So:

You really dig content marketing…

You understand why this year is sink or swim for brands (and agencies) that don’t do it…

You have a basic idea of how to measure it…

Heck, you’ve even decided on the best tech platform to use to do it. AHEM.

Problem: You’re not sure where to start.

Well, you have a brand you are in charge of/work for/wish to win as a client – now ask yourself the following questions:

1) Where are you buying advertising currently?

The idea here is to look at the traditional media properties brands could be found advertising through, and encouraging them to create their own content around these areas.

As traditional media disaggregates and the publishing-adspend certainties of yore are challenged, brands have a legitimate opportunity to stop renting attention through other media (i.e. bought media) and building their own media propositions (owned media). To read more on our view on The Future of Publishing go here.

2) What are the core values of the brand?

Check out Red Bull – they’ve produced a print and online magazine called Red Bulletin – around exciting and high-octane lifestyle and sports.

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Jim Boulton, Partner at Story Worldwide

Story operates on the idea that advertising-as-interruption is over. Instead, they “connect brands to customers by telling engaging and entertaining stories that audiences actually want to hear”.

Story’s commitment to content marketing comes from its peculiar marriage of a digital skillset combined with a publishing mindset – that is to say, creating expert digital properties for brands that regularly publish new content over a given period.

Treat each brand like a magazine programme

According to Jim, the best brands sites are very generous with their content.

“The campaigns and websites that are most successful have been the ones with content at the heart. If you can encourage people to come back to your site regularly, then you are more likely to get a conversion. The best way to do this is make brands – a *repeat* publishing platform – with a content plan to encourage people to turn up”

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If the murmurings on the interwebs are to be believed, middle-American basket-weavers’ favourite new blogging platform – yes, Pinterest - is driving more referral traffic than Google Plus, Linkedin and Youtube combined!

For those who are unfamiliar with Pinterest, it is a rapidly-growing  social network with a very simple premise: users share (or, ‘pin’) photos that they find online on their own virtual bulletin board. You can follow friends on Pinterest and “repin” things that they have already pinned on your Pinterest boards or browse a live feed of items that are being pinned by strangers when you’re searching for inspiration.

Simples.

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Every week without fail, I guarantee you’ll find brands doing something like this in your social streams:

For those who don't 'do' opera, insert: "iPad2"

For far too long, agencies – who have secured the dubious honour of comandeering client Facebook pages – have used unimaginative weekly competitions (with uninspired prizes), to reach their engagement KPi’s for the month (i.e. get 5,000 more fans).

Free product for the cost of a ‘Like’? – BAM – arbitary engagement stats hit. Simples.

Let’s ignore for the moment that these kinds of competitions are a violation  Facebook’s competition rules. My major problem with these pervasive competitions is that this is the kind of ‘fan’ they create:

FB competitions create opportunistic 'fans' who have no intention of sticking around for 'conversation' and 'engagement'

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Creating content of all shapes and forms with a marketing team can feel a bit stressful, especially with so many different avenues of content a business can take–all of which require a certain skill of writing proficiency and research. Instead of hiring on a marketing professional or putting even more stress on your marketing team, why not hire a journalist?

Marketing firm Eloqua, whose clients include Ellie Mae, Sony, McAfee, and Wisdom Tree, hired a journalist for their content marketing in 2010. Eloqua, despite being a marketing firm for other companies, was lacking in their own content and their blog was suffering from too low of postings and not being properly indexed. To fix this issue, Eloqua hired journalist Jesse Noyes, who previously worked for The Boston Herald.

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