Keeping the owned content train on track

Owning your story, which we covered in our previous post, is one thing. Telling it consistently month after month with a fresh and interesting perspective is another. Based on our experience, the reason most owned content strategies fail – or at least don’t reach their full potential – is because not enough resources and time were devoted to the many steps and dimensions that are part and parcel to an effective content strategy.

Build the infrastructure

A critical first step is identifying subject-matter experts (SMEs), but a word of warning: more often than not, these internal experts have their own priorities and work load, and tending to your content needs is typically not among them.  Going to them too often can make them start looking at you as a well-intended nuisance, and if you see them avoiding you in the hall, you can guess why.  So from the outset, it’s a good idea to set up some ground rules so that you and your SMEs are on the same page when it comes to your needs and what they can comfortably deliver. While this varies from company to company, we have found that once a month is a good starting cadence.  Get that meeting on your calendars and make sure they know the kind of storylines and expertise you are looking for.  It’s often helpful to go as far as developing a script or agenda for these conversations, rather than just winging it.  You’ll likely find that coming up with new ideas and angles can be one of the most difficult parts of content generation, but don’t put that burden totally on them.  Come to the meeting with some ideas and even a set of questions, and you’ll find the session will be a lot more productive and make them feel like you’ve made good use of their time.

Choosing the best vehicle

Media theorist Marshall McLuhan famously stated, “The medium is the message,” meaning the format of a message (e.g., book, TV commercial, blog post) is just as important, if not more so, than the message itself. And when it comes to owned content, we couldn’t agree more.

In fact, the presentation of content is one of the most overlooked aspect of a content strategy.   It’s important, for example, to stay abreast of the changing nature and audiences of the various social platforms. Let’s say you’re trying to reach a college audience.  Too many marketers today are still defaulting to Facebook, a fantastic platform, but not where the youngest Millennials are living today.  (That would be Snapchat and Instagram.) So even though you may have a greater familiarity with FB, you’d be trying to reach an audience that is largely not there (unless they are reading posts from their parents).

Then there’s the matter of giving your posts more pop.  Written posts may be the easiest and cheapest way to communicate, but research confirms what we instinctively know – that adding graphics, video, photos, animation or other multimedia materials makes your posts shout out rather than whisper.  According to Kissmetrics, content with images or video gets, on average, 94 percent more views.

Stay organized

It’s difficult to be brilliant every day. So, if you’re waking up on a daily basis trying to figure out what to post, then you’re in for a rough ride. Instead, develop an editorial calendar once a month that organizes the actual blog posts and social status updates – not just the content ideas. Having a month’s worth of content in one place makes it easier to make sure tone, variety and consistency are all in check.

Something to keep in mind as you develop your editorial calendar: no more than 20 percent of your content should focus on your particular business while the other 80 percent should benefit your audience. (Read this as many times you need to for it to sink in. This is another common pitfall for businesses. If your content strategy is dominated with posts about how terrific you are, and you are not providing value to the audience, then you are largely wasting your time.)

Getting sign off

Every once in a while, you’ll hear of a communications professional getting fired for an ill-advised social post to a company page. These stories are regrettable – and avoidable. Editorial calendars provide a structure and process that makes it easy for others to review and sign off on what you plan to post, and  so no one is ever caught off guard by what they see online. Even if you receive negative feedback when the content goes live, it’s significantly easier to defend your post if you have a formal approval process for all content.

For more technical and industry-specific content, work with your SMEs to make sure you’ve captured the essence of their expertise. You’ll also want to have a few proofreaders at the ready to help ensure the tone is right and the information you’re sharing is accurate and error free.  A read-behind from a colleague and an approval process with management typically does the trick.

Blast the horns

At this point, you’ve done the hard work, but it’s not quite time to kick up your feet. The last piece, distribution, is where your content strategy has the biggest potential to fall flat.  There’s no point in creating content if you don’t build in promotional vehicles to push your message to your target audience.

Share it across your social platforms. Leverage staff, partners and evangelists by encouraging them to share your content.  And we wouldn’t be PR practitioners if we didn’t reiterate the power of traditional media relations – share your content with traditional media outlets, digital outlets, bloggers and influencers (but only if it rises to the level of newsworthiness).

Organic posting will help you get the content out there and reach your most engaged contacts on social.  But as we’ll get into in the next chapter, social platforms have become advertising platforms, and you’re only reaching a small portion of your existing audience by simply posting.  In order to reach a larger portion of your existing audience, as well as new audiences, you’ll need to put dollars behind your content.