Why Gary Vaynerchuk is right to 'triple down' on creating content

Gary Vaynerchuk recently announced plans to "triple down" on his already copious production of online content. Critics are chirping that Gary is encouraging online clutter. But Mitch Joel offers another view in the Harvard Business Review:

Those who follow Gary Vaynerchuk respect him. They like him. They seem to want more. By creating more, he is not only appeasing his most heavy users, but he is also giving them (and even those who don't follow him) additional opportunities to find out more, share his thinking and help him spread his own gospel. Tripling down on mediocre content helps nobody. Tripling down on relevancy, being contextual and adding value will always help a brand to expand its audience. Is this hard to scale? Absolutely. Will every brand get this right? Absolutely not. Vaynerchuk and other successful content creators know the pulse of their audience. Through the years, the smartest content marketers have understood not only the pulse of their network, but how to distribute their content in a way that fits the audience. While some may rightfully see it as clutter, my guess is that Vaynerchuk (and other successful content creators) will be analyzing the results and tweaking until they uncover a formula more effective than their old one - a million times better than those with no vision, no formula and lots of worry about the clutter that they're creating.

The only 3 things the C-Suite wants to know about your content

Joe Pulizzin at the Content Marketing Institute says:

Never show an analytics report to your CXO (In this case, CXO refers to the senior executive in charge. This could be the CEO, COO, CMO, etc.). They don’t care about all the details, and will likely end up asking questions that will simply waste your time. When it comes to your content marketing measurement and ROI, your CXO only cares about three things:

• Is the content driving sales?

• Is the content saving costs?

• Is the content making our customers happier, thus helping with retention?

If the reports you show the CXO aren’t answering these types of questions, why show them anything at all? Content marketing is all about developing content that maintains or changes a behavior. That’s your focus.

Big Data is good, but the Human Touch is better

Brian Babineau makes this point on the MarketingProfs Daily Fix Blog: 

Marketers are in danger of forgetting they are trying to reach people. They are focusing on the science of analyzing target demographics like they are specimen in a Petri dish. 

I spoke on a panel recently, and an audience member asked how we panel members thought marketers would best take advantage of Google Glass data. Would it be through pop-up ads? Or quick video pre-rolls? And to that, I say, “Uh, what?” You mean you want to take one of the most up-close-and-personal experiences where a digital dashboard is attached to your head and use the information gathered to better target intrusive ads? Instead, stop, and think about how to have a human touch. Think about how to enhance the personal experience that the Google Glass user is uniquely having. 

So, stop telling me Big Data points about the Big Data. I don’t want to know how much there will be or how much it will grow. If you want to thrill me as a marketer, tell me about the simple insights culled from that data. Share with me the authentic notions about a target or a behavior that emerged. And surprise me by showing how the data fueled a simple, elegant marketing experience that was, at its core, very human.

A key insight for the brand journalist: Always remember, you are writing for people -- not a "target audience."

Why you should give away your best content to your customers

Anne Janzer is a freelance writer who specializes in B2B tech complains. She blogs at  Content Marketing for Technology: 

When I started in technology marketing, marketing saved its really ‘meaty’ materials for the sales team. Anything that included target audience, potential objections or competitive differentiators was marked with “Confidential” and included as part of sales training. You didn’t want your competitors to see what you were doing or to put potential objections into the minds of your prospects. 

Those days are gone. Today people are actively researching solutions long before your sales team ever talks with them. You still need sales training, but you also need ‘prospect training.’ Focus on the customer. That’s where content marketing comes in 

The key is to give people useful, high-value content that helps them solve their business problems. Give it away freely, without waiting for prospects to talk to your salespeople. They can find this information on their own, anyway. You can earn their trust and attention by providing value early in the sales cycle.

Objectivism for Dummies -- making the complex simple to understand

In contrast to her novels, Ayn Rand's philosophical writings can be dense and difficult -- and thus daunting.

Anticipating this, Rand distilled her Objectivism into four familiar maxims:

1. Metaphysics: “Wishing won’t make it so.” (Objective Reality)
2. Epistemology: “You can’t eat your cake and have it, too.”(Reason)
3. Ethics: “Man is an end in himself.”(Self-interest)
4. Politics: “Give me liberty or give me death.” (Capitalism)

"If you held these concepts with total consistency as the base of your convictions," Rand wrote, "you would have a full philosophical system to guide the course of your life."

If Ayn Rand could boil down her entire philosophy to just 27 words, what stops us from making our most complex ideas just as accessible ? (Other than stubborness or laziness, that is.)

Brutal simplicity is a virtue.

New white paper: 'Should Your Brand Take a Stand?"

From Bulldog Reporter:

WrightIMC conducted a survey of more than 3,000 consumers with diverse regional, economic, and age differences. Research was also conducted on controversial positions or viewpoints from five major U.S. brands in the recent past and how it affected business: Chick-fil-A and same-sex marriage; Susan G. Komen for the Cure and Planned Parenthood; Hobby Lobby and contraceptives in employee medical plans; J.C. Penney and Ellen DeGeneres as spokesperson; and Starbucks' support of same-sex marriage. The survey data and case study results form the basis of the white paper.

New ebook: How would the Mad Men of the 1960s have approached content marketing?

Shannon Johnson at Hubspot says:

Knowing how complicated our media landscape is these days, what would an ultra-popular, uber-successful vintage ad campaign have to look like today to make as big of a splash as it did in its time? What would Wendy’s have to do to turn “Where’s the beef?” into a modern day catchphrase? How would Volkswagen’s “Think Small” campaign have to be executed to make the Beetle the most popular imported vehicle? 

These are the questions we explored with the help from a handful of advertising and creative experts in a recent ebook, Traditional Turned Inbound: Reimagining 5 Iconic Ad Campaigns From the Past.

Creating content: It's always about your audience and never about you

From the Daily SEO Blog: 

If you're planning to succeed in your content marketing efforts, there is one big thing that you have to understand right from the start: it's not about you. It's never about you. It's not about your company. It's not about your product. It's not about your service. It's not about how great your company/product is. It's not about the amazing charity work your president does. It's not about how fun it is to work at your company. It's NEVER about you. And the minute you try to make it about you, that's when you lose their trust, and that's when you lose another potential customer 

Repeat after me: It's ALWAYS about them, never about you. This is content marketing. It's not sales, and it's not advertising. If you want to do sales and advertising, that's perfectly fine, but just don't do it in your content marketing. Write for the reader, always.

My two cents: Yes, it is always about the reader. Content should always focus on what the audience will want and will need to know. But if you don't think content is about sales, don't ever tell your clients. I guarantee clients believe creating content is about sales -- or they wound't pay you to generate content.

If you can't deal with that, but want to stay in the game, here's a suggestion: Think of what you do as the first stage of diffusing an innovation. It just happens that the innovation is your client's product and the diffusion process leads to sales.

The best way to engage an audience with your content

"Trust Agents"author Chris Brogan says: 

Ownership. Give them ownership. 

My children both teach me this. My daughter likes various cartoons that she watches on YouTube or Netflix, but when she breaks out the sketchpad and starts creating her own characters for the stories, that’s when there’s something there.

Yes, it's a scary idea (especially for the lawyers). But if we want our content to spread, then brand journalists have to look for ways to give audiences a way to contribute to the content. We also have to act as change agents within our client's corporate culture.