Polished copy is easy now with AI. You can quickly write blog posts, social campaigns, video scripts, thought leadership essays, white papers, and podcasts at scale across every imaginable format and channel. And yet, after the content is published, it’s quickly forgotten.

What now separates authentic, smart content from forgettable (and sometimes regrettable) non-strategic content is taste.

When every piece of content imaginable is easy to make, deciding what not to make becomes the real work. The brands pulling ahead of everyone else are the ones making taste a core element of their content creation process.

Taste describes the ability to consistently distinguish what fits from what doesn’t. It’s an exercise in judgment about what deserves to exist in the first place. Taste is a skill that enables content teams to determine what’s worth an audience’s time from what merely fills a content calendar.

The Judgment Call

It used to be that content teams, measured by their ability to produce faster, more efficiently, at higher volume, had the advantage. But this edge has dulled as content has become a commodity. It’s simply not good enough to have “good enough” content.

Content that can be easily produced by tools and systems is competent and fluent by default. What’s often missing is judgment.

Judgement can’t be commoditized. Judgement is thinking. It’s like when a content team takes a dozen viable ideas and chooses only the three worth pursuing. When a person instinctively reframes a piece and trims it down so that what’s being communicated is genuine and advances the message, they’re making a judgment call.

Editors have always known what’s worth making and what’s best left out. The sharpest content teams are taking their cue from editors and gaining a competitive edge.

More Content Isn’t The Same as More Impact

Most organizations default to pursuing more content. More blog posts. More thought leadership. But publishing everything without taste doesn’t necessarily lead to better results.

Brands also risk diluting their message when they overload their audience with content. According to Accenture, 74% of empowered consumers walked away from purchases simply because they felt overwhelmed. Content overload works the same way. What readers want is clarity. If they get that from the content they read, they stay and reward brands with their trust. Bore or bombard them with content, and they often leave quietly.

The trap of producing more content is seductive because the metrics lag behind the damage. Publishing more can keep the pageviews and open rates looking fine for months, even as readers slowly lose interest. By the time the decline shows up in the numbers, the problem has been compounding for a long time—because nobody was asking whether any of it was worth making.

What “Taste” Actually Means

Taste sounds inherently subjective. You either have, or you don’t. But in practice, it’s far more concrete than its reputation suggests.

Content guardrails tell you what to do or not to do. For example, brand guidelines tell brands how to sound. Taste takes on a harder question: What’s actually worth making?

Creative taste involves a clear sense of what fits and what doesn’t. Organizations that have it know their own voice well enough that they don’t need to watch what other brands are doing (though your content is also competing for a spot in AI-generated answers).

Brands using taste to their advantage accept that not every audience segment will be served by every piece. They also know that there’s a payoff to being opinionated when it serves the strategy, because the safest content is often the least memorable.

Codifying Taste Without Killing Creativity

Taste can be scalable when shared, but avoid the temptation of turning “taste” into a checklist or formula. How can you define taste in a structured way so that creativity flourishes?

First: Show, don’t tell. Nothing communicates taste faster than showing people what good looks like and what it doesn’t. Collections of the brand’s best work, annotated with notes on why it works, give teams a reference point far more useful than abstract principles alone.

Second: Set clear principles. Principles can help lock in content teams to what taste is, as long as the principles are clear. An example, “We explain, we don’t lecture,” sets a standard while allowing for interpretation. Principles point content teams in a direction. But they also need freedom to experiment and adapt messaging without going off-brand.

The balance that works is shared standards plus human discretion. The system provides the framework. The people provide the judgment.

Editors Were Right All Along

As the volume of potential content grows, the need for experienced judgment grows with it. Senior editors and creative directors are filters. They’re the members of the team who look at a week’s worth of planned output and ask whether it actually says anything new.

Senior editorial leaders don’t just catch errors or enforce style guides; they decide whether content is worth sharing with the world. They set the standard for what makes sense while serving as a bridge between strategy and creative execution.

From a business standpoint, investing in strong editorial leadership helps manage risk. Any piece of content that falls short costs the company something, such as audience attention, brand reputation, or internal resources. Leaders who prevent mediocre work from being published help protect the value that’s hard to recover once it’s lost.

Taste Offers A Real Creative Advantage

The future of content belongs to teams who can say, with confidence, this is us, this isn’t, and this is worth your time.

Content creation will get easier as tools get better. Taste remains the throughline that keeps brands coherent, credible, and distinct.

The volume of content will keep increasing. But the organizations that treat editorial judgment as a strategic asset will be the ones whose content still matters five years from now.

Building that kind of editorial capability doesn’t happen by accident. It takes experienced leadership, shared systems, and a commitment to quality over quantity. Connect with Contently to work with expert managing editors who can help your team develop the taste and judgment that turns content from output into advantage.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs):

How do I build “taste” into my team if we don’t have a senior editor?

You may not have a senior editor yet, but you can still take key steps to establish “taste” guidelines for your team. First, gather five to ten pieces that your team thinks are their best work and note why each one succeeded. This will be your “taste” reference set. Next, create two or three clear editorial principles to guide decisions, but flexible enough to encourage creativity. Keep updating the reference set and refining the principles over time, revisiting them every quarter.

How do I convince leadership that publishing less content is the right move?

Leadership will likely want more. So offer a new perspective—too much content can weaken the brand and reduce trust. Also, producing too much can stretch resources thin, resulting in team burnout. Then connect the idea of less content to real results, such as the pipeline, engagement, or earned media generated in the last two quarters. Compare that data to the total output. Usually, a small portion of content drives most of the results. This data helps make your case.

How long does it take to see results after shifting from volume to judgment?

Plan for one full quarter. In month one, review past work and set standards. The team uses them on new projects in month two. By month three, expect results: better engagement, fewer revisions, and clearer priorities. This information will give your team a stronger understanding of what’s worth creating. Be sure to agree on this timeline with leadership before starting.

The post The Future of Content Belongs to the Tastemakers appeared first on Contently.

Though the SI snafu occurred in the early, Wild West days of ChatGPT’s mainstream adoption, its lessons linger two years later. The sloppy AI articles eroded reader trust — a precious and tenuous commodity in today’s world of fake news and algorithm-fueled outrage.

While marketers have different stakes than media outlets, they’re playing with the same volatile mix of automation and audience expectation. As every B2B marketer who’s had to scrub the phrase “rapidly evolving tech landscape” from an AI-generated blog post knows, chatbots have a tendency to produce generic platitudes or even blatant misinformation.

Don’t get me wrong: AI has plenty of upside. It can help you scale your content like never before. But only if you teach it to sound unmistakably like you — and keep a watchful eye on its work.

Here’s how to avoid becoming the next cautionary tale.

Put up guardrails before you unleash the bots

Marketers are getting more hands-on with the fine-tuning and orchestration behind generative AI engines. You might be building a custom GPT to answer customer questions in your brand’s tone, feeding a writing assistant AI your top-performing articles for inspiration, or integrating AI into your CMS or email workflows to auto-generate first drafts.

All these cases involve understanding the basics of training AI on brand-aligned inputs and clear intent signals. Train a chatbot well, and it can produce remarkable work. Leave it to guesswork and vague direction, and it will confidently wing it with results that may sound professional but miss the mark in any number of ways.

Savvy content teams use a three-layered safety net that any team can implement quickly, regardless of technical expertise:

1. Start with reusable prompts. These are essentially scripts that the AI must follow every time it writes for you. Specify exactly who it’s speaking to, which tone to use, and which words or topics are off-limits.

2. Add a built-in cheat sheet. Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) sounds intimidating, but the concept is simple: Instead of relying only on what a model remembers, RAG lets AI pull relevant facts from a trusted source — your database of approved quotes, product specs, or brand guidelines — as it writes. This gives the AI a live reference doc to consult so it stays grounded in accurate info.

3. Layer in quality control. Run every draft through an automated style checker to flag banned words and tone inconsistencies. Then, have a human editor do the final sweep for nuance and legal compliance.

Start cautious with heavy human oversight, then gradually automate more as your guardrails prove reliable. The beauty of this system is that it scales with your confidence.

Feed AI great examples, not a data dump

Your first instinct might be to feed an AI model every piece of content you’ve ever published — but resist that urge. Just as with onboarding a new writer, when it comes to AI-assisted content creation, quality trumps quantity.

In other words, a few dozen pieces that perfectly capture your voice will teach an AI system better than thousands of mediocre examples mixed with outdated content that no longer reflects your brand.

Here’s a three-step playbook for this process:

1. Start building a “gold standard” dataset with content that already works. This might involve flagship blog posts that have performed well in the past, genuine thought leadership, landing pages with strong conversion rates, or customer support emails that have received positive responses.

2. Give it rich context. Tag each piece with metadata about audience, funnel stage, geographic region, and any compliance requirements. This teaches the AI when to be playful (like for a social media post) and when to stay clinical (for a technical white paper).

3. Be intentional with what you leave out. Not every high-performing asset belongs in your training set. If a piece doesn’t reflect how you want the AI to write going forward, don’t include it — no matter how well it performed at the time.

Test, tune, and toss what doesn’t work

Once your guardrails are solid and content examples carefully curated, you can start adjusting the AI’s output to match your voice more precisely. Think of this phase like onboarding a talented new employee who understands the basics but needs to learn your company’s specific way of doing things.

Start by cleaning up your training materials. Delete boilerplate text or legal footers that might confuse the model. AI systems learn patterns quickly, so you want them picking up your unique voice — not generic jargon that appears in thousands of other companies’ content.

Here are a few best practices to consider at this stage:

1. Choose your level of intervention carefully. For most brands, lightweight adjustments using Low-Rank Adaptation (LoRA) work well — they’re fast, affordable, and often effective for subtle voice tweaks. Full model retraining, on the other hand, is expensive and time-consuming. The latter should be reserved for companies with truly distinctive voices (and big budgets).

2. Test systematically. Split your examples into training, validation, and testing groups using a 70/20/10 ratio. Have human editors rate the AI’s output on tone and accuracy without knowing which pieces are AI-generated versus human-written. This blind testing reveals whether your training actually improved the voice match or just taught the AI to mimic surface-level patterns.

3. Finally, make sure the math works. If the cost of GPU time and platform fees exceeds the editing hours you save within six months, pause and reassess your approach. AI should make your team more efficient, not drain your budget on computing costs.

People power your AI’s potential

Even the smartest content marketers run into predictable AI stumbles. “Tone drift” happens when an AI’s voice gradually veers off-brand over time. “Grand sentence syndrome” is another frequent offender — you know, those overly complex, academic-sounding phrasings that no human would ever utter in a casual conversation. Then there are punctuation quirks (hello, endless em dashes and gratuitous gerunds) and hallucinations, when AI confidently fabricates facts out of thin air.

People are the secret sauce that can turn AI from a liability into a differentiator. Today’s content teams need solid talent to fine-tune the tech and enforce editorial standards, including:

• Prompt architects who know how to steer tone and structure through careful A/B testing
• Model specialists who can evaluate which tools and settings deliver the best results for each content type
• Journalistically minded editors with strong fact-checking chops to catch red flags before a piece publishes

AI can amplify everything that makes your brand voice memorable, or it can flatten that personality into forgettable corporate-speak. The deciding factor isn’t the size of your dataset or sophistication of your model — it’s the clarity of your guidelines and the expertise of your editors.

Want AI to nail your brand voice without the headaches? Contently’s AI Studio takes care of the setup, fine-tuning, and editorial oversight — so you get better content, faster, and with less risk. Chat with us today to scale faster and sound better doing it.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What’s the biggest risk of using AI in content marketing?

The short answer: sounding generic or getting facts wrong. Without strong guardrails, AI tends to default to safe but stale phrasing — or worse, confidently fabricates misinformation (a.k.a. hallucinations). That’s why the most effective teams pair AI tools with human editors, prompt testing, and fact-checking systems that keep brand voice sharp and content credible.

How much content do I need to train an AI on my brand voice?

Less than you think — as long as it’s the right content. A few dozen examples that clearly reflect your tone, structure, and audience fit are far more valuable than a massive archive of outdated or inconsistent pieces. Focus on quality over quantity, and tag each piece with helpful metadata like audience, funnel stage, and channel to give the AI proper context.

How can I tell if my AI training efforts are actually working?

Treat it like a science experiment: Split your sample into training, validation, and test sets (think 70/20/10). Then, have human reviewers rate the outputs without knowing which were written by AI and which weren’t. If your team can’t consistently tell the difference — or if AI-generated drafts require fewer edits — you’re on the right track.

The post How to Train AI for Bulletproof Brand Voice: Top Tips and Tricks appeared first on Contently.

Developing a distinctive voice defines your brand’s unique identity and builds a sense of authenticity with customers—an increasingly important factor in sales. Research from Asendia found that 65 percent of consumers are more likely to shop with brands they feel are authentic.

Getting there isn’t easy, though. Your team could spend hours debating whether your brand is more of a Beyoncé—powerful, versatile, and inspiring—or a Freddie Mercury—bold, charismatic, and passionately unique.

Brand voice exercises can help channel creativity where it’s most needed and develop a content strategy that hits all the right notes. Here are a few to try at your next brainstorming session.

Choose a celebrity spokesperson

Even if you don’t have the budget for a celebrity spokesperson, thinking about which star you’d pick can be a useful brand voice exercise.

Have everyone on your team jot down the three celebrity spokespeople they’d recommend for your brand. These can be actors, musicians, entrepreneurs, activists, political personalities, historical figures, literary characters, or archetypes—as long as they’re not actually associated with your company.

This branding exercise lets you lean into your brand’s identity or playfully subvert it. Either way, you’ll get key insights about where you can take your brand voice.

For example, if you’re Coca-Cola, you might suggest Tom Hanks. Known for his feel-good roles, the actor is iconic and relatable across generations—just the match for a classic, all-American soda brand.

Already known for infusing its commercials with subtle humor, Capital One might pick Martha Stewart. Her insider trading scandal makes her an edgy pick for a brand in the financial sector, but she could give comically exaggerated tips on turning mundane financial tasks into crafty rituals.

If you’re a bold and creative brand like Ben & Jerry’s, Frida Kahlo could be a great fit. The artist was fearless, expressive, and unconventional—just like the ice cream company’s topping-packed pints.

And who better to represent Cadillac than Samuel L. Jackson? His confident, commanding presence and fearless attitude embody the brand’s image as a symbol of prestige and performance.

Play with your picks, including both obvious and edgy spokespeople, to see how they influence your brand voice.

Describe the opposite of your brand

If you have an established strategy, it’s easy to get comfortable describing your brand voice with the same handful of adjectives. Once your team repeats those four words over and over for a long period of time, they start to lose their meaning. This branding exercise helps combat this creative stall by having your team think about what your brand is not. It’s one of the best brand exercise questions to refine your voice.

Take Ikea, for instance. Ikea is minimalist but not boring. It’s accessible without being generic. Patagonia is eco-conscious but not preachy, and its designs are stylish without sacrificing functionality. Lego is imaginative but not overly complex. It encourages creativity and problem-solving without being overwhelming.

This gets easier as you jump from brand to brand, and you can always try out a few before taking on your own. Rolex is timeless but not old-fashioned. Dove is inclusive but not overly sentimental. Trader Joe’s is fun but not frivolous. You get the idea.

Go to a hypothetical dinner party

This one’s a classic. If your brand could come to life as a person at a dinner party, who would you be? And if dinner parties aren’t a thing with your audience, sub in something more relevant. The high school cafeteria, a frat party, even a busy gym can all work for this brand voice exercise.

Let’s try this one with airlines at a dinner party. Delta might be the dependable, well-traveled guest who effortlessly helps the host take care of everyone. JetBlue makes everyone chuckle by sharing the latest memes on their smartphone. American Airlines is the formal one who knows exactly which utensils to use at every course. And Southwest’s casual and approachable vibe puts everyone at ease.

Consumers do this branding exercise for companies all the time, so you might as well give it a try on your end. For more inspiration, check out this brand archetypes infographic from Printsome. It categorizes household name brands into different archetypes. M&M’s is a jester on a mission to enjoy life, Google is a sage on a quest for knowledge, and Crayola is a creator who’s “non-conforming by nature.” Which archetype would best represent your brand and why?

Read your social media posts out loud

This is an exercise often practiced by novelists, playwrights, and fiction writers who want to make sure their dialogue really sizzles. If a person who doesn’t work as a writer feels odd reading a character’s dialogue aloud, that tells the writer the copy may need work.

Not all your social media copy needs to translate perfectly to the ear, but certain things will become obvious if you take turns reading tweets, LinkedIn posts, and Facebook updates out loud. Your messaging might sound too robotic, or you’ll begin to notice that you’ve peppered into too many exclamation points.

At a previous job, we had an unofficial habit of declaring ourselves “thrilled” to do everything—thrilled to receive invoices, thrilled to send a draft, thrilled to attend a conference. It got disingenuous very quickly.

If you stumble over certain words or find yourself cringing over a phrase, it’s a sign that the language might need simplification or a more conversational touch to help your brand voice come through.

Study your audience from afar

Social media marketers are eager to talk to their audience and build a sense of community. But simply reading—without commenting or interjecting—can be a helpful brand voice exercise. It teaches you what your customers actually sound like and gives you ideas for tailoring the way you communicate with them.

Let’s say you’re in charge of audience engagement at a tech startup that’s just developed an app for working mothers. Before you start creating content, find out how these mothers speak to each other on Facebook, X, TikTok, and Instagram. Do they use a lot of emojis? Do they quote-tweet each other with commentary instead of simply retweeting?

If they’re sharing inspirational, positive videos, that’s a move you can follow. If they share stories about modern parenting, set up some Google alerts and post on-brand articles about relevant aspects of your audience’s lives on your feed.

What you say and how you say it matters.

There’s no right way to do these brand voice exercises. However, you do have to decide how closely you want your brand to sound to your target demo. Some consumers might enjoy being addressed by brands who see them as equals, especially if you’re in the food and beverage industry, but many others follow brands in a more aspirational sense that warrants authority and professionalism.

For instance, I would very much like to be a Free People woman, but budget-wise, I’m more like a TJ Maxx woman. If Free People started branding themselves as a hub for bargain shoppers, I wouldn’t be so inclined to save for a sweater as soon as it goes on sale. That would seriously dilute my concept of what they sell—the dream that a young woman might leave Manhattan, move to Santa Fe, and dress only in naturally dyed linen pants and learn to paint.

Is your brand a friend to your consumers where they are today? Or do you sell the goods they hope to buy frivolously in 5 years? Your brand voice has to make that clear.

Ask the Content Strategist: FAQs about brand voice exercises

How often should I do a branding exercise and update my brand voice?

It’s a good practice to review and potentially update your brand voice annually or whenever significant changes occur in your market or business strategy. Regular check-ins ensure your brand voice remains relevant and resonant with your audience.

What if my team has conflicting views on the brand voice?

If there are differing opinions, consider using a structured approach to decision-making, such as voting or consensus-building sessions. Clear guidelines and objectives can help align the team and focus on what best represents the brand’s goals.

How do I ensure that my brand voice remains consistent across different platforms and channels?

Consistency can be achieved by creating a detailed brand voice guide that outlines tone, style, and messaging rules for each platform. Regular training and audits will help maintain uniformity across all channels.

Looking for more creative ways to define and refine your brand voice? Subscribe to The Content Strategist for insights and practical advice.

The post For Content That Hits All the Right Notes, Try These Brand Voice Exercises appeared first on Contently.

For the record, using clear, colloquial language in your work is good. It makes content accessible and helps audiences understand what you’re trying to convey. But marketers may be conflating conversational and agreeable, which is leading to blander stories that lack in-depth advice. This is especially crucial in financial services where people make life-changing decisions with their money.

Using StoryBook, which integrates Voice and Tone data from IBM Watson, we scored the brand voice and tone of every piece of content in our report across five traits: agreeableness, conscientiousness, extraversion, emotional range, and openness. (Scores range between 0 and 1.) We found a correlation between a low agreeableness score and better-performing content, especially for stories about investing.

The new fintech companies and B2B brands, on average, are more comfortable with this style than the big banks and their consuming-facing content.

We also drilled into the data a bit more, looking at just the top 100 pieces per sector, based on most social shares. On average, the most successful stories in fintech and B2B had even lower agreeableness scores.

In this context, agreeableness refers to a person’s tendency to be compassionate, cooperative, and compromising. It also suggests a dislike of confrontation.

There’s definitely a place for compassion in marketing, but finserv audiences also benefit from hard-hitting, assertive counsel rather than vague or meek recommendations. Think of the contrarian prediction that pays off or the practical assessment that delivers honest advice. These traits are particularly important when talking about investing strategies because companies can ensure their content stands out.

Binance, for instance, pulled this off with “A Beginner’s Guide to Day Trading Cryptocurrency,” which has an agreeableness score of .04 and has been shared over 5,000 times on social media. Of course Binance’s content team hopes people will use their exchange to invest, but the guide doesn’t sugarcoat the details. It breaks down “the highly stressful and very demanding” life of a day trader and recommends follow-up resources people should consult before jumping in.

If marketers want to make their content more approachable, they should instead focus on the reading level of their content and run it through a Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level analysis. This reveals what grade level would be most comfortable understanding your work based on factors like the number of words per sentence and syllables per word. (For reference, this report reads at a 9th-grade level, just about where you’d find a Malcolm Gladwell book.)

In general, marketers may have misconceptions about what they sound like and what audiences want. Many popular authors and journalists write at an elementary or middle school reading level. That’s because content written at lower reading levels are generally much more enjoyable to read. It’s also much more trustworthy. An Ohio State University study found that jargon-free content makes consumers much more engaged and eager to learn more about a product or service.

Even if your target audience is more educated, you can still benefit from simplifying your work. One thing that a lot of great content marketing has in common is the ability to make complex topics easy to understand. If the goal is to be conversational, then we should make sure there’s a system in place to have the right conversations with our customers.

Big takeaway: Study your brand voice and tone to see if there’s room to make your content more helpful and commanding.

The post Brand Voice Study: Should Your Content Be Authoritative or Agreeable? appeared first on Contently.

In the same breath, though, marketers will sell you on the importance of a unique voice, of differentiating your company from all the other companies. That cognitive dissonance deserves ridicule—as does a lot of what marketers say and do.

That’s what makes the R/GA Twitter account worth following on a daily basis. R/GA isn’t afraid to take a risk or make a joke. Over the last decade, it’s slowly hit the sweet spot of brands on Twitter: able to poke fun at an industry (and itself) without being too snide, silly, or stupid.

Content isn't king?

— R/GA (@RGA) October 25, 2019

I recently spoke with the person behind the account: Chapin Clark, R/GA’s EVP and managing director of copywriting. Clark revealed why the account evolved over time, what business goals he’s trying to accomplish, and how much time he spends on Twitter.

How did the R/GA account start, and why did you decide to run it?

I took over the R/GA account in 2009. That was the early days for Twitter. Before that, our corporate communications group was owning the account. A lot of organizations didn’t quite know what to make of Twitter. The account was a bit of a dumping group for job listings, press releases, that sort of thing.

Our head of corporate communications at the time realized that we should be doing more with it. She approached me because I had been tweeting for myself for awhile. She asked if I wanted to do it as an experiment, just see how it goes. There was no pressure for a long-term commitment.

Was it any different from the voice on your personal account?

I started with a high-minded thought process. I treated it like it was an advertising news account or something. I tweeted a lot of links to articles and thought people would be interested if I commented on trends.

Over time, I realized the world didn’t need another advertising news account. There’s Adweek, Ad Age, Digiday, Business Insider. All these companies, that’s their mission, and they do it well. I wasn’t adding much.

The only real perk of managing a corporate account in addition to your personal is you can like things twice.

— R/GA (@RGA) November 12, 2019

Are there any business objectives or goals aside from social media metrics?

Not losing clients. That’s the main business goal. That was a joke.

The number one goal is just to be interesting. Whether that’s to be funny or to make an observation that resonates with other people, to stand out in some way is the goal.

For R/GA, as the voice develops, we’ve gained more readers and more people looking at the account, which has translated into a greater interest from job-seekers. Also, in conversation with some clients, I’ve heard that there was greater interest in R/GA as a partner in social media campaign work and strategy as a result of the Twitter account. It signals that the agency understands how social media works and signals we walk the walk.

A lot of the posts are sardonic and self-effacing. Where do the ideas come from?

In the agency world, there’s a lot to poke fun at. Some of it is personal. It’s that things I observed directly in meetings and talking to people. I think a lot of it is just relatable.

Twitter is like a living thing. There’s a rhythm and a flow to it.

I think there are a lot of things that happen in our day that make us think like, why do we do things that way? Or why do people keep repeating that phrase? Am I the only one who thinks that doesn’t make sense? You can get a lot of mileage just in calling those things out. Because they’re not necessarily radically original brilliant observations. It’s more just saying what people are thinking already.

Have you ever had an instance when you heard from a colleague, and they came to you like, “Hey, wait a second, are you making fun of me?”

The opposite happens. They’re laughing and enjoyed it. I try to be careful about not making anyone feel bad personally. If I’m being critical, I try to make an effort to keep things general. I could be referring to one of twenty-eight different instances. It’s something that happens frequently, so there’s a large sample size.

As Twitter has evolved, I’ve seen a number of brands adopt this kind of voice—not necessarily doing it as well as you do. Have you thought about tweaking a little of what you do as these brands hopped on the trend?

Inevitably, you spend a lot of time on Twitter, and you’re immersed in it. You see what’s happening and the trends in terms of brand voice and what’s resonating with people. I think you’re either going to make some adjustments or veer away if you feel like there’s too much sameness.

Is it perhaps indicative of a larger problem that email has folders labeled "trash," "junk," "clutter," "infected," AND "quarantine"?

— R/GA (@RGA) October 22, 2019

Whether that’s happening consciously or unconsciously, I think it’s very organic. It’s not like, “Well today we need to pivot, so from now on the posts are going to be like this.” Twitter is like a living thing. There’s a rhythm and a flow to it. Not to get too corny about, but I think you’re always taking the pulse of it. And adjusting or not adjusting as it feels right.

On that note, have you made any conscious adjustments?

That’s a good question. I would say adjustments are less in reaction to what other people are doing and more in reaction to what I’ve been doing.

There are times when I realize I’ve gone to the well enough times with a certain thing. It’s more I’m fed up with myself, so I will make a conscious decision to stop doing a certain kind of post.

"Thoughtstarter" really needs to go therapy so it can understand why it undermines itself and can't fully embrace being an "idea."

— R/GA (@RGA) November 9, 2019

Are there other corporate accounts you look to or admire?

Most of the accounts I follow are outside of the advertising and brand marketing world. I follow a lot of people in comedy, whether it’s performers or comedy writers, a lot of media people, journalists.

I spend less time looking at corporate accounts, but I think there are a lot that execute well. Like MoonPie, who I laugh it. I think if you for forgot or if you masked that it was a brand account, a lot of stuff they post you just find very funny. But then you see it’s from a brand, then a lot of people poo poo it or cynically think they can’t like it.

My general attitude—and this applies to business books—is I feel like life is too short for business books and advice. There’s so much more to the richness of life. That’s the best thing about the internet, the odd, inexplicable things that don’t feat neatly into a category. Things that make you laugh and you can’t quite explain why. That’s what keeps me interested after all this time.

How much time do you spend on Twitter per day?

Way too much. I don’t look at my screen time to track how I use my phone, because that would be horrifying. But I would say that it’s not all wasted time. I’m reading about news, current events, and things that are important to be being a well-informed citizen. It’s personal stuff like sharing things with my children, in addition to just sort of frivolous stuff or work-related stuff. So it’s a little hard just to draw a line separating all those things. But it’s definitely a lot of time every day.

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed.

The post How R/GA’s Twitter Account Became the Best Follow in Marketing appeared first on Contently.

What exactly is the game of thrones? Well, it’s just a fanciful way of describing the struggle for political power over the show’s fictional landmass, Westeros. The person who ends up ruling the whole area literally sits on a throne made of iron swords, aka the Iron Throne.

For our purposes, the “game of thrones” is also a pretty good analogy for content marketing. As we know, if a team creates content, they either need to be the best at engaging their target audience, or they’re eventually going to watch their company fall apart. Many have learned by watching seven seasons of Game of Thrones that building trust and loyalty is everything. I mean, look what happened to Littlefinger.

That’s why we’re comparing each of the great (surviving) houses in Westeros to existing brands. If you’re willing to suspend some disbelief, come with us as we assess all the Westerosi families still standing for the final season. The comparison works out pretty well—every house in Westeros has a logo, signature personality, and content by way of a motto. At the end of the show, the house to win the game of thrones will likely be the one that demonstrates the best branding… and also sword-fighting.

House Baratheon: Nordstrom

House motto: “Ours is the fury”

House sigil: A black stag on a golden banner

Personality traits: Militaristic hunters, men’s men

Remaining heirs: Gendry Waters

Most likely to sell you: Whiskey, beef jerky

The memory of the once-great House of Baratheon was sullied slightly by the last member of the house to sit on the Iron Throne. Robert was a drunkard, but considering his wife Cersei was cheating on him with her brother Jamie, it’s hard to blame him. After Robert died, his younger brothers Renly and Stannis fought for power, but neither survived. Unbeknownst to most characters on Game of Thrones, Robert’s son Gendry has realized that the throne is sort of his birthright, so let’s start there.

As far as brands go, the Baratheons are like Nordstrom. A lot of people have fond memories of admiring their work, but their voice now feels a bit out of touch. “Ours is the fury?” Seriously? We’re all angry in Westeros. You don’t have to be angry for us.

Enter Gendry, the Westerosi equivalent of Nordstrom Rack. He has the brand’s core DNA and his father’s strong jaw, but he also recognizes that his family’s way of life is becoming obsolete. Better to remerge with new concepts (savings on designer clothing, supporting the King in the North) and hopefully attract a young audience (millennials, Arya).

House Greyjoy: Uber

House motto: “We do not sow”

Personality traits: Ruthless, independent, resilient

Remaining heirs: Yara Greyjoy, Theon Greyjoy, Euron Greyjoy

Most likely to sell you: B2B leadership training seminars, saltwater protection spray for your boat

Ah, a classic brand split between objectives. Right now, chaotic evil Euron leads most of the Greyjoy navy, and he’s holding his niece Yara prisoner. In the eleventh hour, disgraced Theon was able to rally a few rebel Greyjoys to go and save her, but we’re assuming that’s a suicide mission.

The Greyjoy brand is comparative to a company like Uber. Once upon a time, the man in charge did a bunch of off-putting, unethical stuff and kept flying off the handle during board meetings. He was eventually ousted, but the brand hasn’t quite regained the benefit of the doubt among target consumers, many of whom already switched their loyalty to a competitor—in this case, the Starks or Lannisters. In a swiftly changing world, every ridesharing company needs to come up with features that improve its service’s safety, usability, and impact on the economy. Unfortunately for Uber, they can rollout as many system updates as they want, but it takes more than efficiency to cement positive public opinion.

House Targaryen: Gawker

House motto: “Fire and blood”

Personality traits: Beyond a natural inclination for dragon-rearing, it really depends on the person. As Cersei tells Tyrion, “Half the Targaryens went mad, didn’t they? What’s the saying? ‘Every time a Targaryen is born, the gods flip a coin.'”

Remaining heirs: Daenerys Targaryen and her nephew/boyfriend Aegon Targaryen, aka Jon Snow

Most likely to sell you: Opal or moonstone jewelry, graphic design software

Targaryen brand awareness was once so widespread that people still talk about the house, decades after the last living Targaryen was in Westeros. As far as media brands go, the Targaryens are Gawker—not the Gawker subsidiary brands like Jezebel and Gizmodo. Long ago, the actions of the Targaryens were pretty polarizing, though their supporters demonstrated a near cult-following. Their reign ended in a flash of glory, and now, many years later, the House is back under new leadership.

Now, no one’s saying that Bryan Goldberg is the Daenerys of Gawker, but he would certainly love to be. The truth is, like the new version of Gawker that’s allegedly coming soon under new management (and with an all new staff), news of a Targaryen return has most of Westeros feeling pretty anxious. Your loyalty to the brand has a lot to do with what you remember from its last days in the sun. Either you’re a Westerosi citizen who fondly remembers gentle Rhaegar, or you’re immediately thinking about the Mad King Aerys II, in which case you’re not exactly buying what the newest Targaryen is selling.

House Lannister: Tesla

House motto: “Hear me roar!” and “A Lannister always pays his debts”

Personality traits: Proud, Machiavellian, cut-throat intellectuals

Remaining heirs: Cersei Lannister, Jamie Lannister, Tyrion Lannister

Most likely to sell you: Luxury clothing, stock in their company

Their leader has appeared in the news, positively and negatively, every week for years. The brand’s ideas were revolutionary and kickstarted a new era in technology. There’s been some rumors of unstable emotions, unethical business practices, and a weird romantic relationship in the company’s C-suite, and bottom tier employees are starting to leak stories and express their unhappiness. All of this is the Lannister legacy, but it’s also Tesla. That’s right—Cersei is the Elon Musk of Westeros.

If Cersei and Elon had their druthers, they’d be able to conduct business for their brand without having to answer to council at all. Both figures make rash decisions that threaten to affect the longevity of their brands, often ignoring their council and mocking them in public. They see professional dissent as personally insulting, and they keep churning out crazy answers to life’s problems that seem increasingly inaccessible to the average Joe: self-driving cars, wildfire bombs, flamethrowers, it’s all the same.

Though the Lannisters have high brand awareness—perhaps even the highest in Westeros—they’ve had a monopoly over the economy for so long that most loyal customers are ready to hear sales pitches from other brands.

House Stark: Patagonia

House motto: “Winter is coming”

Personality traits: Grim, pessimistic, hard-working

Remaining heirs: Sansa Stark, Arya Stark, Bran Stark, Aegon Targaryen, aka Jon Snow, and arguably Theon Greyjoy

Most likely to sell you: A sensible winter coat

As far as branded messaging goes, the Starks are ideal. Though they lost their CEO Ned Stark after he made some iffy decisions merging with other brands, Ned had so thoroughly immersed his core team in brand messaging that they’re all out here spreading the Stark gospel years later. Talk about a clean recovery! You could ask almost anyone on Westeros to describe the Stark brand, and they’ll likely be able to name a few characteristics, even if they’re not loyal to the brand itself.

Depending on who you ask, the Starks are either prescient or preachy, which means in the content marketing world, they’re Patagonia. Originally known for winter-wear, an outdoorsy aesthetic, and a love of nature, Patagonia has taken a political stance against the Trump administration in recent years. Like the Starks, Patagonia’s leaders feel they’ve been pushed too far, and they want to protect national parks, clean air, and the environment before it’s too late.

The post What If the ‘Game of Thrones’ Houses Were Brands? appeared first on Contently.

Last year, just after Thanksgiving, a post by the menswear brand Noah appeared in my Instagram feed. The ad was out of step with the Black Friday content I’d been seeing—it appeared to be a protest message. Noah posted an image of a skull and crossbones with the message that the online and New York flagship store would be closed for Black Friday. When you clicked that image, a small Marie Kondo-esque manifesto loaded: “We Are Drowning in Stuff.” The brand advocated for, “a tiny rebellion against the mindless (and lately dangerous) shopping that’s encouraged on Black Friday.”

There were a few naysayers in the hundreds of comments, a handful of shoppers assuming the brand just didn’t want to have a sale. But for the most part, Noah’s IG followers responded positively, showering the brand with heart emojis and even debating doubtful commenters. I scrolled through to get a sense of Noah beyond the holiday. It isn’t just that they’re telling the right story, but that they invested time in telling it again and again.

Hitting the right tone

Noah’s stand against Black Friday is just one way the company has made corporate responsibility a part of its messaging. From the website: “Noah seeks to take a stand against many of the appalling practices of the fashion industry. Our clothes are made in countries, mills and factories where tradition, expertise and human dignity take precedence over the bottom line. We donate portions of our profits to causes we believe in.”

That commitment to envisioning a more ethical fashion industry is starting to pick up support. Other “slow fashion” brands like womenswear darlings Elizabeth Suzanne and Jamie + the Jones also divested from Black Friday last year. Other companies have taken it even further. Patagonia, a company that already donates 1 percent of its annual profits, or over $89 million over the last three decades, gave 100 percent of its 2016 Black Friday profits to charity.

“Cause-based brands provide something clear that consumers can relate to and feel good about supporting,” said Elliot Fox, senior brand strategist at Complex Networks. “It accomplishes making their mission and M.O. clear from the jump.”

Like a non-profit, brands can engender support, trust, and loyalty by infusing their content and company vision with a progressive message. But that doesn’t mean brands can jump on the bandwagon of the latest cause. Those moves can backfire like Starbucks urging its baristas to have conversations with customers about race or Kendall Jenner leading the most selfie-worthy protest for Pepsi. They can also befuddle consumers, like Burger King taking a stand on net neutrality.

Instead of the big splashy commercial like Pepsi’s featuring really good looking people using hot-button topics as a way to sell soda, brands that thread their message into what they do very delicately, using social media as a needle, tend to do best.

“We see a trend among Gen. Z that they are interested in supporting brands with a mission that are doing good,” Fox said. “So it’s no big surprise that Noah is a thriving brand in the youth culture and streetwear scene.”

According to one report put out last year by MNI Targeted Media, over half of Generation Z members surveyed about their interests and habits said that knowing a brand is socially conscious influences their purchasing decisions.

Maybe now more than ever, consultants to CEOs are preaching the gospel of instilling brand confidence in savvy consumers. Target audiences have more company information at their fingertips than ever before. And brands are thinking outside the box to build trust.

Honesty is everything

How should a brand use content to prove its ethical practices and connect with people? To start, the progressive causes have to align with your brand values. Virtue signaling is one thing, but publicly adhering to social and political principles, and making sure your staff represents those principles, is another.

The Sprout Social report found that most consumers define transparency as being open, clear, and honest. That’s not as a clear-cut as it sounds. Customers are more equipped than ever to investigate what a company does behind the scenes. Brands that sell a message of inclusivity or environmentally conscious better be ready to back up that messaging with action.

If companies aren’t honest, they’re risking very public pushback from a consumer base that’s constantly expressing itself online. Consider 2017’s viral #DeleteUber campaign on Twitter if you need an example of how company policies can tarnish a brand’s reputation. The company continued to service JFK airport while taxi drivers went on strike against the government’s immigration ban. After the backlash, the ride-sharing app lost a reported 200,000 users.

Uber has gone to great lengths to try and win back the trust of consumers, ousting its own CEO and even setting aside $3 million to help drivers affected by the ban. While the public donations are a good start, maintaining consumer trust really hinges on a consistent, long-term commitment to transparency. The Sprout Social report cites how favored brands like Blue Apron communicate vendor information through their social channels, using Twitter to post recipes and profiles of their suppliers, and creating YouTube content to illuminate how they make certain ingredients.

Admit your mistakes, then fix them

Companies like Noah and Patagonia have used corporate responsibility to earn the trust of customers (for now). But what if they were to betray it?

Janine Robertson, a PR and marketing manager for Insect Shield, said transparency continues to remain important if things go wrong. “Own the issue or problem. Apologize openly. Outline the impact and changes in effect,” she said. “Essentially eat crow with grace, armed with meaningful follow-up strategies.”

Nike is one example of a brand that managed to change public perception, but it took time. In the past, the company had a bruised image due to ongoing allegations of sweatshop labor. Instead of trying to cover that controversy up, Nike decided to “publicly eat crow” long before Twitter or Facebook existed. “The Nike product has become synonymous with slave wages, forced overtime, and arbitrary abuse,” Nike CEO Phil Knight said in a game-changing 1998 speech. “I truly believe the American consumer doesn’t want to buy products made under abusive conditions.”

It was a huge deal to admit that in those pre-social media days. After that, the company looked to change course by raising wages, improving factory conditions and their environmental impact, and regularly documenting their progress via a sustainability report. While accusations of Nike using sweatshops have followed the company to this day, the brand is overwhelmingly favored over the competition by millenials, and it’s not just because the company knows how to market Air Jordans. Nike learned how to craft a message and put collective weight behind it.

In 2018, Nike continued its focus on corporate responsibility by featuring former quarterback Colin Kaepernick in an ad campaign with the slogan: “Believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything.” The ads spoke to a younger, more politically conscious audience. Then came the ensuing backlash. Videos of people lighting their Air Max shoes on fire, waged by people who believe NFL players don’t have a right to protest police brutality by kneeling during the national anthem, only fueled the passions of the core audience that Nike wants to capture.

Sure, the commercial was noteworthy, but Nike was being tested—were they really a progressive corporation that could connect with people?

“I think it’s about not being afraid to be open and honest with consumers, which sometimes means taking a risk,” Fox said. “Nike’s Kaepernick campaign was a good example of that last year. When they rolled out the campaign, there were various posts and quotes in articles with people from Nike discussing their inspiration and opinions behind the campaign. They came out across various platforms with a unified voice and opinion about what they were doing, and they stuck to their guns the entire time.”

The gamble ended up netting the company $6 billion in profits. But how long will consumers champion a brand that strives to be responsible on one front while organizations like the United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS) continue to call for boycotts?

In an environment where transparency and a progressive mission are key to the hearts of many consumers, only time will tell. But as the saying goes, trust takes a long time to build, seconds to break, and forever to repair.

The post Corporate Responsibility in the Age of Content and Social Media appeared first on Contently.

What could I have done as a new reporter at a publication? I wrote the thing, focusing mainly on the fantastical creatures and ignoring the fact that the movie’s plot, production design, and dialogue were all pretty terrible. Perhaps because I was the only writer to give Bright a good review, that hot take became my first Tomato-approved review on Rotten Tomatoes. To the rest of the world, I was suddenly the only person who enjoyed Netflix’s ridiculous movie. But a positive take on Bright wasn’t exactly the hill I wanted to die on.

Over the years, I’ve been asked to generate fiery opinions on a lot of inane topics. Many media companies still capitalize on knee-jerk emotions and reactionary op-eds. In the interest of generating these hot takes for site traffic, I’ve publicized my feelings about everything from political commentators to convicted murderers, and I admit that I’ve found the rhythm of the hot take cycle addictive.

On very rare occasions, an editor gave me the night to mull over my opinion and flesh out an argument. But 99 percent of the time, my spicy opinions were online just a few hours after I got an assignment. That’s not great for me, because after some time passes, my immediate reactions evolve. I’m still hoping some of my hot takes from 2014 will fade into the abyss of SERP #4. It’s also not great for publications that want to develop a credible relationship with readers over time.

Every once in a while, I’ll see a “hot take” article go online that seems to serve no purpose other than poking a publication’s target audience in the eye, which stirs up debate and generates clicks. In March, io9 published a blog post supporting director Zack Snyder’s assertion that Batman should murder innocents in movies and comics. Fans online were quick to point out that Snyder doesn’t know Batman lore very well. By responding too fast and taking the less informed side of the debate, io9 looked a little foolish.

A writer’s reprieve

I don’t often blame the contributors behind hot takes. Hot takes (and bad takes) are just a symptom of a broken media system. Most editors are hungry for people to either pan or praise, so there’s not a lot of room for measured, nuanced, longform content.

Although a ton of reactionary writing is well crafted with blistering prose, most of it dies soon after it appears online. Perhaps unsurprisingly, The New York Times consistently does this well, via Caity Weaver’s “Wait…” column. But most other places will find that as the takes get hotter, the lifespan of content freezes up quicker.

The good news is that content marketing pushes back on contrarian traffic-chasing, including hot takes and hate clicks. Brands that use content marketing are entering the media landscape unencumbered by the industry’s worst practices. They can cherrypick strategies that work (dynamic social packaging, embracing the freelance workforce) and leave other practices, like hot takes, behind. Content marketing works best when brands publish evergreen editorial work that’s both entertaining and educational. Remember, content should either make your audience’s life or jobs better. Anything without a meaningful purpose is useless to you, including hot takes.

That’s not to say digital marketers can’t express their opinions. It just doesn’t behoove a brand to publish a blog post that’s only intended to attract readers for a day. Imagine if Netflix started a blog in 2000 only to fill it with hot takes about movies and shows. Instead of fostering its reputation for being a “something for everyone” streaming platform, Netflix might have watched its brand voice go off the rails after too many extreme reactions.

Marketers tend to think of ROI holistically, analyzing data on their content beyond pageviews. They focus on metrics like email subscribers, time spent on site, and leads. Hot takes generate flash-in-the-pain surges in site traffic, and it’s difficult to build a sustainable, attractive brand using volatile viewpoints.

Content marketing, by virtue of being a slower industry than news media, is an oasis for writers stuck churning out takes. Brands are slowly becoming more comfortable investing in feature reporting, deep explainers, and the occasional cool-headed opinion piece. You know, the kind of writing we can be proud of.

The post Content Marketing Frees Writers From the Hot Take Machine appeared first on Contently.

Brand awareness can seem like a vague force that’s hard to measure. But just because it’s trickier to track than a sale or a conversion doesn’t mean spreading awareness is without value. Building your brand through top-of-funnel content establishes a connection with a new audience. It can even change the way the existing audience perceives you.

Without that awareness foundation, it’s harder to achieve other goals down the marketing funnel. Why would someone buy something from you if they have no idea who you are?

At Contently, we wanted to get a better understanding of the biggest brand awareness challenges, so we turned to our own customers to find out more. When we set down to review the data, the same few challenges popped up over and over. Here’s how you can address them before they hurt your marketing efforts.

1. When your content ranks low on search

When you give SEO proper attention, you’ll see the effects on all of your content, old and new. Marketers trip up, however, when they plan branding and SEO efforts separately. By integrating the two, you effectively use organic traffic to increase brand reach.

The first step is identifying which keywords are right for your brand and realistically attainable. If you rank high for the wrong keywords or aim for keywords out of your reach, you’ll just continue to struggle.

Google Keyword Tool is a great (free!) tool that generates a list of keyword suggestions based on what users are searching. Simply click on “Search for a new keyword” and enter the main topics that you’re looking to cover. Once you have a target keyword list nailed down, you’re ready to take further steps and seed those keywords into your content.

We also have a content audit tool that provides recommendations for infusing the right SEO strategy into your content program. While many content marketers fall victim to keyword stuffing, we prefer to only use target keywords when they’re relevant—search engine “spiders” like to rank sites with content that sees consistent engagement. This verifies keyword relevancy. Auditing your existing library of content to identify high and low traffic keywords will help guide your keyword strategy.

When it comes to implementation, optimizing your website with technical SEO can help search engines access, crawl, interpret and index your website without any problems. By getting your front-end code in the right state, you’re effectively inviting Google to come in and look around to see what it likes.

Diagnosing and treating your site health can boost your brand’s reach with each small step. Optimizing title tag and meta description length is an easy fix—the earlier you can use a keyword in the title tag, the better, for example. Once you make those fixes, you’ll see your content start to climb up the rankings. And higher rankings will mean better reach.

2. When you have trouble getting the word out

It’s not enough to create great content—it has to be seen. Getting your content in front of the right people is important at any stage of your content program, but it’s especially important in the early days. That new infographic you created could be rich in information and beautifully designed, but you won’t see high ROI if no one knows where to find it.

To reach your audience on the right platforms, you have to understand their media habits. Blog posts and video, for example, are usually good fits for Facebook and Twitter because they tend to be quick and sharable. Guides and webinars, on the other hand, are better suited for LinkedIn’s audience of curious professionals.

When you analyze the interplay between these channels, it’s crucial to map them to different parts of the marketing funnel. The way you distribute content and connect with your audience should evolve down the funnel. If you choose the most opportune ways to distribute your content, then you’ll compel your audience to take the right action at the right time.

For Cardinal Health (a Contently customer), paid distribution has been incredibly helpful for learning more about what resonates. A/B testing across various channels with different formats is one reason why the company hit its primary awareness goals. Starting with a mix of social channels and content discovery platforms, such as Outbrain, Cardinal Health zeroed in on Facebook and LinkedIn as the top performing primary channels for their paid program.

3. When you aren’t reaching the right audience

Metrics like social shares get overlooked, but they can serve as a proxy for understanding audience preferences. They speak to how the audience engages with different content types. If your content underperforms, it may be an indicator that you’re not getting it in front of the right people.

As a strategist, I use a suite of SEO and social listening tools to first define who you should be talking to and then evaluate that audience’s engagement through a combination of metrics. We use social shares, number of keywords, backlinks, and more.

Let’s say, for example, that infographics receive the most social shares from your audience, while longform articles get the lowest share. This data is an important indicator that your audience has an appetite for visual content that’s easy to digest. In this case, I’d recommend adjusting your strategy to prioritize more multimedia and shortform content. It’s your responsibility to give the audience what they want.

Reaching a target audience can become extra challenging when you have regional and language considerations. For one international finance company, segmenting content in different global markets posed an additional obstacle. A good first step is finding what you can repurpose. Look for similarities across your audience segments. What unites them? What makes them unique? This will help you identify the potential content pieces for transcreation.

4. When your brand isn’t perceived correctly

If you polled 100 prospects, how many would be aware of your brand? Remember that number. Now, how many of those people have an accurate idea of what your brand offers? Did your number change?

For one major electronics company, this discrepancy was a major obstacle. The marketing leaders noted, “we’re struggling to reach the right people at scale and to educate them, but it’s hard to make a real impact at scale [and] change their perception of the company.”

Although it may seem like a massive branding problem, there’s a content-driven solution for adjusting perception. Our strategy team measures tone to set a benchmark for the way the public feels about certain topics . Is your audience looking for more emotionally charged language and opinions? Do they want to read about topics that make them feel conscientious?

By going through this process, you can shifting that perception by adjusting your tone and/or the topics you choose to cover.

5. When you have low share of voice

Imagine someone hands megaphones to you and your competitors. These megaphones are fairly uniform, except each one has a volume setting that’s a bit higher than the next. You turn on your megaphone and begin to speak, but no matter how hard you try, the person next to you is so loud that it drowns out your voice. Annoying, right?

With so much great content out there, it’s important to track how you stack up against your competitors. You do this by monitoring your market share.

To get an idea of where you stand for organic reach, measure the total number of keywords you care about as well as the traffic being driven from those keywords.

The bad news is, moving the needle on market share doesn’t happen overnight. You’ll need to have a strong understanding of what your audience is hungry for, and you’ll have to identify opportunities to own corners of the market by developing a unique perspective. A good starting point is to do some quantitative research by visiting your competitor’s content hubs. Educate yourself on their mission statements and identify opportunities for future angles and topics.

For more information on brand awareness best practices, download this free guide from Contently’s strategy services.

The post How to Solve the 5 Most Common Brand Awareness Problems appeared first on Contently.

“People will say, ‘we need branding work,’ and then they begin the conversation talking about color schemes. That’s a mistake,” he said. “Your logo, your slug-line, your color scheme, your graphic standards, those are vestiges of your brand. They’re outward facing articulations of your brand, but they’re far from brand architecture.”

You’re not going to pick out drapes and cutlery before you build the foundation of your house. As for what makes up a brand’s basic architecture, that must come directly from leadership. “A brand is how a company protects its pillars,” Jones said. In other words, it’s what they stand for. Finding and confirming the right pillars is not something that should just be delegated solely to marketers. It requires input from senior leadership.

In 2017, Jones helped Contently with its own rebrand. He worked closely with Kelly Wenzel, our former CMO who is now the director of global marketing at Amazon Pay. (I joined Contently shortly after she left.) Wenzel told me the effects of Contently’s brand clarification were obvious within a quarter of her start date. “Contently already had high brand awareness within its target demographic,” she said, “but what it hadn’t decided on yet was a consistent voice and story. Brand is about defining your purpose and aligning your distinct competencies around it.”

Contently’s rebrand wasn’t a complete overhaul, but the changes made an immediate impact in the market. “Our work didn’t have anything to do with the product, and we weren’t rolling out any updates,” Wenzel said. “The important part was clarifying our purpose and aligning all our messaging around it.”

After a few months of research and brainstorming, Wenzel, Jones, executives, and the marketing team decided on six thematic “pillars” to rally around”

1. Tell Great Stories

2. Accountable Content

3. Fusion of Art & Science

4. Smart Content Strategy

5. Engagement Fuels Growth

6. Choice of Marketing Leaders

More than a year later, company leaders still check presentation decks, articles, demos, and more against these ideas.

All of this is to say that setting the right company pillars is complicated. Here’s what Jones had to say about finding the right brand story that will impact your bottom line.

Embrace uncertainty

Entrepeneur estimates that the average startup can expect to wait at least three years before reaching profitability. Wil Schroter, the CEO of Startups.co, agrees. “By year three,” Schroter writes on his blog, “the pixie dust has worn off. The excitement you once felt for starting something has transformed into anxiety about whether or not you have made the right career decision.”

Of course, anxiety over making a tough choice always makes for great rising action in a story. A period of uncertainty might sound like an unpleasant time to be an entrepreneur, but it’s an extremely valuable plot point for the marketers trying to tell those entrepreneurs’ stories, years later.

You should begin with the events and values that led your company’s founders to start the business. Interview your C-suite one by one and find the narrative through-line when they explain why they came to the company. Ask about the first decisions they made as a team, and follow up on those—talk to the company’s first few employees, even if they’ve since moved on. Ask your company leaders where they hoped the company would go in those early days. Ask them how things have changed.

A well-crafted story will inspire employees to join your team as effectively as it inspires customers to sign contracts or make purchases.

“Leaders need compelling visions worth following, and they need to align their teams around that vision,” Jones said. “Have your leaders all thought about why you’re here, doing what you do? One baby step toward finding your brand’s story is working to ensure your most senior team feels purposeful in their work.”

Start with the basics

So, what happens if your C-suite doesn’t feel purposeful about their work? What if their purpose is just…profit? “What is our brand’s purpose?” can sometimes frighten or paralyze professionals because many of us simply put in work without asking ourselves why we’re doing it. To avoid tripping people up, Jones advises marketers to start with simpler questions.

“I’ll often say, tell me your favorite customer stories instead,” he said. “Give me maybe six to ten examples from your leaders’ experience that showcase the company at its best. When have you acted heroic for a customer? When did you feel best about your job? When did you delight people, and how can we unpack those moments for the right ingredients?” Once a leadership team has compiled a collection these memorable, impassioned stories, they can hand the materials over to marketing for brainstorming.

SoulCycle, one of Jones’ clients, is the perfect example of a brand whose identity hinges on going above-and-beyond for customers. When the indoor cycling studio went public in 2015, a baffled reporter from The New York Times interviewed brand evangelists about SoulCycle. It was clear from their quotes that SoulCycle’s brand messaging and services were about more than just exercise classes.

“It’s the surest, and sometimes only, way to clear my mind after a long day spent in front of a computer,” one woman said. “It’s sold convincingly and addictively as personal growth and therapeutic progress through fitness,” another man said.

A well-crafted story will inspire employees to join your team as effectively as it inspires customers to sign contracts or make purchases.

By centering your brand on the moments in which you’ve connect deeply with your customer base, you’re nudging your experts and leaders into giving you the pieces you need to finish the branding puzzle. They probably have all the pieces on hand, but no one’s asked for them yet.

“I’ve done a major rebrand at every software company I’ve worked at,” Wenzel said, “and sometimes it was just a matter of refreshing our image. Often, though, the branding process took us down to the studs to truly build out a new foundation for ourselves. Having done it so many times, I know it can sound like common sense, but there’s an alchemy to branding that’s hard to explain. It’s very challenging to get this formula right.”

Learn from predecessors

Jones’s most successful clients “aren’t trying to boil the ocean.” They’re not, in other words, attempting to appeal to every single potential consumer by pitching themselves as universal. Clients like Sweetgreen, SoulCycle, and WeWork approached his firm hoping to design their branding around “the things that light them up” personally, and it just so happened that their customers felt equally as excited about salads, spin class, and cold brew on tap, respectively.

Clarifying your brand messaging can pay off almost immediately, especially if your competitors have similar business plans. If you can’t set yourself apart through products and services alone, you can use messaging to get ahead.

“Why the hell, for example, are there always thirty people in line for Sweetgreen?” Jones asked. “Surely, they walked past four other salad places on their way to Sweetgreen. They’re there because they feel something for the brand. It’s because these customers can say, ‘This is so me. I’m a part of this tribe and engaging with this specific brand makes me feel like the person I want to be.'”

In Soho alone, salad fiends can pick up their lunch at the nearby Just Salad, Chopt, Whole Foods, Hale and Hearty, or Fresh&Co, but Sweetgreen is the only brand run like a technology startup. From experiential marketing to the brand’s Tumblr blog, Sweetgreen’s focus on a youthful, hip audience is obvious.

In 2014, Sweetgreen raised $18.5 million in venture capital financing and the year after, it raised $35 million more. The brand is noticeably health-conscious, sure, but also edgier and more youthful—all the result of purposeful, smart branding. Sweetgreen, in addition to being one of the highest earning fast casual salad chains in the U.S., is also the only conceivable salad brand that could convince Kendrick Lamar at the height of his career to headline a salad-branded music festival and collaborate on a recipe called “Beets Don’t Kale My Vibe.” That’s power.

Gather evidence to prove ROI

Proving a marketing ROI to people in other departments has been the subject of many, many conversations It has layers to it. Evidence supporting the success of a brand story has to convince customers, investors, employees simultaneously, and those audiences will have definitions of success.

Too many people believe the strength of a brand is measured in its social engagement. When discussing companies on social media, for instance, marketers and consumers alike often say, “Well, the Wendy’s account is really funny,” as if that were enough. To Jones, it’s more complicated than that.

“A brand is so often confused with marketing communications that face outward,” he said. “How we communicate to the world about who we are is certainly a piece of the puzzle, but it’s not the whole thing. A brand is ultimately the experience you deliver to customers, not the beautiful articulation of an idea.”

Take Wendy’s, which isn’t solely renown for its Twitter feed. It’s also the fast food chain that hands out Frosty “Boo Book” passes and pokes fun at other chains for thawing out frozen burgers for sale. The perception of the product matches the sass they dole out online.

So a brand’s story does have to refer back to the company’s bottom line in the end, but there’s a lot of connective tissue in between. And according to Jones, crafting a corporate brand is not unlike the process of clarifying one’s personal life.

“It’s so easy to become distracted and reactive,” he said. “If you don’t articulate where you’re aiming with your brand and then proactively drive toward that goal, then the market will pull you off-course like you’re a boat at sea. If you keep your hand on the rudder, then even in a stormy sea, you’re still in control of where your brand shows up in the market.”

The post How to Find Your Brand’s Story appeared first on Contently.

Yes, Tom Hanks—and not just because of his calming presence. Hanks has enjoyed an illustrious film career precisely because he is not a character actor. Audiences feel comforted and engaged when they spot his face (or even just hear his voice) onscreen. He makes small adjustments to his beloved persona depending on the film in which he’s appearing, but at the core, he’s still recognizable. His characters are likable in the same way, whether he’s playing a cowboy doll, a WWII soldier, or a man who just discovered a mermaid. Remember that.

The trouble with defining a company’s voice is that rigid guidelines can stifle you. Like the personality of a human, your brand has to retain some elasticity to appeal to different people in different places. Your brand may have a central personality, but it needs to be able to convey different tones.

For instance, your blog posts may read as professional and enthusiastic, but your Facebook copy promoting each blog post can’t sound exactly like what you post on LinkedIn, Twitter, or Instagram. You might want to dial down the enthusiasm on Twitter and LinkedIn, and dial it up a notch on Instagram and Pinterest.

To explain how brands should communicate across social channels, I spoke to a handful of audience development managers and social media strategists. Here’s what they had to say about the way brand voice changes on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram.

Your brand voice on Facebook

As the largest social network in the world, Facebook presents an interesting opportunity for brands. With billions of users, there’s potential for incredible reach, but it’s hard to have a distinct identity or voice.

According to Brooklynn Kramer, client success manager at Qnary, an agency that manages social media presences for executives, Facebook is the platform that most values a sense of nostalgia. Effective facebook copy tends to be “slightly informal, familiar, and accessible.” The user base is far more intergenerational than say, Instagram or Twitter, which means it’s prime real estate for content that recalls the reader’s “golden years,” whether you’re trying to connect with retirees over 65 or millennials recalling the ’90s.

Facebook’s algorithm changes in recent years have attempted to strengthen the site’s focus on community connection and shared memories. Kramer advises clients to make the reader feel as if they’re relating to others through a common experience. Even a B2B brand can address that desire by using phrases like “Remember when” or “Everyone knows the feeling.”

If you can’t lead with nostalgia, another option is to have your social copy suggest that a larger conversation is happening without your audience. This kind of call to action—inform yourself, develop an opinion, and join the debate—works well. You want to create the sensation that you’ve beaten the reader to a story and you’re cluing them in.

Elly Belle, a freelance social media manager and engagement strategist, said brands should post content on Facebook as long as they’re challenging the status quo. “Facebook is a place where arguments are born,” she told, but it’s also where “everyone goes to browse Delish videos. You want to work to catch someone’s eye as they scroll through their feed at the end of the day.”

Facebook audiences want to be entertained and distracted. So lead with your most punchy, human content and save the jargon for other platforms.

Your brand voice on LinkedIn

The social strategists we spoke to called LinkedIn “underrated,” “under-explored,” and “weird,” and most of them were unsure if B2C content worked there at all.

“LinkedIn is like that guy at the office who’s nice enough to ask you how your weekend was, but he seems kind of boring and plain,” Belle said. “You recognize it’s good to have some relationship with him, but you’d never go out for drinks after work.”

Take IBM, for instance. To frame a blog post about the company’s chief human resources officer on LinkedIn, the social media team wrote: “IBM CHRO Diane Gherson shares her insights on how artificial intelligence is fundamentally changing the HR function.”

On Twitter, they posted a similar post about a researcher on staff but described her dramatic story a little more:

Then: Lisa Amini age 2, dreaming of becoming an astronaut. Now: She is a Distinguished Engineer & Lab Director of IBM Research Cambridge, exploring and creating next-gen AI/ML capabilities, and chairing the first AI Research Week. #MITIBM #SheCanSTEM #WIML pic.twitter.com/F1GQW2RRTR

— IBM Research (@IBMResearch) October 3, 2018

According to 2017 statistics from Pew Research Institute, most LinkedIn users are between 30 and 49 years old, and most are college graduates living in urban areas. The site’s users increased dramatically to half a billion between 2016 and 2017, but it’s not clear how often LinkedIn users actually visit the site other than when they need to look for jobs or job candidates. Still, dismissing the platform outright is a misguided mindset, according to AdWeek’s Dan Tynan, who declared it “the Facebook of B2B marketing” in 2017.

One could argue that LinkedIn is the social platform best suited to for brands because users are either hoping to find hirable talent or they’re hoping to become hirable talent. So if your company’s content is related to their searches, users will be grateful to find it.

What does this mean for your brand’s tone? Take LinkedIn’s ultra-specific purpose as permission to get straight to the point when writing social copy. You still need a fresh angle to attract users, but the competition is far less fierce than on Facebook.

Your brand on Twitter

#TipTuesday stinky gym clothes? Give them the smell test before transferring from the washer to the dryer. If the smell remains, re-wash. https://t.co/XahTr46UDv pic.twitter.com/2khUF4gNJI

— Whirlpool Corporation (@WhirlpoolCorp) September 24, 2018

No other platform excites and beguiles social media editors as much as Twitter. One strategist called it ‘the ‘id’ of the whole ecosystem.”

Kristen Gaerlan, a senior copywriter at Publicis who has worked on social for brands like Wal-Mart and Merck, emphasized the importance of speed and wit in Twitter copy. Brands often feel “they just can’t move fast enough to keep up with the conversation,” she said. “People want to know what you’re doing at this very second. Don’t tell them about something that happened past tense; it’s old news.”

This means Twitter is the perfect place to experiment with your brand’s tone—your audience there may work in media, so they’ll appreciate a more experimental or daring voice. Now, this doesn’t necessarily mean a B2B company should start trafficking in memes, but Twitter is the first place you might try out some jokes about your industry. If you’ve written any humorous content poking fun at the status quo, you’ll want to share it here first. It’s also the best place to trade gentle barbs with competitors to show everyone in the industry that you’re all playing in the same sandbox.

According to Belle, Twitter is ” a great place to try to cut through the noise of the world. Either you have something valuable to add to a conversation or something funny and uplifting.” Though professionals might follow your brand on Instagram to get HR updates and watch your progress, they won’t follow your CEO on Twitter if all he does is share press releases.

Your brand voice on Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/p/BjC22RAADy6/?utm_source=ig_embed

Instagram is primarily known as a place for B2C products and B2B culture. You can drive brand awareness and engagement via Instagram with copy and visuals that are overtly positive. For that reason, the classic marketing tone, devoid of any irony, works best, making the platform a safer space for brands than a place like Twitter.

However, the line between user-generated content and branded content is very blurry on Instagram, more so than any other platform. Ads are becoming harder to spot, particularly from influencers who don’t always disclose their relationships with brands.

Although Instagram is still working out the kinks of paid promotion, the platform is arguably the most friendly to hashtagging. Sprout Social found that seven out of 10 hashtags used on Instagram are branded, and 80 percent of all users follow at least one brand. What’s more, 65 percent of the top performing posts on the platform involve products in some way.

These statistics mean your brand’s tone on Instagram doesn’t have to shroud a CTA in clever copy. In fact, the clearer you are about what you want your users to do, the better. Have them swipe up for a free trial, tag a friend to enter a sweepstakes, or click the “link in bio.” Though branded content can ruffle feathers on Facebook or Twitter, it appears most users on Instagram consider it par for the course.

The post Should Your Brand Voice Stay the Same Across Social Channels? appeared first on Contently.

It’s a simple ask, but I’ve noticed that people have trouble answering it. And a lot of them sound the same. They mention things like truly caring about the customers and using an authentic voice. If all companies use those goals to guide their creative process, then they’re not really differentiating themselves in a meaningful way.

However, for the brands that do have a distinct voice, this question is easy. Marketers can rattle off specific adjectives like trustworthy, straightforward, or irreverent. Contently’s brand voice, which we aim to convey in every post on The Content Strategist, is supposed to be honest, smart, skeptical, and conversational, with a touch of humor.

That unique voice has become so important because of how much content gets posted online every day. Brands can control two factors: what you say and how you say it. But the “what” in that equation only has so much flexibility. If you’re a bank or news outlet that covers finance, you have to write about saving for retirement. How you do that is the difference between building a loyal audience and fading into the crowd.

Just take a look at articles from some major publishers to see the options out there. The New York Times has “A Quick-and-Dirty Guide for Retirement Saving.” The Wall Street Journal went with the very straightforward “What Is a 401(k)?” Refinery29 appealed to its audience with a more creative approach: “How Saving $8 Can Make You a Millionaire.”

So how can marketers determine the right brand voice for their employers? It’s more involved than just sitting at a desk until the epiphany hits. At Contently, we’ve turned the exercise into a science, using natural language processing to give brands quantitative data on all of their content. Analyzing content this way has two key benefits:

1. It can identify trends and opportunities in your industry that help brands differentiate themselves from competitors.

2. It makes consistency an easier task if you can measure the tone of a single article against an entire archive of existing content.

To learn more about the impact of tone science and see how it works, check out the infographic below.

The post Infographic: The Science of Brand Voice appeared first on Contently.

Creating a mission statement is one of the most difficult yet enjoyable stages of the content marketing journey. A great mission statement not only speaks to your content plan and goals, but also captures who you are as a brand and publisher. It’s the rallying cry that makes you excited to come to work every day, pushing you to do more—and do better—than your competitors.

But you can’t write a mission statement without nailing your brand voice. Like the word “irony,” brand voice is something people love to talk about but don’t really understand. It’s far more than a set of adjectives (clever, smart, millennial) and can’t be captured in a mock tweet. It goes far deeper than that, which makes sense: Your brand voice is at the heart of every piece of content you create.

As far as crafting a brand voice, I’m a big fan of an exercise that content strategist Melissa Lafsky Wall advocated in a piece last year on The Content Strategist. Her advice is so brilliant that instead of summarizing her ideas and butchering them in the process, I’ll just share her recommendation in full:

Say you’re going to a dinner party full of people you don’t know. Whether you admit it or not, you’ll want each of the other people at the party to leave with a certain viewpoint or opinion about you at the end of the night. So you act a certain way, choose certain words and conversation topics over others, make certain jokes, and generally work to be the most charming, or funny, or book smart, or emotionally sensitive, etc. version of yourself, depending on which of these traits are the most important for you to convey.

With brands, it’s really not all that different. The fundamentals of voice comes down to a personality—prioritizing a set of traits that comprise an identity, and then communicating in a way that expresses and prioritizes those traits. Which means that, in order to create a successful voice, a brand is required to take on some of the personality of, well, an actual person (the Supreme Court would be so pleased).

The logical question now is, “So what personality traits does my brand embody?” The answer can only come from one source: your brand itself. No one else can identify your brand’s values and point of view other than the individuals who comprise it. The most successful brands stand for an idea (Apple, GE, IBM), and that idea is a good place to start when it comes to distilling your brand values into a key concept or identity.

You may be thinking that what I’m describing resembles a common branding exercise, in which teams boil their brand down to four or five words or colors or images, etc. But identifying the voice involves a bit more anthropomorphization than that (and yes, that’s a word—I looked it up).

Another way to think of it is this: If your brand was the person at the dinner party, who would they be? The gadget freak who snagged an iPhone 6 a week before they went on sale? The honest and kind friend you’d consult while getting dressed for a date? The mad scientist determined to find a way to make fuel out of pencil shavings?These examples may sound hyperbolic, but they get at values that lead people to prioritize certain skills and behaviors over others. Brands are no different.

A clear sense of identity is what categorizes the best brand publishers. GE is the smart, inquisitive, clever science nerd who blows your mind. Red Bull is the death-defying rock star you want to hang out with. HubSpot is the inbound marketing genius who wants to help you get that promotion. Moz is the wizard of SEO with secrets that will fundamentally change your business. In different ways, they’re all a kind of person who will accumulate a posse of interested admirers at that dinner party.

Of course, this exercise of anthropomorphization is just that—an exercise. Brands can’t have a voice or a mission; the people who communicate on their behalf do. When I spoke with the people behind the content powerhouses at HubSpot, Moz, and GE, that much was clear. You can hear the mission in the brand voice.

Here’s what Tomas Kellner, the senior managing editor of GE Reports, told me when I interviewed him last year:

“Here we are. We’re 130 years old. We were founded by Thomas Edison, and guess what? We are still working on really hard problems that the entire planet has to be dealing with, whether it’s the future of energy or whether it’s the future of electricity or whether it’s new propulsion for planes that will get you from New York to Tokyo in four hours.”

Or what Joe Chernov told me when he was the VP of content at HubSpot[note]Chernov is now the VP of marketing at InsightsSquared.[/note]:

“HubSpot is not only a company, but it’s also the catalyst of a movement. And as a community has coalesced around that movement, it’s our job to nurture and foster it.”

Or take the words of Rand Fishkin, the founder of Moz:

“[Content is] part of our DNA. We believe in sharing and being transparent in putting out there the things that we’ve learned. … We want to try and help marketers first. That’s our underlying goal. We really don’t think about content marketing as being part of our funnel. It’s part of our mission.”

With each of them, you hear a passion for something greater than just revenue. You hear their mission, something that shines through with the content that each company creates. And that serves as a great reminder: While the business goals of your content marketing efforts are important—be it generating leads, sales, brand awareness, industry education, or, more likely, some combination of initiatives—you always need to stay focused on the audience you serve.

For example, this is our mission statement for The Content Strategist:

If the marketing blogosphere were a college, there would currently be about 10,000 professors angling for tenure—and all of them would be teaching some version of inbound 101 or remedial content. Picture a dusty hall full of creaky desks, a syllabus full of old listicles and questionable stats, and the teacher droning on and on while students pass notes in the form of Pitbull GIFs.

Then picture the Kool-Aid man bursting through the wall screaming, “OHHH YEAHHHHHHHHH!”

That’s us. We’re the Kool-Aid man of marketing pubs.

What’s that mean? Well, first and foremost we want to give you information you can’t find anywhere else on the Internet, and we want to do it every single day. Forget telling you that certain things work—we want to tell you why they work, how they work, and what’s going to work next. We’re going to continuously talk to the smartest people in our industry, and we’re going to tell you what we find out. Media is changing marketing (and vice versa), and understanding what it all means and how to take advantage means thinking beyond the tropes of the past.

We also aim to have fun because this is fun! The late, great David Carr put it best when he said, “Creating media content is a diverting activity that rarely resembles actual work.” And if you’re reading The Content Strategist, it likely means your job involves telling stories in some way or another.

There’s no reason that marketing content has to be dry or boring—after all, a good story is a good story, no matter what it’s about. Just because we’re writing about content marketing doesn’t mean we can’t use NBA metaphors or make fun of our own buzzwords. There’s no reason a story about ROI or legal approvals can’t have a few jokes in it. Marketers are humans too.

At Contently, we talk a lot about “building a better media world,” which sounds like something out of Silicon Valley, but it’s true. We believe in helping people tell amazing stories instead of polluting the web with mediocrity, and in the power of ditching intrusive advertising in favor of great media experiences. The Internet is what we make it, and we want to make it awesome.

Notice how focused we are on our readers; that’s not a front. We do have clear business goals for The Content Strategist—building brand awareness, fortifying our reputation as a content marketing thought leader, educating clients and potential clients, and driving email subscribers, leads, sales, and opportunities—but our primary focus and editorial mission remains helping our readers become better, smarter content marketers. And we’ve found putting our readers first is the best way to drive all of those results.

Our mission statement reflects our commitment to editorial purity, and if you talk to successful brand publishers, they’ll tell you that commitment is key. In the words of Chernov: “[O]wning your audience comes with huge responsibilities—namely the need to ‘protect’ that audience from marketing’s shadow. … If we fell victim to the temptation to strip-mine that audience with overt promotions, we’d destroy the asset many people have worked so hard to build.”

As you identify your brand voice and craft your mission statement, keep all of that in mind. You have to put your readers first and give them what they’re not getting elsewhere. Your mission statement will be your guiding light, the document that keeps you in check, inspires you, and protects your content from marketing’s shadow. It’s crucial. I don’t know where we’d be without it.

This post is an excerpt from “The Ultimate Content Strategist Playbook No. 3: Staffing and Launching Your Content Marketing Program.”

The post How to Craft a Killer Brand Voice and Mission Statement for Your Content Marketing appeared first on Contently.

How to Craft a Brand Voice That Carries Across Platforms, Formats, and the Space-Time Continuum

Nailing your brand voice is an essential building block of any content marketing campaign, but it’s one that brands really struggle to do right. In the second part of her brand voice series, content strategist Melissa Lafksy Wall explains how to create a brand voice that carries across media channels, resonating with each audience in exactly the right way. Read it.

The Mighty Ducks: The Story Behind the NHL Team That Doubled as an All-Time Great Marketing Stunt

In an epic longform piece, Dillon Baker looks back at the insane marketing stunt that was the Anaheim Mighty Ducks:

The story of the Mighty Ducks is one of radical experimentation, an unparalleled business move that combined the movie industry, brand marketing, and professional sports. The Mighty Ducks are the only team in the history of major North American professional sports leagues to be named after a brand. In this case, it was Disney’s successful hockey movie franchise The Mighty Ducks.

Looking back, it’s difficult to fully grasp just how bizarre the creation of The Mighty Ducks of Anaheim was. Read it.

10 Content Marketing Takeaways From SXSW

Unless your boss owed you a favor, there’s a good chance you missed out on SXSW Interactive last weekend. Have no fear: We were there and put together a handy listicle of takeaways. Read it.

On the Money: How 5 Finance Brands Built Loyal Audiences by Investing in High-Quality Content

In our latest e-book, we dive into the case studies of five brands that built massive audiences for their content—in large part by eschewing marketing altogether. Read it.

Why Content Marketers Are Overcoming Their Fears and Learning to Love the Pop-Up

Pop-ups are making a comeback, and surprisingly, it’s a good thing. (We’re not trolling you, I swear.) Jay Acunzo on reports why pop-ups have reemerged as a powerful weapon for marketers that are dishing out high-quality content and building an owned audience. Read it.

That’s all for this week. Now go forth and frolic in the springtime.

The post Content Catchup: Crafting a Cross-Platform Brand Voice, The Mighty Ducks, and More Must-Reads appeared first on Contently.

If you imagine your brand voice as being at a dinner party, the way you speak to a roomful of strangers reflects your voice and identity—but only in that isolated setting. What if instead of a dinner party, you’re in your living room with your closest friends? Your identity and personality don’t change, but the way you communicate does. You adapt to the new context, and change what you say and how you say it based on the norms of the situation.

Approaching cross-channel content is no different. You don’t speak the same way in a white paper as you do in a tweet, but the “you” who’s speaking remains the same. The core identity and message should stay constant. What changes is the context.

Accomplishing this kind of segmentation is easy in some ways—turning blog or microsite content into newsletter content doesn’t require reinventing the wheel when it comes to tone. But when you add Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Medium, Reddit, and countless other platforms to the mix, things start to get messy.

Each of these platforms has its own style, vagaries, and audience. The context is always changing, and you have to adapt to each setting, or else you’ll face two possible outcomes, both of them bad: 1) Your brand voice will sound at best diluted and weak, at worst schizophrenic; and/or 2) You’ll get hit with the dreaded accusation of tone deafness, a charge reserved for brands who tragically misread the norms and contexts of digital platforms, and then shove their feet in their mouths . (Here’s an example; here’s another one.)

So how do you maintain some level of tone/voice continuity across all of these different settings? If I had a perfect one-size-fits-all answer, I’d have spent this week peddling it at some SXSW booth. Unfortunately, it’s a wholly subjective endeavor that involves constant judgment calls—much like creating content itself.

The best practice to make cross-channel continuity as seamless as possible is to establish a strong foundation for your voice in the first place. One of our initial tasks when creating a content strategy is to produce a Style Guide that outlines what the voice is, and what it isn’t, in as much detail as possible. What words or phrases would your brand never use, if any? What headline would it never run? On a broader level, why are you creating content in the first place, other than to create touch-points and lure people into your funnel and all those other business objectives that have little to do with whether or not someone actually wants to read or watch a piece of content?

Workflow is also an important tool for voice continuity. Once your content strategy is established and executed, chances are high that the person writing every blog post is not the same person writing every tweet or the same person publishing every thought leadership article. So the question becomes: How do you have multiple people all communicate with the same voice/tone?

One obvious answer is: Only hire people who care deeply about content. Make sure that the people you task with creating your content actually enjoy doing it and are talented at doing so. And beyond that, make sure that you only staff people on your content team who truly “get” the brand voice.

A bit more wisdom on this from Kevan Lee, who works on content for Buffer:

What’s been key for us is in bringing on people who are closely aligned with the values at Buffer. This has had the effect of allowing people on the team to speak naturally with customers, and the natural way they speak is in line with the message we hope to send as Buffer. Things are quite smooth this way; we feel confident in having multiple people in ‘voice and tone’ positions and knowing that the right emotions and feelings will come across to the customer.

At the end of the day, content isn’t about perfection. You don’t have to wring your hands over whether every tweet is a perfect representation of your brand’s voice. But you do need a strong foundation and a team that understands it on a deeper level, so that they’re capable of doing a gut-check to determine if something, or anything, is really off. Imagine if your Breaking Bad obsessed friend—you know, the one with six Los Pollos Hermanos tees in his closet—started ranting that Bryan Cranston was the worse actor of his generation. It would creep you out. Similarly, it will irk your audience if your brand sounds like one thing one day and something entirely different the next—making it something you have to avoid at all costs.

Melissa Lafsky Wall (@Lafsky) is the founder of Brick Wall Media.

The post How to Craft a Brand Voice That Carries Across Platforms, Formats, and the Space-Time Continuum appeared first on Contently.

1. What is “native” and what is “owned”? Which one is better?

2. Why would we create owned content rather than buy sponsored content?

These two questions are so similar that it makes sense to answer them together.

Let’s start with the basic definitions. Shane Snow, CCO of Contently, covered the definitions in our “State of Content Marketing 2014” report:

It’s hard to say which one (native or owned) is better in an absolute sense; they simply serve different purposes, and in an ideal world, they work in concert. In an article earlier this month, Contently VP of Content Sam Slaughter detailed how brands should use native advertising to build an audience that they own:

One could make (and many have made) the case that brands communicating directly with their own audience is bad news for publishers who depend on being the audience gatekeepers. I don’t buy that.

For one, building an audience is hard. And more importantly, even a brand with their own audience will want to reach other audiences with their message. Whether they use sponsored stories, paid distribution, or social advertising to get there is dependent on the circumstances—but the need to reach additional eyeballs efficiently and effectively is constant.

Case in point: Here at Contently, we have a huge audience for our industry pub, The Content Strategist. And yet we still pay through the nose to place sponsored content on publisher sites like Adweek. Why would we do that when we could put it in front of our own audience for free? Simple: Adweek readers are people we want to reach.

Shane also tackled this question in an article for Ad Age, noting that having direct access to an audience is every brand’s goal, but it takes time, patience, and editorial leadership to make that happen. In the meantime, sponsored content is a way to align a brand with an already recognized and trusted platform.

3. What is the value of a long-term content strategy vs. a campaign-by-campaign approach?

As we noted last month, the cliché is true: Content marketing is a marathon, not a sprint. You need time to develop an effective editorial strategy through trial and error and to build trust with readers. That’s why some agencies and custom-content studios run by publishers are requiring brands to commit to a content push of at least four months, if not a year or longer. In an ideal world, they’d be signing on for 5-plus-year commitments.

4. Who should we be targeting, i.e., who should our audience be?

Determining your target audience is content strategy 101. Who wants your service or product? Who shares similar values? What do they want but aren’t getting enough of? These are easy questions to ask, but difficult questions to answer—and those answers are different for each and every business. If you don’t have someone on your team who has built an audience before, you likely need to find the right help.

5. How do you go about developing a brand voice?

This is a crucial aspect of content marketing, and it was one of the main topics Shane covered in the first-ever Contently e-book, “The Beginner’s Guide to Blogging and Content Strategy.” Though three years old, the advice still holds strong.

Witty, smart, sarcastic, optimistic, skeptical— whatever the tone, be consistent. Early on, figure out what your brand’s message is and how you want to say it. Choose a tone or angle, and then consistently apply it to your content. If you want to be instructional and serious, stick with that. As Shane writes in “Beginner’s Guide,” it’s not so much what you say—it’s how you say it.

6. How much content should I be creating?

The short answer: a lot. A brand needs to pump out quality content in order to establish trust in their readership. The perfect mix is different for each brand, but when starting out, look at key engagement metrics (like engaged time, average finish time, shares, and return visits) to see which pieces of content are compelling your audience to come back. Then, double down on what works while constantly testing and iterating new approaches. That’s the approach the brand newsroom of the future will take.

7. How does a brand set up a newsroom?

Brand newsrooms are all the rage right now. When TCS sat down with content strategist Neil Chase, he had some key advice for setting up a brand newsroom internally:

The brand newsroom must embrace and follow the company’s culture, but it also needs the ability to change that culture. To make a closed company more open. To make a company that’s nervous about publicity more comfortable with it. To help a company that operates in a regulatory environment able to do more than it thought possible before. To try new things, use new technology and break bad old habits. More here.

Brands have the opportunity to reimagine the traditional newsroom structure to best serve their needs. This means establishing specific responsibilities for each department. And as Shane explains in the talk below, most every decision should be driven by data and the quest for an exponentially increasing return on investment:

And for a visual guide to brand newsrooms, check out our interactive e-book, “The CMO’s Guide to Building a Brand Newsroom.”

8. What’s a good strategy for getting more people to find your content in the first place?

One of the most important principles for building an audience is the “superconnector.” This is a person or platform that has an established audience you can borrow. If there are people in your brand’s network with whom you can connect, do it.

But how? You need to offer unique and valuable content. Produce content that their audience is interested in and then give it away. This way you make the superconnector happy, and you get exposed to a broader audience. Offering value leads to trust, and the audience will be more likely to follow you to your own platform.

It’s a similar idea to finding influencers. Connecting to 500 people through one person is much more efficient than trying to reach people individually. In addition, don’t be afraid to pay to jumpstart your traffic. Creating good content is only effective if people read it. Here’s the TCS breakdown of the top distribution platforms.

For more, check out Shane’s webinar, “Superconnecting Massive Audiences,” below:

9. What are the benefits of outsourcing content creation?

Don’t think outsourcing, think in-sourcing, as jargony as that sounds. (Forgive us.) Bringing in freelancers adds a fresh twist to a brand’s voice. For instance, General Mills brought in outside writers, photographers, and infographic experts to write and design their successful recipe site, Tablespoon. While the perspectives of freelance brand writers are often at odds with traditional marketers, that’s actually a good thing, breathing fresh life into a content campaign. Their ability to connect with audiences and tell a great story in unorthodox ways can be invaluable.

10. Is it really worth the investment to hire trained journalists for branded content over cheaper writers and copywriters?

Definitely. With the saturation of Internet content, brands are not only competing with one another for attention, but also with established media powerhouses. Brands need the talent to compete, and that makes writers who are talented, experienced, and passionate about a brand’s mission invaluable. There is truth to the warning “You get what you pay for,” and when it comes to content, quality is king. Click here for more.

11. What is a good strategy for getting people to notice your content when they mainly go to your site to buy stuff?

Depends on what you’re selling, but a smart strategy is to integrate editorial with the products themselves. You want a balance of boosting the appeal of your product with providing value through your content. The story cannot only be about the product. Contently uses the “Content Funnel” as a framework for creating content for varying levels of engagement.

The first step is to attract your audience by offering them stories that speak to their values and are either timely, seasonal, or evergreen—meaning always relevant. The second level of the funnel is for stories about the company and the customer. This gets a bit more personal and moves the audience closer to the product. The third tier is the stories concerning your product. The people who make it to this level of the funnel are the ones who will become patrons of your brand.

A few brands doing an awesome job of weaving amazing content into their commerce platforms are Mr. Porter, Birchbox, and Apple.

Groupon is one more great example of combining content and commerce. It made stories an integral part of each deal, and rode unprecedented conversion rates all the way to an IPO. People could connect with the company on multiple levels and kept coming back for more.

12. What’s the best way to define your content?

The best content is mission-driven: For us, that mission is building a better media world. That’s why we cover the media and marketing world here on The Content Strategist, give freelancers the tools and knowledge they need to succeed on The Freelancer, and fund independent investigative journalism over at Contently.org. If you want a definition, start with a question: What’s my mission?

13. What metrics can help you improve your writing and performance?

14. How does a brand calculate their ROI? Not just a formula but the process and tools?

Most metrics focus on developing the brand, not the creator. The natural progression in smart content strategy is Stories > Engagement > Relationships > ROI. Each level of the brand newsroom should focus on one or more of those pieces. For creative people, the story metrics are the most important. For editors, engagement and relationships should take priority.

Story metrics that matter most: engaged time, finish percentage, and return engagement. These three metrics lead to relationships, which then directly translate to ROI when the conversion pathway is tracked correctly. For more, check out our “4 Keys to Calculating ROI for Content Marketers” (process) and our e-book, “The New World of Content Measurement” (tools).

15. Which social platform should I use to build a following of wealthy investors using longform content?

As we detailed in our “Banking on Content” e-book, LinkedIn is a finance content marketer’s best friend. LinkedIn has the audience you want, and their targeting capabilities are unmatched. If you’re publishing directly on LinkedIn, they have great engagement metrics built into the platform, and they also recently rolled out a redesign of their longform pages. If you can build an audience on LinkedIn, you can attract a following that will transfer over to your owned media platform.

For more finance content marketing tips, check out our “State of Finance Content Marketing” e-book.

16. As far as formatting and placement are concerned, what is the sweet spot for linking to external resources in articles?

If you’re giving a load of resources, do so at the end of the story, not as a distraction midway through. If links to external resources are important for context, definitely include them in-text (like in this piece). If you’re not concerned about content engagement, then split test it the same way you’d split test a landing page.

Also, whenever you reference a brand name in your article—yours or otherwise —always link it within the text. This can amp up your SEO ranking.

17. What is “thought leadership” and is there value to being considered a thought leader?

A brand that is a thought leader assumes expertise in a field. People rely on them as a resource. Thought leadership is the number one goal Contently clients list. Really, thought leadership is about branding. If your brand is intelligent, that’s exactly how you want to self-style. If your brand sells Doritos-shell tacos, who cares about thought leadership? You might care about entertaining teens and twenty-somethings.

And yes, thought leadership has become a buzz phrase, but it’s here to stay. Here are some tips to make it work for you.

18. What trends will be impacting content creation in the near future?

What if Coca-Cola took you inside of a can or Corona could actually find you your beach? Immersive virtual reality is going to hit marketers by surprise. Strapping on goggles and transporting instantly to a virtual hangout will be a huge opportunity for bigger and better storytelling.

The main answer is that we’ll see more players: media companies, media agencies, creative agencies, PR firms, small shops—everyone’s selling content right now. We’ll also see an explosion in multimedia and branded web series, leveraging YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat, and other emerging platforms and talent to reach millennials.

There will also be a greater merging between digital and social media, and traditional media. HP’s recent commercial featuring a montage of Vines is a great example. Finally, a select few brands will finally figure out how to structure their organizations like a media company.

There you have it.

Thank you to everyone who submitted your questions. As always, when others pop up, feel free to reach out @Contently.

The post The Answers to Your 18 Biggest Content Marketing Questions appeared first on Contently.

Alice Crowder, Ovation Brands’ marketing director, said digital is now a “conversation, not a monologue.”

Customers on social media bring different expectations to these conversations, putting the onus on the brand to take the good with the bad when developing a unique voice. Crowder recalls a loyal customer of Old Country Buffet who challenged the company on Facebook over whether the restaurant had changed its recipe for Sugar-Free Ranger Cookies, the customer’s favorite dessert. Old Country Buffet uses the CEO as a spokesperson in its TV advertising, but the brand’s social media requires a softer touch. They acknowledged the change by reaching out directly to the customer.

“Early on, we made the error of being overly ‘salesy’ with certain updates, posting things like ‘Look at how awesome our meatloaf is,'” Crowder said. “But customers let us know that pitching our passion points was not the highest use of the platform.”

Of course, some brands embrace a direct sales approach and find a way to make it work online. Orabrush creative director Joel Ackerman recently told Digiday, “Brands should acknowledge the fact that they’re brands. People know that you’re a brand. There’s nothing wrong with your product or talking about it.”

Once upon a time, the customer’s values were none of the brand’s business. Advertisers concerned themselves with broadcasting one-way pitches that prominently featured their products’ features and benefits. The challenge was hooking an audience with creative advertising that people gladly invited into their lives. Dr Pepper musicals of the 1970s exemplify this classic approach. Today, the mass media challenge remains intact, but now, agencies and their clients face the additional task of developing a daily dialogue with a brand’s most engaged customers.

Charlie Quirk, associate director of planning and strategy at Possible in Seattle, said, “Make no mistake, brands are participating on these platforms and communities to sell their wares. But if a brand is able to align itself with the values and interests of its target audience, then that precipitates both conversation as well as influence.”

Orabrush, for instance, famously uses the humor about bad breath—something its product fixes—to create shareable sensations on YouTube. Yet not every brand has humor at its disposal, nor should it.

According to Annie Heckenberger, VP and community trailblazer at Red Tettemer O’Connell + Partners, “The key here is ‘woo,’ not ‘whoa.’ If it feels gross, or pitchy, it probably is. Focus on the relationship and the transaction will come.”

Digital media is still an ocean with strong consumer-driven currents, so maintaining a strong voice with customers sometimes requires their involvement. YouTube recently released a Brand Channel Leaderboard that factors in multiple signals of audience passion and popularity, surfacing channels that have the most engaged fan bases. Currently, GoPro is atop the leaderboard, backed by consumer-generated media that drives the popularity of GoPro videos.

YouTube is now the go-to place to display and rerun commercials, but sophisticated brands can also use it to develop their voices when interacting with customers. It will be interesting to see how buttoned-up brands like Nike fare on the leaderboard, since today’s empowered customers want to impact a brand’s voice.

While the shift to a collaborative approach has opened up possibilities for smart, reactive digital marketing campaigns, it continues to present problems for the traditional guardians of brand voice.

“The way we think about it, a brand’s voice shouldn’t really change from place to place. Some of the strongest brands are complex and express a range of tone and emotions the same way people do,” said Zach Gallagher, director of interactive strategy at Wieden+Kennedy Portland.

W+K has worked with Nike since the agency’s inception in 1982.

“We take a great deal of responsibility and pride in how the brands we work with express themselves, and we wouldn’t want to crowdsource that,” Gallagher added. “We’ve found that the best way to be part of the cultural conversation is to lead it.”

Want your business to tell great stories like this one? Contently gives brands the tools and talent to tell stories that people love. Learn more.

The post Honing Your Brand Voice on Social appeared first on Contently.