own experience of sexual harassment and assault—a story that’s sadly familiar to most, if not all, women.

The initial Facebook post only received 64 comments and just under 200 likes, but it was shared 2.2K times. And then other people posted it, and those posts were shared, and so it went.

My main takeaway from that experience is this: Don’t overly analyze what you post. And when you allow yourself to get vulnerable with your audience, they usually respond.

While a link post took off in this case, there are even more advantages to reposting blogs via Facebook’s native publishing platform, Instant Articles. There are one or two more hoops to jump through, but the rewards can be worth it. According to Facebook, Instant Articles load 4.9x faster than mobile browsers across regions, and Facebook users open 52 percent more articles when published on the native platform, as opposed to shared via a web link.

Buy a lottery ticket (or, you know, just raise your hand for one of the billions of free ones Facebook hands out every day), and repost. You never know what might happen.

The post Want to Double Your Views? Repost Content in Full on These 4 Channels appeared first on Contently.

I’m not alone here, as the microbrewery craze is growing so quickly that, according to the Brewers Association, roughly two new breweries open every day. Besides the issue of market saturation, many breweries are experience a different type of oversaturation: names.

We officially live in a world in which nearly every single beer pun will be trademarked.

That’s right. Per The Wall Street Journal, the sharp increase in microbreweries is leaving a depleted pool for creative names for the latest brew. In the words of a Brendan Palfreyman, a beer trademark lawyer, “We’re literally running out of words in the English language that haven’t already been taken.”

I’m not too worried myself, as my hypothetical brewery will also double as a mini-golf course (with bleacher seating so patrons can watch all players come up the 18th green). But for the rest of brewers in America, well, it’s not like there’s a massive glossary of beer terms readily available for puns.

So, breweries of the world, we’re here to help.

First, below is a list of beers that I thought of, Googled, and found out that they’re already taken. (I curse the genius who already got Hoptimus Prime.)

Hoptimus Prime

Beerly Beloved

Hop on Pop

How Now Brown Ale

Hopportunity Knocks

Duck, Duck, Gose

Hop of the Morning

Baby Got Bock

Bock to the Future

I’ll Be Bock

Bock to School

Gosebusters

Hopsided

Sittin’ on Hop of the World

Now for some originals. You’re welcome in advance.

When It Grains, It Pours

There’s No Place Like Foam

Hopulus Rift

Whitewater Crafting

Skip to My Brew

An Evening in Aroma

Yours, Mine, Sours

Hopposites Attract

Froth IR(P)A

Man of the Froth

Round of Hopplause

The Yuengling Brothers

Beauty and the Yeast (see also: potential Lifetime films about hygiene)

How Brewed (the Olsen twins expand their empire)

Ain’t Too Proud to Keg

KangaBrew

The Pils Are Alive

Hoppsi-Daisy

Gose Tell It on the Mountain

The Stoutsiders

Kriek-o-dile

The post Fixing the Beer Industry’s Pun Problem appeared first on Contently.

The company had partnered with a Japanese artist known as “Yassan” who previously made headlines for proposing to his now-wife with a GPS route that criss-crossed across Japan and spelled out “MARRY ME.” This time, Japan Airlines had an even more ambitious idea: It asked Yassan to fly 65,700 miles, across six continents, to spell the word “PEACE” on a map, using a GPS tracker and iPhone.

“Imagine a world without war,” Yassan wrote about the project, which was documented on YouTube. “That is my dream.”

These noble stunts have always been great PR, but it seems like more brands have been producing altruistic content to aid local communities, preserve the environment, and promote world peace.

Part of the reason why could be evolving philosophies on corporate responsibility. A 2014 survey by PR firm MSLGroup found that 83 percent of millennials “strongly believe business should be more active in solving the world’s biggest problems.” According to Deloitte’s 2016 survey of millennials, young adults value employers who are purpose-driven much more than ones driven by profit. And a recent report from global communications company Havas Worldwide showed that 73 percent of consumers believe companies have a responsibility to “do more than just generate profit.”

In fact, when Havas Worldwide polled respondents on the importance of 10 different company behaviors ranging from offering quality products to being transparent about business practices, improving the lives of employees beat out investing in innovation; meanwhile, upholding strong values and giving back to the community was deemed more important than low prices. What’s more, nearly three-quarters of global consumers want brands to “express a vision of a better world” and “drive social change.”

This shift in the consumer mindset is what has prompted companies like Japan Airlines to market more than just sales and new destinations.

“As a brand, we believe that Yassan’s journey and the project perfectly exemplifies JAL’s goal of connectivity and connecting the world,” said Yasuto Sasaki, vice president of corporate brand promotion at JAL. “Yassan’s simple yet powerful message of ‘Peace on Earth’ is in line with our brand’s values, and we hope to see this project continue to reach our customers.”

The days when brand sentiment was largely tied to product are long gone. Now, if companies hope to create a positive image and maintain a loyal customer base, they’re finding it increasingly important to use their influence and means to make the world a better place—and subsequently tell that story with content.

What brands get from giving back

Most brands already have charitable operations in place. The challenge is figuring out how to connect that altruism with the brand’s focus and values.

Take Toyota—the Japanese carmaker works with multiple non-profits on an ongoing basis, but it specifically highlights some of its charitable projects via digital and social media marketing. This January, for example, Toyota launched a campaign that allowed Instagram users to turn their selfies into philanthropy; the company donated $50 to Boys & Girls Clubs of America every time someone posted a picture using the #Selflessie hashtag. The company also worked with Saatchi & Saatchi Los Angeles to tap celebrities and social influencers like Kelly Rowland and Debby Ryan to help spread the word. What began as an effort to raise $250,000 ultimately brought in over $750,000.

“We wanted something with a low barrier of entry for participation, but also a great benefit,” said Florence Drakton, manager of Toyota’s social media strategy and operations. Past efforts have included a partnership with Buckle Up for Life, which Toyota created with the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. Every time a social media user posted the #BuckleUpForLife hashtag, Toyota donated a car seat.

In the past, organizing these programs fell to public relations teams concerned with improving brand image. Today, they’re often headed by content marketers like Drakton, who routinely collaborates with a number of Toyota’s departments including product, financial services, and community relations.

“The campaign gets the charity more exposure and brings awareness to the concept of charitable giving, which is really close to who we are as a brand,” Drakton explained.

https://www.instagram.com/p/_aGDSdqAju/

Zappos is another brand that got good press recently for investing in good deeds. In February, the online shoe retailer celebrated Leap Day with #TakeTheLeap, a movement to make every Leap Day a national holiday. In addition to starting a petition on Change.org, the company shut down for the day and encouraged its workers to make the most of the time off.

How would you spend an extra 24hrs? Sign our petition to make #LeapDay a national holiday! https://t.co/IPSqnuxmKV pic.twitter.com/xXnylif36F

— Zappos (@FormerlyZappos) February 25, 2016

Working with integrated ad agency MullenLowe, Zappos filmed its employees donating their time and Zappos products to those in need, facing their fears, and even getting married. The resulting videos appeared on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

“We look for unique ways to drive employee engagement through fun, quirky initiatives, and support our employees’ personal and professional development,” explained Kristin Richmer, a Zappos marketing manager.

Zappos has made helping out a habit. Besides #TakeTheLeap, the company also surprised an entire town with free products and paid for rescue pet adoptions. An important part of the success is that Zappos didn’t treat these like a one-off publicity grab. When customers and employees expect this type of culture, it’s easier for a brand to promote its work without coming across as self-serving.

When altruism doesn’t work

Though brands can profit from philanthropy, promotion disguised as altruism can produce toxic results. It’s possible for some projects that start off as selfless to become distasteful and contrived.

During the Ice Bucket Challenge craze of 2014—initiated by the ALS Association to raise awareness of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and funds to treat it—Best Buy, TD Bank, Coca-Cola, Target, and many other brands were criticized for incorporating mascots and prominent corporate signage into their Ice Bucket Challenge videos.

Companies have also run into trouble when they partnered with organizations that clashed with their products. Take KFC: The brand ran a campaign called “Buckets for the Cure,” donating a portion of its sales to Susan G. Komen for the Cure. Unfortunately, KFC’s fatty menu was completely at odds with the health-centric focus on breast cancer research and education.

A similar issue plagued Starbucks last year when the coffee chain tried to start a conversation about race relations. Starbucks intended to stimulate “empathy and compassion toward one another,” but consumers immediately criticized the company for being inappropriate and tone-deaf. Fast Company refers to the campaign as a “PR disaster” and notes, “there’s simply no obvious corporate benefit.”

Zappos avoids conflict by picking its causes carefully rather than latching onto controversial conversations. “We’ve found we are most successful when we view initiatives and content as an extension of our company, adhering to our values,” Richmer said. “You have to stay true to the brand’s core and execute on initiatives that are genuine.”

Drakton, meanwhile, emphasized the importance of making a difference—not just a media splash. “Have the right partners at the ready to help,” she said. “And if you can tap influencers, you can spread the [charity’s] message even further.”

When developed with self-awareness, content that relates to altruism and philanthropy can inspire, delight, and drive change. But when it’s designed to sell fried chicken, well, that charity is just going to leave a bad taste in your mouth.

The post Altruistic Content Marketing: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly appeared first on Contently.

While pop artists like Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein showed that brand logos could be creative and have an impact on the general public, brands still have a lot to learn from the art world. Today, brands looking to stand out may not be able to give Warhol a call, but they do have another option worth exploring: contemporary street artists.

Street artists have the style, personality, and respect capable of conveying a powerful message. And while brands may not have the artistic instincts to create a masterpiece, some have the budgets to hire the people who can.

A few companies have already ventured into the world of fine art with positive results. For those who may be reluctant to take the plunge, here are two important ways brands can benefit from street art.

Using icons

Brands that want to create iconic content don’t necessarily need to buy the most expensive celebrity endorsers or pay for special effects. Simple visuals can convey powerful messages.

In 2014, Amaechi Uzoigwe, manager of hip-hop duo Run the Jewels, launched a campaign called “Tag The Jewels” in order to promote the group’s latest album, Run the Jewels 2. The campaign was a worldwide street art initiative, which received the support of over 30 artists across six continents. Street artists remixed the duo’s iconic album cover art, originally designed by Nick Gazin, which features two bloody mummified hands, one forming a gun, the other holding a thick gold chain.

By Conform in Cape Town, South Africa

“Icons are incredibly important in terms of making an impact,” Uzoigwe said. “If you are lucky enough to come up with an icon that people identify with, it can be pretty powerful.”

The campaign was a success because it didn’t try to superficially plaster meaning onto a meaningless image. Propelled by the graffiti promotion, the album sold more than 80,000 copies and had half a million free downloads.

Uzoigwe stressed that there wouldn’t have been any successful promotion without high-quality music, but within the last few years, the combination of street art and branding has had a lasting impact. The Run the Jewels campaign has already inspired covers for Marvel comics, and is the driving force behind Art the Jewels, an art show in San Francisco that just opened.

By Luca Zamoc in Modena, Italy

It’s also worth pointing out that brands don’t always need to create original icons, they can also rely on the fame of characters and symbols that are already recognizable. For example, Oak Oak, a French street artist, uses pop-culture icons (ranging from The Simpsons to Calvin and Hobbes) in order to grow his own personal brand as an artist.

“They don’t represent a majority of my work, [but] they do appeal to the public more … because they recognize those icons,” he explained. “They are too many serious things out there, a little lightness won’t hurt.”

One brand that took this sentiment and ran with it is Dove, which used famous cartoon characters like Marge Simpson to Velma Dinkley to advertise its beauty products.

Source: adsoftheworld

Incorporating a famous character into a visual is not as easy for brands as for street artists who have an easier time dodging copyright lawyers. Brands need to obtain permission from the copyright owner and pay licensing feeds to use the character. But for the right campaign, and with enough artistic oversight, that investment can bring in a lot of value.

Creative freedom

Federico Massa, aka Iena Cruz, is an Italian street artist who has branded himself expertly by staying true to his artistry. In 2011, he was contacted by Marc Jacobs and painted 60 bags for a promotion of Paris Fashion Week at Printemps, a high-end department store in the heart of Paris. He was given no guidelines and no restriction.

“It’s not often that a project like that happens, but when it does I always jump at the opportunity. It’s pure art when you can let your creativity loose without limitations,” he said.

The takeaway? Brands shouldn’t approach street artists with rigid ideas of what they want them to produce.

“Sometimes they think because I am a painter I can do whatever they want me to do, even if it’s not my style,” he explained. “My strategy is to always find a way to express myself with my personal style without compromising my integrity.”

Cruz believes brands should be as forthcoming as possible and share their corporate histories with the talent because it will help the artist form ideas and shape a story. “I like to learn the history and figure out where my art can fit in” he said. “I have had a few very good experiences where my art was used to promote in ways that I felt comfortable with and proud of.”

In order to understand the core nature of a brand, marketers can benefit by looking at their companies with the fresh perspective of an artist. Two years ago, Cruz participated in a campaign for Heineken. The company asked for him to make an installation inside a shipping container at the Brooklyn Navy Yard for the launch of a new bottle.

Source: Iena Cruz

As you can see in the picture above, Cruz did not just design a beer bottle; rather, he used the brand’s archetypal colors for his palette. “They never questioned my choice, and the concept was approved without question,” he said. “That is not a typical situation, but it does happen.”

Marketers constantly talk about authenticity, edge, and uniqueness, but those claims usually come across as lip service. If they’re really interested in coloring outside the lines, they should take a closer look at the street art scene. Brands that think about cultivating icons, creating honest advertisements, and offering room for creative freedom will allow street artists do what they do best: amaze.

A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that Run the Jewels was launched in 2012; it was launched in 2014. 

The post What Can Brands Learn About Marketing From Street Art? appeared first on Contently.

Previously in Contently Comics

Size Matters

The Industrial Content Complex

Are You Ready for Some X-Treme Content Marketing?!

Is This What Your Content Marketing Brainstorm Looks Like?

The Super Bowl Commercial Store

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But it also matters where they read it.

I liken the day-to-day production of content to throwing a barbecue. If you like to grill and have lots of friends, barbecues are easy to host on a daily basis. I threw at least 15 during my final month of college. People will mosey over since you’re known for throwing good barbecues and the headline on the Facebook invite is enticing—something like: “Burgers, Beer, and Bocce: This BBQ Is Probably Better Than Whatever the Hell You’re Doing Right Now!”

And they’ll stay if the burgers are done right, the tunes aren’t annoying, and the beer isn’t Keystone Light. It’s about understanding what your audience wants and putting in the effort to deliver. If you do a good job, they’ll probably come back. Producing high-quality content on a day-to-day basis works the same way—people will keep coming back. If you’re a publisher—and particularly a brand publisher—building a reserve of reliability over time is the ultimate goal of the content game.

Yet, instead of consistently throwing content barbecues that keep people coming back, a lot of brands seem eager to just pay for the right to hand out burgers to random people in the mall. You may delight someone by handing them free meat, but you’re only going to see them again if they bother to seek you out, and they don’t even know where you live.

Your chances of building relationships with them would’ve been much greater if they came to your barbecue.

This is the difference between owned and earned/paid media. Fueled by the misconception that every interaction with branded content counts the same, brands are willing to ditch the arduous work of building an owned audience for just buying as many content impressions as possible. A few brands—American Express, Coca-Cola, Red Bull, BarkBox—have succeeded by getting millions of people each month to come read content on their sites. But most are just willing to pay six figures to sponsor content on publisher sites, popping up in the mall of BuzzFeed, content burger in hand. (“17 Burger Toppings You Never Expected From a Brand!”—I’m committed to pushing this metaphor to its limit.)

(Full disclosure: American Express and Coca-Cola are Contently clients.)

This isn’t to say there’s no value in people reading your content outside your owned site. Such a strategy can work, especially if you use that content to drive people back to your publication. By all means, pay for the ability to give someone a free burger, but only as long as you remember to tell them to check out the bacon, mushrooms, and Swiss bad boys being grilled up at your owned spot.

BBQ metaphors aside—because, quite honestly, I’m getting hungry—there are many reasons a reader on your owned media site is more valuable than a reader on an external site. Just consider these three:

1. The branding

If I read a HubSpot article on the HubSpot blog, I’m very aware I’m reading an awesome piece of content from HubSpot. If I read it on Relevance.com and there’s just a line of text at the bottom of the article that says, This article originally appeared on HubSpot.com, that’s much less likely to register.

2. Relationship building

If you’re a brand, the goal isn’t to drive pageviews so you can sell ads; it’s to build relationships with readers. If a reader is consuming a piece of content on your site, there’s a much better chance of building that relationship. They may simply come back to the owned site for more content. Or they may choose to sign up for an email, or click the button that allows them to follow you on Twitter and LinkedIn. Or they may just consume more content and spend more time on your site, which will strengthen that relationship. And you can track and measure any actions they take—now and in the future.

3. The possibility of conversion

If readers are consuming content on an owned site, there’s always a chance they’ll check out what else you offer as a company, and, heck, maybe even buy something. Content marketers dream about conversions the way grillers dream about hearing their burgers are the best burgers people have ever eaten.

So the next time someone tells you owned media doesn’t really matter, hand them a Grimace costume and a tray of burgers. It may be that person’s job in a few years anyway.

Contently arms brands with the tools and talent to become great content creators. Learn more.

The post If You Ignore Owned Media, You Might End Up Serving Burgers appeared first on Contently.

That’s certainly not the only problem, either. The challenge with virality and pageviews stems from a lack of diversification in traffic sources. When a publisher focuses on generating traffic instead of developing an audience, it primarily gains unique views through social networks like Facebook. When Facebook tweaked their News Feed algorithm, these viral sites got crushed.

Moreover, these sites frequently don’t even craft their own content. They browse sites like Reddit and republish articles to their own audiences. Sometimes, they share the same content—here’s an instance when Distractify and Viral Nova shared the same photo. Instead of creating unique material, they spend most of their time crafting headlines that entice readers to click through in order to generate pageviews.

Despite their overall popularity, these clickbait sites finally prove that the pageview is no longer a valuable engagement measurement. Much like how the publications that profited during the age of yellow journalism, such as Pulitzer’s New York World or Hearst’s New York Journal, faded to make way for the higher-quality publications we know and love today, the legacy metric of the pageview will pass on in order for journalism and branded content to evolve.

As the evolution continues, what are the new metrics that editors, journalists, and content marketers should pay attention to?

Engagement: Branding and storytelling

While storytelling is widely praised for its implicit value, it will always be a difficult quality to measure. Many marketers may overlook the concept because it lacks ROI, but storytelling has been used to great effect by plenty of businesses looking to connect with customers and generate new business.

Instead of judging the success of a marketing campaign on pageviews and circulation, understand the value of measuring engagement by using metrics like time spent per page or time spent with brand. For example, UNICEF launched “Tap,” a campaign that promises to provide clean water to a child for a day for each minute users doesn’t touch their phone. The campaign is mobile-only, another sign of how browsing habits are constantly changing.

At this point, the webpage is a relic. The infinite scroll, a popular design technique used by just about every site at this point, requires new measurements capable of capturing value.

Retention: Don’t build traffic, build an audience

Soon, chasing fast clicks won’t be a sustainable business model or a silver-bullet metric for publishers. The focus continues to shift toward building a platform and an audience. And more useful metrics for success will monitor how many readers you have and how likely those readers are to return to your site.

Via Chartbeat

Chartbeat CEO Tony Haile believes in measuring the time readers spend on the page engaging—scrolling, clicking, writing, reading, and watching—and correlating that number with the average reader’s propensity to return. This method helps determine the progress of publishers’ platform development based on the likelihood of readers to return in 30 days. To this end, Haile has created a new solution that helps publishers track which readers are consistently responding to a particular site.

Conversion: Keeping the close in mind

In addition to engagement and retention, keep your finger on the pulse of the most fundamental metric: conversion. As 99U Managing Editor Sean Blanda says, “Most branded content has a conversation in mind—an email sign-up, a purchase, etc. That’s what you measure. I’d rather have 1,000 dedicated readers and convert 10 percent of them, than have 100,000 and convert no one.”

While pageviews are crucial for advertising-supported publications (to help gauge circulation), they are a small piece of the puzzle for content marketing initiatives and publications supported more heavily through subscriptions. Engagement and retention are more important figures, but conversion is the most significant.

Conversion is lower down the content marketing funnel than engagement and retention, which makes it difficult to attain and very important to track. In journalism, a conversion could be a subscription to paywall content or a print magazine. In content marketing, conversions could be sales, lead generation, or permission marketing metrics.

Engagement and retention are helpful, but conversions pay the bills.

Closing thoughts

Instead of chasing the vanity metric of pageviews in the hopes of striking viral gold, publishers need to turn their attention to crucial concepts like engagement, retention, and conversion moving forward. In the long run, those who fail to evolve will not only be left behind, they’ll probably wind up out of business, as well.

Contently arms brands with the tools and talent to become great content creators. Learn more.

The post Why Content Marketers Need to Stop Chasing Pageviews appeared first on Contently.

Vintage isn’t a product of the digital age by any means. Since an acquisition in 2000, it’s been owned by beverage company Cott, which was founded in the 1950s and primarily produces private-label beverages for large retailers. And Vintage’s online metrics – 1,400 Twitter followers and 1,200 Facebook likes – won’t impress anyone. Scanning through the sparse social profiles, one gets the impression Vintage has used Facebook and Twitter on a preliminary basis at best. The Twitter account launched last summer and averages about two tweets per day, mostly engagement with current fans who have tweeted at it.

The new Vintage Seltzer bottles

Bringing in new customers in the digital space will require more creative thinking. It started with a packaging overhaul last year that brought its bottles a newer, more retro-cool look and emphasized the Vintage logo more. The next step in the process is a social and content strategy.

“Being new to the digital arena, we want to create a digital personality that matches the brand in the minds of the fanbase,” said Keith Mohler, marketing manager of Vintage. Supermarket shoppers may recognize the minimalist polka-dot design on the brand’s bottles, and Vintage has begun to translate that classic aesthetic to the Internet with seltzer-themed recipes. Their Pinterest profile includes repins to cocktails like the Sumo Collins, which mixes gin with seltzer, lemon, and an orange wheel. There’s even a recipe for seltzer cupcakes.

Despite the recent strides, Vintage is fighting an uphill battle, especially in an ultra-competitive carbonated beverage market that has seen profits shrink in the last decade. New companies offer everything from acai water to odd bottle shapes like “Dasani Drops” to various creative forms of caffeination, making it even tougher for a basic brand like Vintage to stand out. Simultaneously marketing the brand’s utility as a sugarless thirst-quencher and a cocktail-mixer could help consumers take notice quickly.

Mohler also mentioned “using the space as a conduit to have a conversation sharing big news on the brand at regular intervals to keep it relevant and anticipated.” Building off of its name, Vintage has started a “Vintage Moments” history facts series on Twitter, most recently on June 6 in remembrance of D-Day.

While Mohler and Vintage hope to use their new content to fuel increased sales, they can always look to one of their main competitors, Polar Seltzer, for a digital blueprint — as well as a reminder to not simply copy their strategy. Polar has connected all of its social accounts to a comprehensive website that lets consumers explore limited-edition flavors and 25 original cocktail recipes. Users can also subscribe to a newsletter that offers seasonal recipes and exclusive discounts.

Polar has established a significant following – over 10,000 Facebook likes and nearly 600 Instagram followers – with a strong commitment to colorful visuals that help overshadow the monotony of clear bubbles. The brand is also posting more than ten pieces of content each day on Twitter, compared to one or two posts from Vintage.

Mohler says that Vintage will use the next few months to “learn which [approaches] work best for the brand and tweak accordingly for maximum impact.”

Yet, when leaping this late into the digital arena, tweaking may not be enough to avoid fizzing out, a fact Mohler and his six social media staffers are aware of as they look to spark online consumer interaction moving forward.

The post The Struggle To Make Seltzer Sexier appeared first on Contently.

But what about the brand that puts all others to shame? The brand that has used social content to rally the support of millions, and demonstrated that Twitter and Facebook have more marketing power than anyone thought possible? The brand that’s rewriting 200-year-old media rules as we speak?

We don’t often think about the Obama administration as a brand. But we should.

The Puppet Master?

Recently, Politico made headlines with “Obama, the Puppet Master,” a story that cast President Obama as a “master at limiting, shaping and manipulating media coverage of himself and his White House.” According to Politico, the Obama administration does this by eschewing press corps stalwarts like The Washington Post, Politico, and The New York Times in favor of friendly, “softball” interviews and social media interactions.

The complaints sound like sour grapes from a political news organization that has seen Obama’s following and reach greatly exceed its own, shifting the balance of media power in the president’s favor. Past presidents needed the journalism big boys to get their messages out, but if President Obama wants to reach millions of Americans, he doesn’t need The Post — all he needs is his Twitter login.

The Obama administration, of course, isn’t the only brand that’s figured out that it can be its own media company. Major brands used to need media outlets to reach consumers; now, all they need is new media skills and something interesting to say.

A Journey to Social

If every brand could amass 32 million Facebook fans and 28 million Twitter followers like Obama, the marketing world would be a much different place. But the presidentdidn’t amass his media empire overnight; it took six years of dedicated social engagement to build.

In February of 2007, shortly before announcing his candidacy for president, then-Senator Obama spoke with his friend Marc Andreessen, founder of Netscape and a Facebook board member. They met late at night at a San Francisco airport. According to The New York Times, Obama asked Andreessen if social networking could help him defeat the powerful Clinton political machine.

“It was like a guy in a garage who was thinking of taking on the biggest names in the business,” Andreessen told The Times. “What he was doing shouldn’t have been possible … He was clearly supersmart and very entrepreneurial, a person who saw the world and the status quo as malleable.”

To attract support through Facebook and Twitter, Obama needed to create content that would deliver value to people’s lives and inspire them to spread the word. Luckily, Obama already had a “Patient Zero” for that kind of viral content: Obama’s 2004 DNC speech, which captivated Americans with its message of hope, and became one of the first political speeches to go viral on YouTube. Obama would go on to win the presidency by delivering non-stop doses of hope through social media.

Content: The Ultimate Political Weapon

By the time Obama was sworn in, he had amassed millions of followers on Facebook and Twitter and had the email addresses of millions of supporters. In other words, he had a direct line to the American people. President Obama used that direct line to rally support during his bloody battles with Republicans over health care, the deficit, and everything in between.

President Obama also turned this policy talk into a two-way conversation, launching the We The People petition platform in September 2011 and promising a response to any petition that garnered 25,000 electronic signatures.

As the Obama presidency matures, the administration is getting better and better at using social content as a weapon in battles with Republicans. Politico’s “Puppet Master” story focuses on one instance in January, when the White House released a photo of President Obama shooting skeet at Camp David, in order to end speculation that the President had lied when he told The New Republic that he shot skeet “all the time.” Instead of handing the photo to the press, members of Obama’s senior staff tweeted the photo out to the masses. David Plouffe’s tweet was particularly entertaining and masterfully crafted: “Attn skeet birthers. Make our day — let the photoshop conspiracies begin!”

This move clearly irked Politico, and it’s a sign of how the times have changed. The political junkie who religiously read The Times 15 years ago is now the political junkie who follows Plouffe on Twitter. He won’t need to read Plouffe’s words in The Times, where they would most likely be juxtaposed to critical quotes from the other side.

The skeet tweet was part of President Obama’s multi-pronged content attack to sway American opinion on gun control. Since the shooting, President Obama and Vice President Biden have both talked gun control policy with Americans via Google Hangouts. After user David G. launched a gun control petition on the We The People platform that became the most popular cause ever on the platform, the White House released a comprehensive response, including a personal response video from the president, which was viewed almost 400,000 times. The White House also quickly launched a stunning and informative micro-site on preventing gun violence. It’s the kind of work that ad agencies gush over at SXSW and Cannes.

While the White House Press Corps may be getting less access to President Obama, the average American is getting much more access than ever before. The White House’s digital briefing room lets you track everything from the President’s daily schedule, to his pending legislation, to each White House press briefing. President Obama also films a weekly Saturday morning address to the nation, and Vice President Biden is launching an photo-podcast series, dubbed “Being Biden,” that gives Americans a behind-the-scenes peak at the VP’s life off the public schedule. All of this content, in addition to various other images and infographics that support Obama’s positions or put him in a flattering light, is distributed through the White House’s various social channels.

The Obama administration is on a never-ending mission to execute the golden rule of content marketing: Figure out what your fans are talking about, and own that conversation. Whether the conversation is about gun control, taxes, Michelle’s bangs, or the day-to-day happenings of The White House, the Obama administration owns the talking points masterfully. It’s time for brands to take note and learn a few lessons from the greatest brand publisher on the planet.

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