I’ll knock on wood while typing, but: It looks like we’re having a (mostly) normal summer in the US this year.After the bans, isolation, fear and anxiety of 2020, it finally feels like the Things like that would open up.
It’s all great for everything except Get people to read your marketing content. In 2020, we had a trapped audience hungry for entertainment. Now we’re going to compete with everything from music festivals to movies to walks in the park.
The way to a breakthrough and the “hot brand summer”? First, don’t use phrases like “hot brand summer” because you will only make people hate you. Second, it’s all about customer loyalty. That means connecting with people on a personal level, offering something new and fascinating, and using this contact to build a meaningful relationship.
No sweat, right? But according to a recent survey 54% of the brands Have difficulty connecting with customers on an emotional level. And only 22% say they excel in terms of customer experience!
How can B2B marketers make their content more engaging? Here are a few tips.
1 – go live
Uncensored. Interactive. At close range. There’s nothing like a livestream to break free of safe and boring content. There’s a reason every social media site, from Instagram to LinkedIn, has live streams.
Admittedly, going live is not without its risks. If you are concerned about possible slip-ups or off-message chatter, you can always practice ahead of time. Live doesn’t have to mean “completely improvised and without a script”.
A few more tips for going live:
- Consider hiring a host to keep the conversation going
- Ask someone behind the scenes to watch the comment thread and engage the audience
- Use a tool like restreamen for multi-platform streaming
- Prepare the pump for audience questions by having staff with pre-made questions in the audience.
- Make sure to record the stream for future use
2 – Take the people behind the scenes
“Authenticity” is one of those marketing buzzwords that makes a simple thing seem difficult. Do people like brands that are “authentic”? No, people like to know that there are real people of goodwill at work behind the brand’s message. That’s all authenticity means: real people say real things.
Make your employees brand ambassadors on social media. Take a look behind the scenes and meet the people who are making the magic of your brand a reality. Highlight employee stories even if they are not directly related to the brand. For example, if an employee is an Eagle Scout who now runs their own Boy Scout group, it’s a heartwarming and compelling story that subtly shows off your brand values.
In short, when you go behind the scenes, celebrate your employees and even your customers.
3 – Try out interactive content
Neither of us would use a cell phone from the late 90s today. Why are we still so in love with a content format that hasn’t changed in the last 30 years? This old standby, the static PDF, has lost a lot of its persuasiveness.
Our agency has achieved better results with interactive, animated assets. For example, this from customer Mitel brings our stats and influencer posts to life. Tools like Zeros make developing an interactive asset almost as easy as developing a static one.
You also don’t have to create a full immersive VR experience to grab people’s attention – just a few touches of animation, interactivity, and sound can go a long way.
4th – Discover social first content
We all know how the blog to social media pipeline works: you post a blog, you link to it on your social media, and you hope that people will click that link. If they don’t click through, it’s a lose-lose situation. Neither your brand nor your audience get any benefit from the content.
One way to change the equation is with social-first content: that is, content that should be consumed directly in the social media feed. For B2B marketers, LinkedIn is the right destination for social-first content.
For example, consider breaking a blog post into 150-200 word segments and posting it on LinkedIn, with a hashtag to make it easier to find all the rates. At the end of each section, ask a question to stimulate discussion, and then be part of the conversation for as long as you can.
Ultimately, social first content can help increase your brand’s social media exposure and deepen relationships with your audience. And you can still collect the content and publish it later as a blog!
5 – Cooperation with influencers
As you may have noticed, TopRank Marketing is pretty much sold out affect marketing. The reason for this is simple: if you do it right, you will get results. Every time. Everything from a social media post to a blog post to a 5,000 word interactive asset is better with influencer posts.
We collaborate with influencers to create content for many reasons, including:
- Increased organic reinforcement of the content
- More diverse and informative content
- Reach new target groups
- Build relationships with influential experts
Over time, you can build a community of influencers to collaborate on creating content that will benefit them, your brand, and your audience.
6th – Measure engagement metrics
A key element in increasing engagement is … well … measure up it. If you’re still looking at total blog traffic or bounce rates to determine your content success, you need to recalibrate your metrics to find engagement signifiers like:
- Comments on social media posts
- Re-sharing on social posts
- New social media followers
- Scroll depth for interactive assets
- Time on the page for long blog posts
Break out of your comfort zone
Ready for a hot brand summer (sorry)? It’s as simple and complex as doing things you’ve never done before. It pushes your brand away from the staid and static B2B mentality of the old school and publishes content that people want to interact, comment on, and share with.
Do you need more evidence? Interactive content for our customer Prophix led to a 642% increase in engagement.
