The timeline below goes all the way back to 1978, when Ward Christensen and Randy Suess created the first computerized bulletin board system (CBBS) to make announcements and plan meetups with friends. It continues and ends with the Facebook IPO in 2012. We think that many of the milestones you find below will sound familiar to you, but hey, just take a lookt. The facts where this infographic is based upon, can be found in Spanish at Marktingdirecto.

• Who is the editor-in-chief? This person is responsible for the overall compilation of your content planning. He/she facilitates content creation and assures the planning to be respected. This role may be allocated to the Conversation Manager as part of his/her duties. After all, content is a proactive manner to encourage conversations.
• Who creates the content? The editor-in-chief cannot be expected to make all the content. It is advisable to appoint a team of employees to assist him/her in this task. Campaigns are usually farmed out to advertising agencies, as are certain parts of most projects. However, much of the content for these projects will still need to be created within the company. State clearly who is in charge of each project. Routine content updates are best carried out in-house, since this will be both cheaper and more flexible.
• What does the planning look like? Make a clear and practical planning  including updates, projects and campaigns. Specify who is responsible for the creation and spreading of content for each element. A quarterly planning is probably the most relevant. A year plan is not sufficiently ‘agile’ and will reduce your ability to react to changing circumstances. Successful content exploits current trends and events.
• Always take account of the context. The atmosphere, place or manner in which your film/advert is viewed will determine to a large extent whether it is appreciated or not. Even the best food loses its taste in bad company or a grotty restaurant! Try to take account of the context of your target group. If they are likely to view your material on a mobile application, don’t forget this when putting together your story line. The better you are at managing the context, the greater the impact of your content will be.
• Do you have in-house writing or video talent? Content scores heavily if it is well written and well presented. Do you have employees who show talent in either or both? If so, they can be useful partners for your content creation. If you don’t have natural talents, try to encourage the most suitable members of your team to help, providing extra training if necessary.
• Don’t forget external content. You don’t need to create all the content yourself. Hundreds of interesting articles, reports and videos are already available, many of which may fit your story perfectly. When you come across information of this kind, share it with your target group. It will confirm their impression of your  being an expert in the field. Install a number of practical tools, such as Google Reader, to help you with your content selection.
• Connecting with influential people within your category. It really helps to share your content on a larger scale if you are connected with influencers and opinion leaders in your category. Develop a program to connect with them and get to know them. See how you can help them and they will help you in return.

If you look back to our approach and suggestions, what is your feedback? Did we forget anything? Do you have examples of companies doing a wonderful job in this domain? Please let us know; we’re open to all suggestions!

• KPI’s with direct impact on the business objectives of your company. In most cases this will be linked to financial performance. KPIs to use are lead generation or direct conversion to sales.
• KPI’s with direct impact on the marketing objectives of your company. Content Marketing can help in boosting awareness of your brand(s). It can help to increase the overall identification with the brand(s).
• KPI’s related to conversations. Conversations are the driver of consumer decision making, thus the driver of business growth. An important KPI for your content marketing is measuring the number of conversations, the sentiment of conversations and the impact of conversations.

One of the methods we use at InSites Consulting to measure the impact of conversations is our ‘Conversation Mapping’ methodology. This method measures both the online and offline conversations about your category and your brand. It is the ideal start of building a content strategy. It helps you in selecting the right domains and to follow up whether the strategy works or not. More details about this method can be found in this PowerPoint:

Observe

Listen to reactions on your content. See what people share. By observing which stories share better than others, you learn how to improve your content creation process. Install real-time monitoring tools to follow up on your content marketing.

You can use these three success parameters:

• Reach of content sharing: How many people are consuming your content?
• Sentiment of content: Are people positive, neutral or negative about your content?
• Impact of content: Is the opinion of people towards your company improving due to your content?

Facilitate

Facilitating goes beyond adding a ‘share’ button to your content. It implies helping your existing community to spread your content. Make sure everything you produce is available digitally so people who like it can easily share it.

Facilitating also implies influencers’ management. Know who the influencers are for your industry. Connect with them. The moment you have relevant content, you should proactively share it with these people. If the quality of your content is high and the way it is presented is great, they will be more than happy to share it with their network. This enables you to reach out to new contacts and thus achieve the objectives of your content marketing strategy.

Join

The last step in managing your content conversation is actively joining in. Most companies are good at being responsive in their conversation management. Responsive implies that questions and remarks towards the content are answered positively, openly and professionally. Being responsive is great, but it is not sufficient. Joining the conversation also implies being proactive. When people in your network are talking about certain topics that fit with your content marketing, you can approach them and share your content proactively. The only way to implement this successfully is if your content is extremely relevant for these people. If the relevance is average or low, it will feel like spam.

Develop different layers of content

The concrete implementation of your content strategy can take place at many different levels. Talk about your industry in general. Show that you know which direction the sector is developing in. Mention new trends and fashionable insights which will confirm your expert status in the field. Your customers will be interested in sharing specific content about your company. Facts, figures and ‘did-you-knows’ can all be very useful. Furthermore, you will also be able to generate large amounts of informal content through your own staff. Make your culture tangible. Tell ‘human interest’ stories about your activities. And last but not least: remember to talk about your products. You can even use content which compares your products with those of your competitors, as long as you do so objectively.

Make the content easy to share

Make sure all your content is available in a digital format. This allows people to share it spontaneously with their friends through social networks and e-mails. Next to that, make sure that you connect ‘share’ buttons to all your content units. The philosophy is simple: create easy opportunities for your target audience to follow and share everything you say.

Make the content worth sharing

What type of content do people share? That is the 1 million dollar question which many Internet experts are asking themselves today. Research conducted by Chip and Dan Heath(Made to stick; why some ideas survive and others die, 2007) teaches us that there are six ‘sticky’ criteria. Content that successfully passes the sticky test will be shared by the target group.

1.    Simplicity
Selling a single idea to your consumers is enough. The more arguments and choice you give consumers, the more difficult it is for them to share.

2.    Surprise
The message must attract and hold the attention of the consumer in an innovative and counter-intuitive manner.

3.    Concrete
Formulate exactly what you want to say to the consumer and do so as clearly as possible. This can involve the use of all the different senses. Make sure that people can see in a split second what the story is about. Titles and design play an important role in this dimension.

4.    Credible
Advertisers often use research material or experts to make their message seem credible. This is one way of doing it, but it is also possible to personalise credibility. Credibility is one of the reasons why Obama is now in the White House. He didn’t get there simply by using a mass of statistics.

5.    Emotional
Make the consumers feel what you are trying to say. If you want to stop teenagers from smoking, telling them it is bad for their health will be less effective than telling them it gives them halitosis.

6.    Stories
Nobody remembers adverts; everybody remembers a good story. Right from our earliest years, we were told stories which will remain with us for the rest of our lives. Remember that when you are communicating with your consumers. Try to keep them enthralled. The average classroom presentation by a student contains 2.5 statistics per minute, but only one in ten attempts to tell a story. Yet if you ask the students in the audience what they remember from all these presentations, 63% say that they remember the stories, whereas a mere 5% remember the statistics.

To make it even more concrete, we conducted a unique study as part of the preparation for this paper. We collected all the conversations from 1,000 Facebook pages of 200 global brands. In total, we analysed about 770,000 conversations about these brands. We did a similar exercise for Twitter. In this instance, we selected a random week in June 2011 and analysed the tweets for 300 brands. This gave us about 246,000 conversations. Our insights with regard to the most frequently shared material were gleaned from the data-mining of these million brand-related conversations. These conversations were a mixture of spontaneous conversations about brands and content shared by brands. It gives you the full overview of what people share. The study gave us insights in the content people share on social media:

• Experience with your products or services: People give feedback about their experience with your products and/or services. It is noticeable that there are more conversations about specific products than about brands.
• Experience with offline touch-points: Offline customer experience is an important online conversation starter. The customer-friendliness of employees in a sales point is the most important conversation starter.
• Competitions and games: Content with games/a competitive element results in many conversations. In addition to interaction, ‘gamification’ results in many ‘likes’.
• Free: ‘Free’ always works. If people think they can get something for free, they will mention it to everyone! This is not only valid for free products, but also for free content.
• Collaboration: Involve people in your decision-making and they will love telling others about it. If their engagement increases, so too will the number of conversations. This does not need to be complicated. Simply asking your fans a question can be enough to generate plenty of interaction. In addition, the customers can also show their enthusiasm through their ‘likes’.
• Lifestyle: Even if this does not immediately relate to your products, people like to talk about music, eating out, sports, etc., and again show their enthusiasm for this content through their ‘likes’.
• Positive messages: This is the value of happiness. There are more interactions as a result of sharing something positive than something negative. Consumers like happy stories and positive messages generate plenty of ‘likes’.
• News: Your fans like to share news about your company and like to be kept informed about the developments relating to their favourite brand.
• Advertising: There are a lot of conversations on Twitter about advertising. This is probably related to the presence of the high penetration media and numerous advertising professionals on this network. Complete reviews of advertising campaigns are sometimes shared.
• Social media news: There are plenty of conversations on Twitter about the latest iPhone and iPad apps.
• Employee stories: Company employees share considerable amounts of informal content via Twitter. They talk about where they work and give their followers a glimpse of what goes on behind the scenes. This content is re-tweeted at a higher than average rate.

When producing content, it would be wise to take these conclusions into account. Make sure there is enough variety in your content. Organise a competition every now and then. Include a games element in your stories. Make sure that your news is news-worthy. And keep it positive!

This last aspect is crucial. Our extensive study proves that the overwhelming majority of people make and share positive content. Only 10% of the comments on Facebook fan pages and 14% of tweets are negative. It is very difficult to even find hate pages about brands on Facebook. Protest pages with a clear objective do exist and sometimes gain support. But out-and-out hate campaigns are only rarely popular with the broader public. People are put off by the negative attitude; they prefer to share positive messages.

Updates

Updates are short messages which you send with a certain degree of regularity. Updates are usually a combination of formal (facts and figures, news, recruitments, etc.) and informal (culture, staff news and events, a look behind the scenes, etc.) content. These are content pin-pricks which allow your fans and followers to keep abreast of all the important and not-so-important developments in their favourite company. Updates are usually shared via social media. They keep your company in the thoughts of your customers.

Projects

Projects run over a longer period and are usually related to a particular theme. For example, a project might be a product launch, the opening of a new department, an important research study, a major customer event or a recruitment drive. The company develops content relating to the theme on a regular basis over a longer period, varying from one week to three months. Projects work towards a specific objective and the content is planned in relation to that objective. This content (regular small and large pin-pricks) is primarily shared via online channels, but can be supplemented by offline media. A project can also be supported by means of a campaign (see below). Projects put the focus on a certain aspect of your company.

Campaigns

Campaigns are shorter and more intensive than projects and are frequently supported with offline media. This content is designed to increase awareness of your company or to announce important news (e.g. a new product). All available media are employed to force a specific short-term result (usually increased visibility and sales).

Creating this framework and ensuring the smooth flow of the three different streams is not an exact science. They do, however, give you a solid basis for action. Try to think in terms of these three streams and draw up your content planning in function of your company-specific objectives. The easiest and most practical way to do this is by drawing up an Excel spreadsheet in which you fill in the details of the things you want to talk about and the resulting content that will need to be created for each stream and each quarter. More specifically for example, an update might consist of a daily blog post, a Facebook update or a number of Twitter messages. A project might cover the Christmas period, if this is important for your company (for example, if you are a food and drinks manufacturer). During this period, you must provide content relevant to the theme on a daily basis. Your company may need to manage different projects consecutively (one for whiskey and one for champagne). A campaign might be the launching of a new product, where you want to see results as quickly as possible and consequently deploy every means at your disposal.

The combination of these three streams will gradually result in the widening of your reach and engagement. The updates will ensure a steady influx of newly interested parties. The campaigns will boost your reach dramatically for a short period. Because campaigns are expensive, you need to think carefully how you use them. Organise them at the right time and in the right place. Use updates and projects to usefully maintain customer interest in the periods between campaigns. That is how you will keep in touch with the people who are interested in your company all year round.

Case study: Hubspot from zero to hero in two years

Hubspot is an American software company. Their software helps companies to establish new leads via various channels, such as social media, but also via Google and other websites. The company was founded in 2004 but enjoyed its most spectacular growth between 2009 and 2011. In those two years, their number of customers rose from 1,400 to 3,600. Their philosophy is very close to that of a Conversation Company. The Hubspot culture is very open and authentic. They believe in the power of conversations between staff and consumers to support their growth. In 2010, the company was chosen as ‘Best Place to Work in Greater Boston’ (David Meerman Scott in: Real time marketing & PR).

Hubspot invests in a very smart content strategy. They have three objectives. Firstly, they want to be seen as the opinion leader in their domain. Secondly, they want to become more findable in Google searches. Thirdly, they want to increase their reach on social media. With these aims in mind, they publish new content every day on their blog, on YouTube, on other blogs, on SlideShare, etc. Within a relatively short period of time, they scored as the best company in their sector for all three of their objectives. The figures for their blog are particularly impressive. 10% of all visitors to the blog subsequently find their way to the company website. Between 10 and 20% of these people become leads (“Hoe Hubspot succesvol werd”, Dutch). The company thinks like a publisher or newspaper editor: they must have an interesting article every day. And until now, they continue to find them! This allows them build up greater online reach which they can instantly convert into sales.

From content to conversion

As Hubspot shows, the ultimate purpose of a content strategy is to attract new customers or persuade existing customers to re-buy. To achieve this, you will need to draw up a touch-point content plan. Include in this plan all touch-points where a (potential) customer can come into contact with your content. Then decide at which of these touch-points conversion to sales is likely to occur. In the case of Hubspot, the converting touch-point is their website. 20% (one in five) of all visitors to the website will contact the company for more information. Their blog is the touch-point that leads people from the content area to the sales area. Their social media accounts ensure that there is sufficient daily traffic to the blog.

Rabobank also has a similar plan. One of their target groups is starter-entrepreneurs. To offer useful free advice to these people, they have created a content site: ‘I’m going to start!’ (Dutch). Starters who are impressed by the information on this site can click on a link to the main Rabobank site, where the actual conversation takes place.

For companies working in the knowledge sector, SlideShare can be used as a useful converting touch-point. SlideShare is a social network site where people can share presentations (PowerPoint, etc.). This is the ideal place to show what you can do and what you have to offer. In this way, it is often possible to directly convert a reader into a sales lead.

The compilation of a content plan can perhaps best be compared with putting together a football team. Your ultimate objective is to score. To do so, you need to get the ball to your strikers. Some teams play a long ball game, so that the ball is played quickly and directly to your forward players. Other teams play a passing game, with lots of short combinations before finally whacking the ball into the goal. But no matter how you do it, getting the ball into the back of the net is the only thing that counts. You are the team coach, so it is for you to decide the best route to the goal. Every strategy has its advantages and its disadvantages, but one thing is certain: if you don’t have a strategy, you are not going to win anything at all.

SETTING OBJECTIVES
Social media are forcing companies to move away from campaign-based thinking. If your company is happy with sharing content on your Twitter and Facebook pages only twice per year, the level of interaction is likely to be very low. People will soon forget your company and Facebook ? search tool? searches will mention you less frequently than more active pages: that is how the system works. In addition, the impact of traditional advertising is decreasing every day so that your offline campaign-based way of thinking is coming under pressure from all sides. That is why modern companies convert to the idea of content management. A content strategy has various objectives:

• Being recognised as an expert in your field: Strong and relevant contact will enhance the positioning of your company. Show that you are aware of the latest trends and that you are interested in innovation. This will help you to be seen as an expert in your field and will increase general awareness of your brand.
• Maintaining relations with the customer in a positive manner: Share new content at regular intervals. This will encourage your customers to keep in touch with your brand. Do not bother them with new offers every five minutes, but provide them with information that is interesting and useful. If you offer them relevant content of value, this will make it more acceptable to launch a promotion with a strong storyline every once in a while.
• Attracting new customers: Your content is shared with existing customers and fans. If the content is strong enough, they will share it with their family and friends. This is how your company comes into contact with new people. Relevant content can arouse the curiosity of new prospects, so that they may want to discover more about your brand.
• Increasing social media reach: Finally, good content will automatically ensure that your company has a wider reach on social media. This will increase support for your content and heighten its impact. A wider reach also makes it easier to achieve the first three objectives.

CHOOSE YOUR SUBJECTS WISELY
Our modern world is awash with information. It has even been contended that the information added to the internet in a single day is equivalent to all the information in all the libraries in the world. Whether this is true or not, your company must make its content stand out amongst this huge mass of data. And the only way to do so is to develop a clear and well-considered content strategy.

Bearing this situation in mind, it is essential that your company only offers relevant content. The choice of the fields on which you wish to focus will determine whether you are successful or not. In order to make the right decision, you must carry out both an internal (What can you do and what can make you different?) and an external (What is the market looking for?) analysis.

First and foremost, look for areas where your company can offer unique content. Of course, this content must be in keeping with your company’s culture and values. Examine your own expertise and focus on the things that could make you stand out in your sector. Also look carefully at what the market wants. What topics are of particular interest to your target group? You can track these topics down by conducting a netnographic investigation or through conversation mapping research. Combine all these elements together into a coherent content strategy. For example, if you are a company in the home nursing sector, offer content about illnesses you are a specialist in and look for subjects that online information is currently lacking for, or for which people have expressed an interest via their search enquiries. This way you can almost guarantee yourself an interested audience.

By combining the internal (the extent to which you are unique) and external (what people are looking for) dimensions, it is possible to create four main content categories:

• To be avoided: Content in which you are not unique and for which there is little demand. In other words, a waste of time and money. This category must form 0% of your total content.
• Competitive: Content which interests the market, but in which you are not unique. In view of the level of market demand, you will occasionally, perhaps even regularly, need to make use of content of this kind. Bear in mind that your competitors will also be sharing this kind of content, so limit your efforts to a maximum of 25% of your total content.
• Niche: Not many people are interested in this content, but it does differentiate you in the market. Invest where necessary, but limit your efforts to 15% of your total content.
• Focus: Content where you can really make a difference. There is market interest, but your competitors are not able to satisfy this interest. 60% of your total content should fall into this category.

The concrete implementation of your content strategy can take place at many different levels. Talk about your industry in general. Show that you know which direction the sector is moving in. Mention new trends and fashionable insights that will confirm your expert status in the field. Your customers will be interested in sharing specific content about your company. Facts, figures and ‘did-you-knows’ can all be very useful. Furthermore, you will also be able to generate large amounts of informal content through your own staff. Make your culture tangible. Tell ‘human interest’ stories about your activities. And, last but not least, remember to talk about your products. You can even use content which compares your products with those of your competitors, as long as you do so in an objective manner.

Full interview

Content Marketing in 6 steps

A lot of the topics and struggles that are adressed in the interview above, I’m experiencing in my day-to-day practice as a conversation manager at InSites Consulting. To get you started with content marketing, we’ve this week released our vision on this topic, in a slidedeck on SlideShare that you can download below:

A big thank you to our interviewer Jody Koehler, sharp as a knife .