A Content Marketing Manifesto: 10 Principles to Drive Creative Content

Here are its basic tenets:

1. Love What You Create

Image Credit: Yu-Cheng Hsiao/Flickr

If you don't start with what appeals to you personally, and what you would love to read and re-read (or watch or listen to), how could you possibly convince someone else to give your creation a shot?

2. Don't Reinvent the Wheel

Image Credit: Mary Anne Enriquez/Flickr

A lot has been done by smart people the world over. Use what they've done and build upon it.

Existing content within your own company can be re-used, it can be upcycled, it can be integrated, and it can be weaved into different formats. Milk your existing content for all it's worth because you've put great effort into it and it would be a shame for more people not to see it.

Also, curate other peoples' content but add value to it by offering up an additional opinion or an insight or perspective. Doing so will keep the pressure off you from joining the content creation rat race. And you'll have more time to focus on creating stuff that you love.

3. Make Incremental Changes

Image Credit: Maciej Lewandowski/Flickr

Sailors do this all time. When a ship starts to veer off course, they never make one drastic course-correct. Doing so could tip the ship over.

Airline pilots do this too. When the plane starts to swerve, they make small adjustments to get it back on track.

The brilliance of this is that it allows the vessel to stabilize and it allows the captain to gauge the effect of those changes in time to react to them.

You are the captain of your content ship. Believe that small changes in the right direction can have a much bigger impact than a few huge overhauls.

4. Always Apply the 80/20 Rule

Image Credit: greyweed/Flickr

There's no reason to scramble for everything shiny. Not every social network is going to help your business or your customers.

Not every new tool is going to increase your productivity. Try new things and give them a reasonable time frame of success. Doing so will help you find what works (the 20 percent) and use it consistently to maximize returns (the 80 percent).

5. Celebrate the Wins, Don't Rue the Losses.

Image Credit: Paul Oka/Flickr

It's important to recognize how far your work has come without losing sight of where you want it to go. Live in the moment but always be looking ahead.

Since content marketing is a long-term game, it's easy to sometimes lose focus, get disheartened and give up when instant results don't roll in. But if your strategy is solid, you'll be able to stay the course and gain momentum with the small wins. Someone wise said, "It's always the little things."

6. Your Strategy Will Save You

Image Credit: photosteve101/Flickr

Spend inordinate amounts of time creating, recreating, and refining your content strategy. Drill down and define your goals and the customers you love to work with.

Find out what makes them so lovable. Doing so will help you identify other people with the same traits. When you're out of ideas, feeling demotivated or when things aren't turning out the way you wanted, your strategy will guide and reinvigorate you.

7. Transparency Wins Every Time

Image Credit: Alan/Flickr

No matter the situation you encounter, whether it's a harsh comment on a blog or a crisis over on social media, strive to be honest, explain the facts, define your position and take responsibility.

When you put yourself out there openly, the right people will be likely to reward you with their respect and trust. Learn to ignore the trolls and develop a thick skin.

8. Strive to Test, Experiment, and Test Again

Image Credit: Proggie/Flickr

Because you won't magically know what works and what doesn't for your business model. Sometimes testing might mean taking one step forward and two steps back. So be it.

9. Have Fun, Dammit!

Image Credit: Jennie Ivins/Flickr

Don't create boring content. The world does not need another "why my product is so great" blog.

What the world needs is something made with love and conviction. What the world needs is somebody who comes alive while creating stories.

Create; and have fun creating. Because you having fun will translate into a better product than you not having fun creating it.

10. Don't Obsess Over Your Niche

Image Credit: Dustin Diaz/Flickr

Yes it's good to be focused and attract a niche following. Yes SEO is great and being relevant is obviously important. All of that matters. But it is secondary.

The primary focus is to be interesting. People need to actually want to read your content.

Your words need to show your personality. Your stories need to be informative, helpful, funny, etc. or stand out in other meaningful ways. Without that primary interest, there's no long-term sustainability.

Conclusion

This content marketing manifesto is born of my beliefs, my straight-shooter nature, and my experience with what moves the needle.

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The New Adobe Social Wants to Make Life Easier for Marketers in the Millisecond Economy

In his keynote speech at this year’s Adobe Digital Summit in Utah, Brad Rencher, Adobe's SVP & GM of Digital Marketing, spoke in terms of making sure companies focus their efforts all the way up to the very last millisecond before an interaction with a customer or prospect takes place. It is so important not to blow it at that instant of engagement – whether the company or the consumer initiates the interaction. 

Rencher says digital marketers are tasked with delivering experiences in milliseconds, and that we have 300 milliseconds to connect actions to experiences. It seems like Adobe really does believe in this philosophy as it feels like only milliseconds are going by between significant announcements about their Marketing Cloud, with today’s announcement of the availability of the latest incarnation of Adobe Social.

So it was a little more than 300 milliseconds ago (about two weeks to be exact) that Adobe announced their intent to purchase Neolane – a leader in marketing automation and campaign management. This was big news because Neolane will effectively become the 6^th pillar in the MC platform once the deal is sealed.

What makes the new developments with Adobe Social significant is a continuing theme of cutting down time needed for companies to connect their marketing actions to create greater customer experiences. And hopefully these experiences entice customers/prospects to perform their own actions… those conversion-type kind of actions.

How to Use the New Flickr for Search

Within hours of the announcement of Yahoo!'s blockbuster purchase of Tumblr for $1.1 billion, they made another bold announcement that probably made a lot more users happy. Flickr, one of the most popular web services for sharing, storing and organizing photos, just got bigger and better.

What's New

First, the entire site has received a beautiful overhaul. The new interface puts even more emphasis on great images and keeps the site controls and information in the trending flat colors and graphics. I expect that the new Yahoo design, when finally released, will be similar.

Second, every user has received an upgraded account to a full terabyte of storage space, and images are stored in full resolution. This, too, is a growing trend among web services, as smart phones become more prevalent and have improved built-in cameras, digital photographs are getting larger and larger. As a result, services that previously scaled back images for serving speed and storage, are now removing those restrictions. Google, for instance, recently increased Google Drive space to 15GB and also allows images uploaded to Google+ to be full resolution.

There are also some changes to paid accounts, namely, a new structure and pricing for Pro accounts. Existing Pro users do still have some additional benefits that might make it worthwhile, and it would appear that current Pro users will continue to renew at the same rate. Mashable breaks down the changes really well here.

Using Flickr

The new Flickr Home features the most recent images from your contacts in a large left column. To the right, you'll see any groups you're a member of, images to explore, and the Flickr blog. It's nice to see Groups being made so prominent as it's a great and underused feature of Flickr.

Click on You in the top menu, and you'll see your new profile page and photostream. Following in the footsteps of Facebook, Google+ and Twitter, users can now set a custom cover photo to really customize their profile page. Mouse over the cover photo and click on Edit cover photo. The cover photo dimensions are 1154 x 235, and you can select one of your uploaded images or upload a new one.

Just above your photos, to the right, there is a Slideshow button that will automatically go into full screen mode for a beautiful presentation of your most recent images. To the right of that is a Share button. 

Photo Search

For me at least, what I use Flickr for the most is for searching. Every blog that I write includes an image, and if I don't have one of my own, I go to Flickr to find one that will work. I use Flickr because you can find great images that are free and appropriate to use. Fortunately, the process is mostly the same.

1. Start a search by typing in one or more words in the Search field
2. Once your initial results load, click on Advanced Search in the upper right corner, just below your account profile image.
3. Scroll down and select "Only search within Creative Commons-licensed content." You may also choose to select to see content which can be used commercially (if you want to incorporate the image into an ad or graphic), and content that you have permission to edit and alter.
4. Click Search, and you will be returned to your result set, but now with the Creative Comments filter active. The filter is displayed at the top of the results and can be removed with a click.
5. Clicking on an image now opens it in a lightbox rather than it's own page. If you want to use an image after taking a closer look, right mouse-click and select one of the available sizes.
6. Now you will see the familiar Image page where you can download the image in the selected size.

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Using Instagram for Brands

Instagram is a mobile photo editing and sharing app that saw its user base explode from 15 to 80 million since Facebook acquired the company back in April.

But even before the acquisition, many savvy brands had joined the platform—especially retail brands with stunning visual content. Clothing, media, and design-based brands were a natural fit for both the platform technology and Instagram’s early adopter user base.

However, unlike Facebook or Twitter, Instagram doesn’t have business-specific profiles, built-in visibility or engagement metrics, or paid advertising options. 

So why are brands rushing to join yet another social network? Here’s why:

Instagram is both a photo editing tool and a social network

By keeping it’s focus limited to photos, Instagram has carved out a unique space in the social media sphere. In essence, the genius is in its simplicity, especially when so many social platforms continue to bloat with additional features and functionality. The app has commonly used social actions built in—post, like, comment, follow, unfollow, etc.—so using the community aspects of the platform feel familiar.

The other side to this app is its ability to turn almost any photo into art by using filters and other tools.

Anecdotally, I’ve noticed that most users follow between 50 and 250 users. I think this is a sign of social media maturity—folks are learning from their experiences on Facebook and Twitter that following too many accounts is overwhelming.

But Instagram’s technology helps you easily create stunning images that you can easily share on your other social networks.

Both Facebook and Twitter have optimized how photos are displayed on these platforms and you can share directly from Instagram to those platforms (as well as to Tumblr, Foursquare, Flickr, and email) automatically or by individual selection.

Instagram is about visual storytelling

Both the way the platform works (the technology) and the way most users approach the platform (the user experience) allows brands to employ visual storytelling that has more continuity and artistic value than other platforms.

With the absence of advertising (or even clickable links in captions or comments), business uses for an Instagram profile begin and end (for now) with awareness and branding. However, a few images that encapsulate a brand moment in a second or two is much more impactful than lines and lines of copy—no matter how brilliant the writing is.

Instagram is the perfect storm of mobile and image-based technology

Instagram combines two of the most powerful forces in the social technology market—mobile and photo sharing—to create a platform that truly offers a unique value proposition. Brands with an Instagram presence can take advantage of that intersection where users are focusing their attention.

Here are six tips to help you get the most out of this tool:

1. Use images to tell a story, not blast your branding

If you sell a product or service, make sure the images you use are about the experience of using the product or service, and not a product placement ad.

Starbucks is an example of a big brand that does this well. Sure their photos show lots of Starbucks cups, but their photos also tell a story—the focus is always on what the person is doing while enjoying their coffee—on the beach, reading a book, etc.

There’s not a lot of tolerance for marketing that’s obviously marketing on social in general, and I would argue less so on Instagram. Keep it subtle and keep the focus on the experience or emotion your Instagrams project.

2. Most photos fall into two categories: beautiful imagery or humor

Make sure your Instagram photos fall into one of these categories. Generally a humorous photo needn’t be beautiful as well. Most users aren’t posting all their random party pics to their Instagram stream and brands should exercise similar constraint. Photo albums in that vein are for Facebook. Think of your Instagram photos as high value/low volume.

3. Don’t post too often

A general rule, don’t post more than three photos in a row or once every three hours. If you post more often than that, you run the risk of hogging your users’ feed. And don’t automatically share your Instagram photos to all your networks—editorially select and customize each one for the appropriate platform.

And remember, you can use apps like PicFrame to include several snaps in one Instagram. Just be sure the images are related and the impact is magnified (rather than splintered) when you use a collage.

4. Choose an account name that’s the same as your Twitter handle

Having the same Instagram account name and Twitter handle serves two purposes. One—your profile will be easily recognizable and easy to find. And two—if you are tagged by another user in a caption and that photo is shared on Twitter, that tag will link to your Twitter profile. It ensures that tagging makes sense when an Instagram photo is shared on other networks.

5. Use hashtags, but don’t be creepy about it

Like on Twitter, hashtagging photos enables discovery of your profile by users outside of your primary connections. You can use the search functionality on the app to find out which hashtags are often used. Like on Twitter, hashtagging Instagram photos by event, geolocation, or subject matter is a good idea.

Other hashtags people tend to use on Instagram are filters and colors. Hashtags tend to be somewhat limited on Twitter due to the character length limitations. Because Instagram doesn’t have these limitations, this has encouraged some users and brands to stuff Instagram captions with every hashtag imaginable. Don’t do this—it looks like you’re trying too hard. Even worse, it makes you look like a spammer.

6. Set up an account on a web-based viewer

Instagram’s focus continues to be all about the mobile experience, but the app recently added the ability to view individual photos on the web through a shareable link. This feature allows your Instagram stream to not only be seen by those not using the app, but allows those who do have an account to like and comment on a shared photo right from the web. However, using a separate web-based viewer can help you manage your presence and track your progress.

Using Instagram’s API, these tools recreate your feed on a webpage, so you can view multiple photos at a time (without scrolling) on your computer. Most often you can make the same actions (liking, commenting, searching, tagging, etc.) on these web viewers that you can make on the mobile app. My favorite tool is Statigram—they even have a few basic metrics, comment notifications, and an Instagram campaign toolkit.

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HootSuite: 4 million users can now manage Instagram & SlideShare too

HootSuite, the service that 79 of the world’s Fortune 100 companies use to manage their social media presence, just added apps for Instagram, SlideShare, Edocr, and Zuum in its App Directory.

The company provides a unified interface where social media managers can monitor and manage their activity across multiple social networks, including Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Additional social networks can be added via apps in the HootSuite App Directory, enabling users to manage YouTube, Flickr, and others.

Instagram is a big integration for HootSuite, as the service continues to grow in popularity, currently adding five million users a week. And SlideShare is a major platform for sharing presentations and PowerPoint decks.

Plus, since HootSuite already helps its clients manage their LinkedIn presence, and LinkedIn purchased SlideShare for $119 million earlier this year, it was a natural next step.

In a statement, chief executive Ryan Holmes said the company picked these networks to add to the App Directory because they enable the sharing of rich media content that aids engagement:

“We’re excited to welcome these popular social networks because they’re centrally focused around the easy sharing of multimedia content.”

The Instagram app will allow users to view and search photos, read what others have written, add comments, like photos, and share them to other social networks. Similarly, the SlideShare app helps users upload, find, and share content

The App Directory is one of the ways HootSuite distinguishes itself from competitors such as SproutSocial and Involver. Perhaps the only competitor with something similar is Radian6, with its Extension Gallery. Mark Holder, HootSuite’s director of integration partners, told VentureBeat that “roughly 10-15% of new users install at least one app within the first week.”

Created in December of last year, the App Directory features apps for integrating email marketing, surveys, RSS feeds, and more into users’ social media management activities. There’s even an app to manage Orkut, the Google-owned Brazilian social network.

The additions of Zuum and Edocr are a bit surprising.

Zuum is somewhat interesting, as it is a platform for social media marketing strategy, which is somewhat competitive to HootSuite, but it also provides insight into guaranteed-to-be-engaging content, helping social media managers know what kinds of content they should post.

Edocr, on the other hand, is a tiny business-document sharing site focused on lead generation, with only some thousands of monthly visitors. I’ve asked HootSuite why it chose Edocr and Zuum, and I’ll update this post when the company replies.

[ Update: the response was inconclusive. According to Holder, "Instagram and SlideShare have been among the top requested apps from our Free, Pro and Enterprise clients.” ]

I did ask the company when full Google+ integration is coming to HootSuite, but there is no specific timetable yet. Holder had the following to say via email:

We are not able to provide a specific date at this time as to when Google+ will be available to all HootSuite users. HootSuite was selected as an official partner by Google+ Pages, and we are currently working with their team to gather data from our current Enterprise clients actively using the integration.”

HootSuite is based in Vancouver, Canada, and has almost 200 employees. In March of this year, the company raised $20 million from OMERS Ventures.

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