Whether paid, earned or shared, your owned content should always be seen. But with an increasing amount of content vying for views in the digital space, it can be difficult to grab the attention of your desired audience.
At D+P, we are content strategists and communications experts; we understand that exceptional content is central to a digital communications strategy. That’s why we focus on content management and content distribution channels to drive engagement with the right people at the right time in the right places.
DID YOU KNOW THAT EVERY DAY THERE ARE…?
+ 204 million emails sent
+ 8 million new likes on Facebook
+ 278,000 tweets
+ 400 million new Instagram posts
Not surprisingly, attention spans have shrunk, coming in at a scant eight seconds – less than a goldfish’s attention span! It comes as no shock, then, that the average lifespan of an article is just two days – not a client’s ideal outcome for a message that’s valuable for their brand.
NEVER FEAR…
… there are ways to win and extend your reach! A content management strategy is key. The first step is to create compelling content that your audience can benefit from – help, don’t sell. This could be anything from a behind-the-scenes look at a new product line to an exclusive deal for your followers, an insightful blog post on industry trends or a short instructional video.
If, after you’ve created your content, you want to reach new and emerging audiences or simply guarantee additional traction, we encourage our clients to consider paid amplification tools to extend their content’s reach. That’s the stuff that you see on your favorite websites labeled “sponsored.”
Here is a quick look at a few tools we use which can be applied across a variety of different business areas:
LinkedIn – LinkedIn now allows marketing teams to natively post engaging content on the social network. The posts can be useful for driving traffic to the brand’s owned properties or other social media profiles.
Facebook ads – Facebook’s average reach for ads is 91.3%. Facebook ads can be targeted by location, age and other demographics.
Promoted tweets – Promoted tweets are deployed to current fans and potential followers. Promoted tweets begin with a compelling piece of content that is then targeted to the right audience through Twitter’s filtering options. After the campaign launch, the promoted tweet appears in the home timelines of targeted users.
Mailchimp – MailChimp is a ‘freemium’ web-based email marketing platform that allows marketers to share their content through email newsletters.
Outbrain – This is a native advertising, content discovery platform that can extend the lifespan and targeted reach of content with guaranteed views and/or engagement from your target audience. They place links to your content on the web’s largest and most respected media properties.
You can implement these tools to drive traffic to video, text or blog posts, increase media reach, address crisis situations, promote events, influence purchase behavior, boost product or brand awareness, and more!
Here’s an example highlighting a Facebook ad amplification campaign. Our client, The Circuit Trails created a Facebook page in April 2015. To increase engagement and boost the number of followers, the client devised and ran a Facebook ad campaign from June through October. The results tell the story; this well-planned paid media strategy generated 2,193 likes, accounting for 82% of the page’s total like count (2,672).
So, what’s the message here? Pay to amplify every single post? Absolutely not. These tools can be used alone or paired together with an earned and shared strategy based on your content, campaign objectives and budget. What’s important is to consider paid content as a part of your overall content management strategy.
