Peak content calls for community centric content strategy
We’ve reached peak content!
The content needs of brands continue to grow and yet the resources for developing and distributing content are, for the most part, flat. There are pressures at all levels to explore and create new efficiencies. This challenge sets brands up with the temptation of some dangerous practices to cut corners on content and buy their influence.
Advocacy can’t be bought
Social communities are starting to recognize ‘bought influencers’, and media content partnerships, can be expensive with varying success rates. The easy solutions that helped fill the void in the past are starting to lose their luster and communities are starting to take notice. Brands need to build their strategies from a place of authenticity not convenience in order to remain connected to their communities.
Stop looking for love in all the wrong places
For the last year we have been working with several of our clients to help them look inward into their own communities. These communities have been built by the brands most loyal fans and armed with the right technology can easily be turned into a content generating juggernaut. Yes, this needs to be built from a place of authenticity, so resist the call for photo contest entries and shift into a world of 1:1 connections with key individuals within the community that can help create content that is both engaging and shareworthy for others.
Now I’m not suggesting that this can be a lone wolf approach but rather a community-centric content strategy that sits within the overall content type mix of planned, unplanned and community content. The opportunity for brands however is to elevate its importance within the mix and play an increasingly important role for the brands content needs going forward.
Nothing worth having comes easy
Implementing a community-centric content strategy isn’t easy but the payoff is showing success for our clients. It requires upfront planning stages such as; content identification, community priming, leading by example, validating success and feedback loops. We also need to identify those influencers within the community that either offer high reach or highest trust. The difference being the first will reach farther however the latter offers a greater engagement within a concentrated connected group. Match the strategy with the right tools to monitor and optimize and you have a winning combination.
Once the groundwork has been paved you will have built a system of robust community content creators for your brand that can help fill the necessary void of much needed content. A strategic set of identified brand advocates that are tasked with generating content for the brand, from the community, which is created from an authentic place and is engaging for others to share.
Strange Love: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Community Management
Checking my phone every five minutes. Scanning Facebook nervously for new messages. Careening wildly between pure elation and utter dejection. Wondering if maybe we should just break up already, and forget the whole %@*&ing thing. Sound like love?