Categories
Content Marketing

What can Don Draper teach us about Creating Content

Yes, I was a Mad Men fan. Everything that needs to be said about the show has already been said, by people with larger expense accounts than mine.

Seeing a distilled wisdom presented in the infographic below, I realise how much it told us about the creative process and you can easily apply this to modern content creation. Not only that but I like how it takes apart the process.

The thing that resonates with me, is “get in the frame of mind”. Storytelling is a natural, innate skill that most humans have buried just beneath the surface. It’s not so much mechanical as it is printed in our DNA, we simply need to feel it.

Of course, language is mechanical and rule based, but too many rules stifle the creativity. If Don Draper taught us anything it was that if you never break the rules, you will never fulfil your creativity.

Categories
Content Marketing

Using the News to help with Content Marketing and SEO

Frustrated blogger

Knowing what to blog about, to create content about every day is a bit of a task. It’s hard, but it’s not impossible. Of course you need content that works rather than the filler that most other blogs and websites churn out. You need to create content for people rather than the Google bot.

One effective way to keep the content ideas fresh, is to create content around the news.

The news has a few things going for it from a content marketers perspective.

  • It changes every day
  • People talk about it on social media
  • People hunger for more detail about a specific news story
  • Not all news is bad, negative or depressing

There are many examples of succesful content marketers surfing this news wave every day. It’s not exactly newsjacking, that’s another thing, but it is using that jump off point of the news to further the narrative.

Examples of last week include fly tipping in Essex, the latest Kim Kardashian story (remember your content is competing with Kim Kardashian’s Ass), Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Halloween, and lets not forget Star Wars.

Black Friday was interesting, especially in the UK. There were a large number of people in the “megh” camp, who just couldn’t be bothered to get excited about saving money on a bargain. And even in Cornwall the excitement was in the barely bothered camp.

I talked to traders about this, Bakery 46 and Near and Far Nepalese Clothing and Bakery 46 both said it was pretty much like any other Friday and not much difference. You may argue that such small traders cannot climb onto the Black Friday wagon, but there there is news there is content marketing opportunities and small traders can absolutely benefit from a relatively cheap form of marketing.

Image source

Categories
Content Creation

Why your web content production needs to establish an Edginess Index

knife

I create a lot of content for clients and run into the same issues over and over. One problem is that the kind of content that gets results has an edge to it, but the client usually does not want content that has an edge to it, they just want to sell stuff.

Nothing wrong with wanting to just sell stuff.

However, magnetic content, content that attracts tends to be edgy content.

For example, if you are a client in the niche of “home lighting”, I may suggest an article along the lines of “Top ten lighting rigs to power your Cannabis Farm“.

I probably wont, but I am using this extreme example to illustrate the point. Of course the article still has to be written in a certain style which attracts the social movers and shakers and linkerati, to be deemed a winner.

Most business people do not live in my weird and wonderful world of online content creation, and so do not understand why approaching content in a counter intuitive way is sometimes essential.

So, it’s useful if we have an Edginess Index.

This is to gauge how edgy to make the content on a scale of 1 to 10.

Here is my Edginess Index:

1 = Local Govt publications
2 = Local newspaper
3 = Beano
4 = 2000AD
5 = TV Quick
6 = Top Gear
7 = FHM
8 = Sun/ Daily Mail
9 = Nuts
10 = XXXXXXXXXXX

Note: This is for the UK market specifically.

1. The most anodyne, mundane, safe copy I have ever read is that of local government publications. The stuff that tells you how to put your rubbish out etc. Useful if you need to know how to put rubbish out.

2. Local newspapers tend to be written by numbers, local jumble sale info, cat stuck in tree, man buys pork pie etc. It’s safe, useful as it tells you what’s going on and interesting if your in your area someone who kidnaps cats and sells them to the local butcher to kill and put into sausages has just been arrested.

3. The Beano is a comic for 6 to 12 year olds, although I still read it occasionally and enjoy it. The tone of the content is child friendly but fun. It’s a little mischievous with kids getting into scrapes and high jinx, it’s no Horrid Henry but it definitely appeals to the rebel in every child. In a way, it resonates wrong doing but in a way that a child can understand.

Most web content tries to get to this tone, but fails becoming more boring than a house brick.

4. 2000AD is the comic for 13 upwards, at least it was when I would read it religiously. It’s a lot more gritty than the Beano and deals with more grown up concepts, but no swearing, nudity or sex, but plenty of aliens getting fragged and Judge Dredd going around saying “I am the law”. Yes I am a fan.

5. TV Quick or any of those “by the counter tabloids”, is safe enough to sell at the supermarket checkout, but edgy enough to attract the attention and initiate the impulse part of the brain of an interested reader. It does sometimes contain articles like, “I was so fat I even ate the sofa”, kind of articles, but mostly it’s stuff that tickles your gran. There are about ten of these types of publications on the supermarket shelf and so a fair sized market.

If you took out the headlines and put them on a plain white page, they would seem shocking, but by making the colours of the mag soft and pleasing with pretty people and no gore, they are able to sell the, “I ate my neighbours dog baby”, type stories.

6. Now we are starting to get into the, “it may offend someone” category. Although not as offensive as the raw throat pipe of Mr Jeremy Clarkson, but it still does have that frisson of excitement. For example, “The first car I had sex in”, may be an article. Not talking about the bits and bobs you understand, but more the automotive angle, and so is less edgy than it seems.

7. FHM however, is as edgy as it seems. Offending a good portion of people, and yet attracting a sizable audience. Does not shy away from a bit of raw, bodily fluid type humour, but pulls back before you feel all dirty. I’m really talking about the articles, not the pictures.

In all of these content producers I am talking about the “tone” of the content, not the specific content itself, but what it represents and how many people it may offend.

8. Sun/Daily Mail website. These are British content producers, not sure what it would be in your locale. These contain highly offensive material, so much so that they regularly arouse the anger of a lot of people. These are at number 8 because of the amount of people that find them offensive, conversely they are insanely successful.
Very few of my business clients would want to be associated with articles such as “Freddie Star ate my hamster”. But this is what more people like to read and consume than most other publications.
The point is, these publications go out to offend and to bait people into a response. One only has to observe how the Mail handled the Samantha Brick situation. Which is a fascinating case to analyse and one we had a lot of fun with on Linkbait Coaching

9. Nuts. These porn dressed as “lads mags” are able to get into a lot of UK supermarkets. It’s mix of raucous humor and sexual objectification of women would rate it extremely objectionable. Few mainstream linkbaiters would go to this level, but those who do still get links, but find they get a label they just can’t shake.

10. XXXXXXXXXXX is just too hot to handle. So offensive I can’t even repeat it here. Not a level I have ever gone up to, but it’s important to know it’s here and that it exists.

This stuff does get links, but from a more smaller bag of link possibilities.

So there we have it, the more edgy we go the less likely a client is going to want it on their website or used as a guest post on someone else’s. The ideal is probably somewhere in the middle. It is very useful to use an edginess index, I would advise creating your own, relative to clients understanding.

Most content stays safe, not because the publishers want to protect our morals, but it’s the cheapest, safest and quickest to publish. It is not the most effective though, a higher level of edginess works better and I am not just talking sexual edginess or even violent, sometimes it can be something that challenged the current consensus.

Linkbait tends to naturally have an edge, or at least it should do. Attractive can sometimes disrupt and unsettle, but it can also challenge.

When directing those to create content for you it’s important you establish a way to communicate just how far you want to go with the content.

Picture source

Categories
Content Marketing

Why you don’t need to know what Content Marketing means

Gutenberg Printing Press

Lets be honest about “Content Marketing”, just for once.

“Content marketing”, was invented so online marketing agencies can sell more stuff.

Yes I realise all my pals or now ex pals in my industry will tell me to STFU. But I have thing little aberration in my brain that sometimes inhibits me from bullshitting. Which is a real handicap at times.

The reason why the term “content marketing” is a bucket full of rotten, frogs is this…..

There is already a term that adequately describes the act, and that is “publishing.” Some of you may be aware of it.

In the first 50 years after Gutenberg first cranked up his printing press (it was no longer Guttenbergs’ by the way as in was in debt to the investor and had to hand all the rights over to the businessman who lent him the money to make the printing press, but that’s a story for another time.) around 12 million books were printed.

Do you think they understood the art of using publishing for marketing purposes using the cutting edge technology of their time.

To me, the term publishing has marketing at its foundation. After all, publishing is simply a collection of communication methods designed to communicate and cause reaction in an engaged consumer.

If you start to peel off the layers of what people are actually doing when they create an infographic, publish it on a blog and promote it using social media, you quickly understand that the fundamentals never change.

All content marketing describes, is a mechanised way of taking advantage of current publishing and promotional tools, it does not get deep into the fundamentals. It simply hasn’t been around long enough, whilst “publishing” as a term has.

This may seem like semantic drivel, but when agencies overuse the term “content marketing” to promote methods using new mechanisms, when the fundamentals are the same, it gets annoying.

My argument is that the client does not need to know the definition of such mechanistic terms as content marketing, that’s for the industry to sweat bricks over.

But the client absolutely has to get what “publishing” is, and the increased speed and power that the technology can now give us.

So I’m not that bothered about using the word, but do you have to use it so much.

And do you really think that a client needs to know such stuff to get it?

Categories
Content Creation

How to Create Great Content Ideas from the News Hook

Using the news hook to create a link attracting piece of content is a great way to marketing your website. It’s difficult to constantly come up with content ideas that work.

By looking at the news and creating content around what everyone is talking about helps your content get noticed, passed around on social media and also get links. Most people are hungry for more information regarding the current news, but most news agencies simply repeat the same information. If you could put a spin on the current news story and fold the theme of your niche within the content, you can creating high quality content.

On linkbait coaching we have a special section where we discuss the news, knock around ideas for content around the news, come up with headlines for specific niches etc. Basically we provide a constant stream of content ideas and headline ideas. It’s relatively easy to then take these building blocks and create your own content, saving a lot of cash by not having to hire that linkbait consultant.

Right now we have an offer, you can check out the service for £50 for 5 days, if you have sucked all the info you are able to, cancel the account and on your way. However for those wishing to continue to get a stream of edgy, hot topic content advice the fee is £200 a month. This of course comes with all the other coaching help that Linkbait Coaching provides.

Below is a list of a sample of the threads in the “News on Crack”, forum. For those with Linkbait Coaching membership you can click on the link and get access to the thread, for those who are not, sorry, you need to sign up.

 

Higgs discovery – Biggest Scientific moment since DNA
Fake cigarette caused M6 police Megabus coach swoop

Mad Mitts Jet Bike Fondue

In Volvo News

Go to Florida and Drown

Barclays Bonkers Bob

LIBOR – London Inter Bank

World’s best/worst employees
Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes split
Obamacare – a linkbait gift
How people are getting around Pirate Bay
Nat West and RBS
Apple Losing it’s Mojo
Jimmy Carr Tax and other celebs
NeverSeconds blogger Martha Payne school dinner photo ban lifted
Can the PC game Civilisation predict the future?
NME apologises to singer Morrissey over article
Tourist magnets crumbling into dust
Battersea Power Station
When Greek politicians attack
Stupidest Criminals ever
News Subjects for May 31st
TV remote control inventor Eugene Polley dies at 96
Can Nazis get you links
Worlds Richest woman
Thieves take £11,000 of sex toys in Stourport-on-Severn
Britains most expensive home
Can playing World of Warcraft make you smarter?
Facebook IPO
Time Lapse Video
Greek situation getting worse, and more news worthy
Could we do without traffic lights? – Turning the boring into interesting
Double Dip recession
‘Poo-machine’ attracts crowds at Australia’s ‘subversive adult Disneyland’
Will the Red Head from the Red Top stick the knife into Cameron
Olympic torch lit
Prince Charles and Camilla turn weather presenters
London Bus Drivers threaten to strike during Olympics
Google gets Nevada driving licence for self-drive car
Man who put resume on billboard gets a job
US Self defense expert refused entry to the UK
Man sues porn star for not following him on Twitter
Businesses that go with the trend – going or gone bust
Businesses that go against the trend
Finance – Shareholders reject executive pay
US Teens getting drunk on hand sanitizer
Addison Lee vs Cyclists
Finance Ideas
London Olympics 2012
Leveson Equiry
23 Year old spread bettor who recently spent around £150k on a night out gets arrested

 

Categories
Content Marketing

Content Marketing is making every Brand a Publisher

We know a massive disruption is occurring right now in publishing. Not only are old media like Newspapers under attack from the likes of blogs, but brands themselves are taking to online publishing or what some call content marketing.

Before, these brands would advertise in the old media, taking out adverts and buying advertorials. Now the brands themselves are creating content in which to build their brand, attract new customers, increase customer attention etc.

Although technology is allowing a brand or small business to become a publisher of web content and little cost, it is the story or the narrative of the message that is the true King.

Because, it’s not that content is king, most are wrong about this. Content is not King, it’s actually worthless. What is King is The Story. Unless the narrative grabs you emotionally and pulls you in, the content may as well be a pile of grey dust, stepped over on the way to buy a donut.

A lot of online properties have built themselves on foundations of waste pits of garbage content, churned out with no love and a couple of dollars thrown the writers way. Google with it’s not too recent updates put paid to that.

You can no longer build empires of online real estate using the Pyramid method, where the lowest level is garbage and links up to the next level which gets better and better in quality, till at the summit you actually get to the point where you have something you actually want to read.

Efficiencies in scale are always important when it comes to publishing. But if the content you produce does not resonate, does not connect, what’s the point.

Teaching content marketing on Linkbait Coaching daily means I come into contact with people who get this, along with:

  • An understanding you have to think before you create
  • Knowledge that real people need to desire the content
  • Time and resources will be needed to create quality content
  • We should be in the publishing mindset and not the seo mindset
  • We create for people, not search engines
  • Links are a natural effect of our work

Talking to a lot of SEO agencies, I get a feeling that some do not yet get the fact they are in publishing, rather than busting algos.

The story and a deep understanding on the pyschological needs of other humans are now the key weapons in the fight for eyeballs and sales in the World of online marketing.

Getting The Story right is the most important thing an online business can be doing right now in terms of internet marketing.

Categories
Content Creation

Why we should Create High Quality Content?

Who decides what is quality content?

In a post panda World, low quality content no longer cuts the mustard. It’s the high quality stuff that Google now requires when deciding where to rank your website.

This refers to both the content on your web site and the content on the websites linking to you.

Quality web content can be defined along the following terms:

  • It attracts and persuades a person to link to it for no other reason than to cite the information.
  • It attracts and persuades a person to share it on social media for no other reason than to show the information to others.

It is the intent within these two statements that is fundamental.

It is human action or reaction that defines what is or isn’t quality. Action regardless of any other factor than the content itself.

This is what we would call social proof or more accurately human proof. By it’s very nature it cannot be manipulated in the same way a search engine algorithm can be.

To be able to accurately quantify web content, the content that must be the sole influencer.

The human signal remains pure and is the product of each individual who makes the decision to create each social signal they produce.

It can of course be mimicked by software designed to act like humans, although such software is unable to replicate the nuance and detail which human social signals produce. We see this in software designed to inflate social media accounts such as Twitter, Pinterest etc. Although they aid to give some signal, it is one of very low quality and easily identified.

The human social signal can also bought. In large offshore setups, low paid workers toil in Internet factories creating social signals to order for clients to gain advantage in search engine rankings. Similar offshore factories already exist to build links in forums, blog comments etc.

Thus, the human social signal is noisy and contaminated and if Google is not able to identify and isolate the manipulated social signal then Google’s search engine rankings can be manipulated regardless of the quality of the content.

We may be seeing evidence that Google has somehow factored in a way to quantify the veracity of the social signal. I only have anecdotal evidence and is an educated guess, but it is the only way to determine whether the social signal is worth listening to. And also Google does give us clues on the direction of how their search engine is going to work.

It has gone beyond Google simply listening to the social signal, all social signals must now be quantified if they are to be of any use and authorship is one way to do this. If Google knows who wrote the article and who is responding to the article it can in someway more accurately predict the quality of the social signal.

For example, if an SEO agency writes an article and someone else calls it “Awesome”, that is a signal. But if Google then works out that the person works for the SEO agency, or constantly calls the content which the SEO agency produces “Awesome”, then the signal needs to be quantified to be accurate.

I have noticed this behavior on Twitter and it feeds into my study of the tribal psychology that exists on Twitter and social media. A certain website will release an article, its immediate employees respond in an unnaturally hyped up fashion, the approbation cascades down to partner companies and individuals seeking attention and validation from association.

Sometimes the content is excellent, sometimes it is mediocre and yet the same applause emanates from the same individuals creating a never ending stream of hype. It is only when the content is viewed by dispassionate readers that we are able to assess its true quality and quantify it. Therefore if Google were to determine the quality of the content it would have to apply a filter to those who express relentless, sycophantic adoration.

If Google knows who is initiating the social signal it will be able to build an algorithm around the data it knows about the signal. If it knows the author and if they have given their data to the Google database voluntarily or not then the Company can perform a correct quantification of the social signal and even the link signal if it comes from a website or webpage soley in the control of the the author.

Therefore, we may be seeing a way that Google has accurately determined which is quality content and also which are quality links.

It may even determine that if the author is not in their database their signal cannot be correctly quantified and must be treated accordingly.

This may already be happening with the data Google has in its database from its G+ system. It may that this so called “social network” is not a social network at all, but more of a way for Google to acquire an accurate human social signal in relation to web content

In conclusion, it is essential that websites continue to produce high quality content, defined by the viewer who is independent of any benefits which may come to the website which hosts the content.

The content must be judged by the reaction of those outside of the tribe if it is to be regarded as high quality or not.

Categories
Linkbait

How to Get Creative

My job is mostly about being creative, coming up with web content ideas, creating headlines, writing copy etc. It’s usually quite easy for me to do this and I have always thought that this could be taught, which is what I do at Linkbait Coaching.

Because I feel that it’s simply about having the right mindset, being in the correct mode and not having to be some mad creative genius.

Today I came across a video that reinforced everything that I believe about being creative. The video is by John Cleese, and it is well worth watching. But if you are in a hurry I had jotted down some notes below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pb5oIIPO62g

<- Notes begin "Creativity is not a talent, it is a way of operating", John Cleese Creativity is not an ability that you either have or do not have, it is absolutely unrelated to IQ as long as you are above a minimum. Creativity is not about IQ What is different about highly creative people. They have a facility to get themselves into a certain mood, a way of operating. In other words, "an ability to play", to be childlike, to be able to explore ideas and play for playing sake. Two modes, open and closed. Creativity is impossible in closed mode. Open mode is essential for the idea, for creativity. Closed mode is essential to actually implement the idea. When implementing the idea, we do not need distraction, humour, doubt. Being able to switch Conditions of getting into the open mode Space Time Time Confidence Humour Play begins, exists for a specific time and then is over. Putting the big project off It's easier to do little things we know we can accomplish than to start big things we are not so sure about completing. Creating an oasis of quiet. Take an hour and a half to calm down your brain, and an hour to create. Highly creative people tend to play with the problem longer before they try to resolve it. They are prepared to tolerate the discomfort of not having solved the problem for longer. (clients tend not to give you the time to solve the creative problems because they do not trust creative people) Taking a decision removes the discomfort. Take the time for your mind to come up with something original. You have to play, be silly, make mistakes. Drivel may lead to a breakthrough. Notes end->

I strongly suggest you watch the video if in any way you are connected to creativity. I provide the open mind, the playful creative space. If you find creativity difficult when it comes to content creation get in touch.

We are always playing and always have a free-roaming mind generating threads and threads of creative goodness on the forums.

Sometimes it simply makes sense to hire a specialist than to try and muddle through.

Categories
Linkbait

Gremlins in the Machine 24 hour delay to launch Linkbait Coaching

As always with a product launch the Gremlins attack.

The launch of Linkbait Coaching 3.0 is going to have to be put back 24 hours. Membership will be available on Friday 23rd of March.

Apologies if you were itching to get cracking, but some things I can’t control.

I was asked about the price and I’m going to keep the price the same as it was two years ago. £200 a month.

But I am offering a Linkbait Coaching Plus account which will have a bunch of extras and get you a month free, more on this later.

I will be posting a full list of all the new stuff that is going to be in the latest incarnation.

Categories
Content Marketing

Quick Few Thoughts on Content Marketing Before I finish my Porridge

The online marketing industry is using the term “content marketing”, widely and consistently. Which means I must use it too, even though I have an urge to write a 10k word essay on the subject of why it shouldn’t be used.

Thinking, rather than acting can sometimes (not always) hurt the bottom line.

As Linkbait Coaching 3.0 is about to launch it makes sense to start a Content Marketing course.

Most people still don’t get blogging.

Deeper thinking about the technique will always win, unless you are selling a content marketing course and then it makes more sense to say the stuff is easy. I can’t do that, which I understand does affect business and I really have tried to sell out and be a commerce whore but it goes against my OS. So, always market to those who seek high ability over a quick fix.

All online output is communication and all communication is marketing, even down to the privacy policy.

Basic, bog standard link building still works. Get in touch and I can sort you out with something very tasty.

Categories
Content Marketing

Why Content Marketing is the Wrong Way Round

Content marketing is the wrong term, as I have discussed before, you are not marketing content, you are using content to attract people to you website to be persuaded to perform specific actions such as purchasing, lead generation etc.

You are not marketing content, but creating magnetic content. Content that not only attracts, but is sticky, and embeds into the sub-consciousness.

But, the term content marketing has taken hold, and propagated mostly by people wanting to sell to people who lack understanding over the form.

Why is this important?

Putting too much emphasis on the content rather than the purpose of the website can take your eye off the ball. Its not abut the content, the content is merely a tool, a mechanism. Some content creators miss this aspect and end up having the cart pulling the horse.

It’s understandable because whenever the term content marketing is raised the cliched terms of “quality content! and “content is King”, are not far behind. And like all cliches, there is a foundation of truth, but not the whole truth.

I think the reason for the over focus on “content”, rather than the purpose of the website is because most content creators still don’t get the reason web content exists and what it can be used for.

A lot of content is created for the purpose of link building, if the content is created and then marketed its the wrong way round. To create content and then market the content is wasteful and inifficient. The marketing should be first and the content comes after.

You find out what the linkerati want and then you create content.

It’s odd how many come up with the idea for content before fully analysing the needs of the market they are targeting.

Find out what people want and give it to them.

Most people think the content they should be producing should be the content which they like, rather than what the market requires.

Marketing then content

Not

“Content marketing”

But I’m afraid it doesn’t scan well.

Its not simply about being pedantic, its about creating creating the correct mindset and work flow.

Developing The correct mindset is something that is crucial to creating magnetic web content and I am going to be blogging about this later.

You may not think this matters much, but if you don’t have the right content creation processes in place and most don’t then your content efforts will never reach their full potential, whilst your competitor gets it together.

Categories
Content Marketing

Content Marketing Training or Linkbait Coaching?

I had a feeling it was coming about a year ago.

A new term to describe something that doesn’t really need a new term and yet at the same time is meaningless.

But lets put aside such semantic discussions for those who chose to burn time on such matters.

The term “Content Marketing” is here and lets embrace it like a long lost friend.

I don’t have to buy into the artifice that this is a new technique, all shiny and fresh. The readers to this blog are mostly hard nosed online marketers who know that knew terms like this are only created so the same old stuff can be repackaged and sold as a new marketing concept.

And so a writer, now becomes a content marketing consultant.

OK, it’s not exactly like that and there are nuances to the term and it’s meaning, blah blah blah.

The term “linkbait” went through a similar process when it stuck its mongrel head out the hole from whence it came. Lots of screen reading time was devoted to its true meaning and whether the £800 suited marketing exec of an International Corporation should be told he needed “Linkbait”, without implying it’s something found on a pavement after a crack addict has vomited on it.

And so it’s natural that the term, “content marketing” has kicked linkbait off the charts. Just like New Wave replaced punk, these things go in cycles.

I know what you are think, “yeah but linkbait isn’t anything like content marketing….” yada yada yada.

You are missing the point.

The reasons these terms exist in the first place is purely economic. They exist so we can sell stuff to clients who don’t want a two hour insight into the nuances of the technique.

The terms do not have defined meanings (a Wikipedia entry is not indicative of a defined meaning) and so when talking to a client the term can be shaped to suit the objective.

The term can now describe a range of things that were not bundled together before. Which is very useful when explaining things to a client, as they do not have the time to understand detail.

Maybe I am being a tad cynical, but I like the thought process to be transparent and it helps me when people say, “Dude, just get over it, content marketing is King“.

Now, as I train people in the dark art of linkbaiting, it’s not too much of a leap to repackage that training into content marketing training.

To my pals who agree with me that calling it “content marketing” is naff and really just a mind job, if the mainstream are running the term, may as well rank for it.

The process of going over to the dark side started last year, may as well embrace it and move forward.

Categories
Content Creation

Content Marketing Training and a dog called Fenton

One of the biggest problems I come across in helping people build links to their websites is how to build magnetic content which attracts links. It seems that selling plumbers supplies online does not naturally lead to expertise on online publishing.

Who would have thought?

The reality is, creating effective web content is a highly specialised skill and in some ways is counter intuitive to running a business online. So, someone who may be expert in sourcing plumbing supplies and negotiating favourable terms may not be able to produce digital information which excites the cockles of the linkerati.

Website marketing is a nuclear arms race. If one website in the niche gets a 30 megaton bomb, then everyone has to, just to keep up. If someone goes out and gets a 35 megaton bomb everyone again has to run out and get the latest nuke. And thus it is with getting websites to rank.

Your plumbing supplies website can compete in the rankings without having over 300 back links, just as long as no one else does. Once you get your links from the usual places, the industry body, local chamber of commerce and a link from your web designers (web designers have a cheeky habit of sneaking in an advertising link on the website you just paid for) etc. it becomes a bit more of an effort to go and get the links.

And so a natural backlink ceiling is imposed on your niche. But along comes Frank the plumber and he uploads a picture of a dead squirrel that he pulled out of the waste pipe of a Bosch Dishwasher. The picture goes viral, his local plumbing supplies website starts to rise in the search engine results page and the cash starts flowing in.

Frank the plumber has not offered cheaper prices, or become a better plumber, arrives at his jobs in a quicker fashion or has improved his business in any way. Except, his revenues have increased because a dead squirrel has caused his website to collect more links, thus rising in the rankings and becoming more visible in the search engines.

Frank starts thinking. If the linkerati like pictures of dead squirrels found in the waste pipe of a Bosch Dishwasher, I wonder if they will like a picture of a dead mouse stuck in a hose retaining ring? Frank goes on to find that people online find pleasure in emailing pictures of dead animals found in plumbing, thus creating an online gallery of user generated content and also creating a community of rabid fans who can be nudged to do things with help the marketing of the website.

Now, I’ve outlined a scenario which has happened many, many times. People fall into becoming skilled at using content to market their websites. These people have no obvious training in online publishing or any kind of publishing and yet they just seem to get it, whilst others find coming up with ideas for effective content incredibly hard.

My theory as to why this is so hard for the average business person to grasp is that they simply don’t have the time to understand the basic concepts of what works and why it works. It’s important to know why a piece of content works.

You laugh and share Fenton, but do you know why?

Content like this is sometimes called Linkbait, which is misleading, but that’s for another blog post. This skill of creating magnetic web content and using it to juice up the linkerati can be taught and is something I am going to be teaching with the launch of Linkbait Coaching 3.0. Which takes a focussed look at analysing what works, why and how to replicate it. It’s not ready for launch yet, but soon.

You could of course hire someone specifically for this task, or you could train someone in-house. Training in the art of content marketing will pay you back in sack fulls over time. Investing in creating better content is something that can be used over a variety of mediums and is not just for improving your Google rank.

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Content Creation

Biting Live Chickens with Content Marketing

Content Marketing

I must have blinked.

And up pops another word for the same stuff we’ve all been doing for years, yeah millenia,

It’s now called “Content marketing”.

Or it could also be called “read stuff-buy stuff”. However, it’s tricky to sell services at £150/hour to a marketing executive when all you are going to tell them is to implement the read stuff/buy-stuff concept.

You may argue that content marketing is far more nuanced and psychologically driven, blah blah especially if you are selling content marketing serivices (which I am btw) then you probably are the type to elaborate and gesticulate and obfuscate and drop a bit of management speak and other such guff.

But those kinds of people never actually create content that makes people crawl over broken glass to consume.

They tend to repackage mediocre old school stuff in a sharp, brushed aluminium box with a logo coloured a soft shade of blue. A blue that has a subtle but effective gradient. Then they get the deal by revealing they go to the same school or buy the same crampons or kite surf the same beaches.

There are those who can present content which actually gets the results that turn the marketing executives heads, and there are those that can present and pitch trendy concepts and…. that’s about it.

Content marketing used to be called informercials, or advertorials. And they used to make mountains of cash. With not a blue gradient in sight.

Linkbait is content marketing, but what it is selling is the emotional warm glow you will receive if you link to the content. That is the action, that is the point.

Most of the people pushing the concept of content marketing seem to be fresh faced 20 somethings who have a brightness in the eye and think a new discovery has been made and use such terms as “globalize your creative concepts”.

Maybe I’m just a cynical, middle aged, frustrated film script writer who has seen the concept of “read stuff-buy stuff” repackaged and reformed so many times that it takes a lot even to raise one eyebrow 2.7mm.

But, I think not. I think this has always happened, the crowd always follows but it’s the mavericks that have found the oasis a few years ago and have time to build a hamburger stand to feed the hungry mob (Gary Halbert nod of the day) who eventually arrive at the place after following the 20 something, bright eyed, trendy types.

Imagine picking up a plump chicken. Holding it firm and then stretching its neck, it’s muscles taut and strained and then sinking your teeth into its neck. The hot, wet blood pumping out and running down your chin.

The life seeping out of the feathered body as it lies limp in your hands.

Shocking isn’t it?

But you wont forget that bit of “content”, even if you try for the rest of the day.

That’s the point.

You read, but did you buy?

That’s content marketing!