How To Develop A Kickass Digital Content Strategy

All the buzzwords, key points, and lessons

learned from two days at #SMWNYC.

*Saved you the trip*

1. Everything starts with listening

2. Vanity metrics still mean something - in the context of all your metrics

3. Reverence and relevance matters

4. Publishers are killing it in organic reach, brands aren’t (that’s because brands are woefully inept at

content, apparently)

5. Everyone still sees the value in LinkedIn, but there is confusion on how to use it - and man is it

expensive for paid

6. The idea of a "TARGET audience" is fabricated, there is no such thing

7. Start with “what’s in it for them” not “what’s in it for me”

8. Content needs to viewed as a communicative node - a piece to get people talking

9. Sentiment is overvalued

10. Sentiment is undervalued

11. The process should start with data, not creative

12. Content that is compelling must be entertaining, educational, and purposeful

13. Every piece of content must embody not only what the brand stands for, but what the customer

stands for as well. Sometimes, those are two different things

14. Audience development must support journalists - and yes - your team has a journalist on staff

15. Journalists are under pressure to think about how their stories will be shared on social - so help

them out

16. Create ideas that permeate a culture, not propagate your brand

17. Target audiences may be efficient, but TARGETING networks of people is more effective

18. Consumers trust their peers over everyone, including you marketers out there (shocking)

19. Align KPI’s around what you do. If a “like” does nothing for your brand, why tell your CEO about

it?

20. If you pull audience data to create a lifestyle-angled campaign , your message is intrinsically more

personal. Learn your customers lifestyle, don’t dictate it

21. Marketers are still trying to figure out how one-to-one messaging apps will influence strategy

22. Paid media has to be apart of your social strategy, if not, you’re wasting your time

23. Extend content wherever possible, maximizing on its potential lifespan if it serves a number of

specific consumers

24. Frequency is overrated. In social, you don’t need to send the same message twice because the next

message is on the way

25. Use social assets to promote your story, 140 characters can support 8,000

26. Specificity may sound niche, but the power of the social web can make it spread if it’s intrinsically

shareable

27. Effective story telling has two key characteristics, it’s simple and it’s surprising

28. Most people sleep with their smartphones in bed (romantic, right?)

29. Marketers are still trying to figure out how one-to-many social networks will influence strategy

30. Using social for customer service drives sales and loyalty

31. We share things for 2 reasons. 1.) To form community, and 2.) To build our personal brands

32. Make content that can act as a form of communication, not something to be consumed

33. Think about the customer journey and build personalized content to FIT in that journey

34. Post about what you’re hearing, not what you’re saying

35. Social customer service has very real cost avoidance advantages

36. Consumers expect brands to respond to them, and quickly

37. The “three part narrative arc” doesn’t work in a Starbucks line at 8 a.m.

38. It’s important to build and cultivate relationships with people that aren’t necessarily talking about

you

39. If you’re still treating Twitter as a content dissemination tool, you’re too far gone

40. Use social media to find facts about your audience, down to the tiniest of nuances

41. There is a bevy of untapped data, and too often we place too much value into “likes" and

"followers"

42. Don’t measure something if you don’t understand the value of it

43. Disrupt yourself, at all costs

44. Measure what matters

45. Your customer is media, put your DOLLARS into that

46. Social data matters, but so does survey data. Ask your customers open-ended questions

47. Collect, Analyze, Deliver, and Engage

48. Your brand must iterate and fail to ultimately succeed

49. Humor and informality will always feel more natural

50. Nobody really knows what to do, but it’s fun to keep trying