Are you looking for a great, new way to help leverage your social media campaign? Of course you are, that’s why you’re reading this blog!
There currently exists on the web an excellent social media channel that has been around for a while now, yet is starting to become a very vital aspect of any social media campaign – Pinterest. That’s right, the channel that gives people recipes and DIY tips is the next element in an impressive social media campaign. Let’s take a look at why this channel will be important for you, the various advantages of it, and how you can use Pinterest to generate revenue.
Why is Pinterest Such an Important Channel?
Pinterest hasn’t always been on the social media radar as an important channel for businesses. However, it is an incredible channel that can help bring about engagement and revenue for your company. According to Suzanne Delzio at Social Media Examiner, Pinterest currently has 47 million users, and this number is expected to grow exponentially in 2016. Researchers believe this growth will happen going off of past analytics that show users doubling in 2014, and more people are signing up for the social site each day. This means that your clients are likely to be on this channel already, and if they aren’t, they soon will be. While Pinterest has been a site mainly populated by women, the social media channel has attempted to grow the demographic, and reports are showing that the amount of men signing up is growing quick.
As you can see, the platform is growing by leaps and bounds in many different areas and demographics, making it an important channel. You need to make sure you are on this channel soon and well before 2016 starts.
Who Uses Pinterest the Most?
I briefly mentioned above that women use this site the most, but that the amount of male users is growing quickly. However, I am going to give a bit more detail into the users to help you craft an excellent campaign. According to Carly Stec at HubSpot, one-third of users are women, and that number is up by 25 percent. In addition, 8 percent of men inside the United States use the social channel, which is a growth from 5 percent. These numbers are expected to rise, and this means that there will be more shoppers will to buy your products or services. For now, women are still dominating over at Pinterest, and should be a target audience. However, don’t neglect the men who are starting to use this channel, as well.
The Anatomy of a Pinterest Brain
When it comes to Pinterest, you need to know and understand the anatomy of a user’s brain. Just why do they go to the platform and how do they become a shopper instead of a browser? Let’s take a look!
“I’m Just Looking at Various Things.” When someone opens their Pinterest app or goes on the desktop site, they simply start out looking and browsing what is being shared. Many times, they don’t go in with the intention of buying, but, by following a few steps, many do end up doing so.
“Well, This is Interesting.” The next part of the anatomy of a Pinterest brain is that someone has to think the image, idea, or product looks interesting. The more interesting the pin, the more likely that person will be to click on the image and then the link attached, directing them to a site. This can then lead them to purchase the item from the picture.
“I Need to Narrow This Down.” Many times, people who are browsing Pinterest will see a multitude of interesting things, but they want to make sure they narrow things down. This helps them decide which pins to share or which products to buy.
“This is Exactly What I Need.” After narrowing things down, users will end up buying what they find to be exactly what they need. This is why it is important to make your pins stand out. You want it to be the winning pin for the Pinterest brain. Don’t worry; I am going to look at how you can achieve this later in the blog.
5 Incredible Advantages to Using Pinterest for Your Business
Before I get into how you can make incredible revenue with a Pinterest account, I want to look at the advantages of joining. Some people might not be sure that it is a site they can use, but there are some incredible benefits to it.
You Can Reach a Younger Demographic. Pinterest gives you access to a younger demographic, and while you might want to reach an older one, young people can really help your business. You shouldn’t ignore this demographic because you might be surprised just how much revenue you can bring in when you advertise to them. Pinterest is a great starting place for this.
You Can Use it as a Marketing Tool on Your Site or in Your Store. If you have product images or blogs, you can add a Pinterest social share button to your site. This will encourage users and readers to pin anything they find interesting on their own account, therefore sharing it with their friend group. If their friends find it interesting, they will share that pin and so on. This can bring in more people to that product, blog, or landing page, and once there, you can convert them to leads.
You Can Share More Than Just Your Products. When it comes to Pinterest, you aren’t limited to only sharing product images. In fact, you can share your blogs, other landing pages, and also share helpful information from industry leaders. You can create boards for each and every idea you have, helping to keep them all organized, and allowing people to follow the boards they find interesting.
You Can Create a Board that Links to Your Blogs. Do you want to drive more traffic to your blogs? Then create a board and link directly to each post as you share it. Make sure to use your keywords in the pin description and use hashtags, as well.
Pinterest Gives You the Chance to Make Your Brand More Human. This gives you a chance to show your brand in a more human light, which can help people trust you. You can create a board that shows the “daily life” of your company and share images or create an “event” board to show your events. Whatever shows a personal side to your business will help make your brand more human.
10 Ways to Use Pinterest to Generate Revenue
Now that you can see some of the benefits of using Pinterest, I am going to look at how you can use it to generate revenue. I will be referencing a few points from the HubSpot article by Carly Stec I shared towards the beginning of this blog.
Here are some things you can do on your Pinterest account to have a successful presence.
Use Several Dominant Colors in Your Pin. Carly points out that images with dominant colors tend to receive more than three times the amount of shares and re-pins as those that don’t. Make sure you use more than one dominant color, as one won’t be as likely to get as many shares. This will help you stand out and make people look at your pins, and then, as I said, they will share. Sounds great, doesn’t it?
Stay Away from Sharing a Human Face. Pinterest is an artsy social channel, which means that people like to see more artistic images than regular. One of the things that people seem not to like as much on the platform is seeing the human face in their images. You can show a person, but consider photos that have the person looking away, with a focus elsewhere like on a book or a cup of tea.
Get Artsy With Your Pins. As I said, Pinterest is artsy, which means that artsy pins are going to be shared more than plain looking ones. There are many ways you can make an image look artsy by adding filters and focusing on different things in the image. If you are sharing a photo of a field, consider one that focuses on a flower with the field behind; just something that looks pretty and artistic.
Bring Down Your Image’s Saturation. Carly also gives another tip for creating a good image to share on the channel, which is to bring down the image saturation. This gives it that Instagram filter feel, which can make people especially younger individuals look at it more. This is something you can easily do with the editing software that comes with your computer or by locating different online places that can help.
Create Infographics that Provide Your Clients With Value. Pinterest is a very visual platform, as you can see, which means you need to have great visual content ready. However, your business might not be one with many visuals. A great way to utilize the channel is to create and share valuable infographics for your user base, encouraging them to read and share with others.
Have a Decent Amount of Pins Already Pinned. In order for people to consider following your Pinterest account or boards, you need to have pins already pinned. This can attract more people because you will look active on the account. If you have nothing pinned, users won’t know if you are a valuable brand to follow. Create a few boards and pin different things to them to start out, and you will begin to see more people willing to either follow you or one or two of your boards.
Promote Your Brand on Pinterest. Promoting on Pinterest is one of the best ways to get noticed. It is rare for people to stumble on someone’s account if it isn’t being promoted. Social Media Examiner points out that Pinterest says that promoted pins can get just as much traffic as regular ones, which helps with organic traffic. While it is still new, this is still a great idea for different businesses. You can join the list to become one of the businesses able to use it by signing up to be chosen to be in the beta program.
Set Up a Collaboration with Other Popular Pinners. You can set up collaborative boards that allow others that aren’t from your business to pin to it. You don’t want to leave it open for just anyone, but you can invite other popular pinners or select people from your business who are also on Pinterest. This can help curate a lot of content from all over and different viewpoints, giving users the ability to get unique, great content from all over.
Create Contests and Have People Create Their Own Boards. Pinterest creates a great opportunity to have contests for your clients. You’ll need to make sure that you follow the rules when it comes to contests, but it can be a great way to bring in more followers and eventual new clients. A great example of Pinterest content is Adagio Teas’ contest that encouraged clients to create a board of their top ten favorite items from the store. Once a user created the board, Adagio said to email the board and be entered into the contest, and everyone who did, received a small gift certificate in return.
Share Your Pins in Your Weekly or Monthly Email Newsletter. When you share your newsletter with your clients, you can start to gain followers by including your pins in your emails. This can help your email marketing and also drive engagement and revenue. You can take a screenshot of your top or best pins from the week or month and then create a link for people to click on. This will take them directly to your pins and account, and get them looking at your other content, as well.
Enrich Your Business and Use Pinterest
Pinterest can really help enrich your business and make your social media campaign impactful. You will find that after you have established a presence that you can start driving excellent revenue. If you need help creating infographics or content for your Pinterest campaign, then contact Express Writers. We can help you create an excellent campaign and give your clients access to great infographics.
Google really wants you to mind your P’s (though I guess they care nothing about your Q’s.) First there was Panda and Penguin, and now there is the Phantom.
The Ms. Manners of web traffic has secretly updated its algorithm (again) and made havoc for many content creators out there. Let’s take a look.
What is Google’s Phantom All About?
Earlier this month, HubPages, which as its name suggests is a huge hub of pages on informational content of all sorts, saw its traffic drop by 22 percent seemingly overnight. Other sites, such as WikiHow and eHow saw drops as well, though not as significant.
What had happened? No one was sure because Google is keeping tight lipped, but we do know it has something to do with what Glenn Gabe, a search engine expert, coined “the phantom” or, since this is not the first time Google has so covertly turned Internet searches on its head, “phantom 2.”
Basically, as far as the experts can tell, Google made a change to its algorithm that has the potential to hurt many websites who rely on Google to get traffic.
But what does this mean for you and your website as you try to create a Google-friendly body of content?
What All the Google Updates Have In Common With the New Phantom
I have talked about this before: you have to write good content. Forget for a second the fact that readers want good content and if you do not give it to them, they are not going to read what you have to say. So who cares if you pop up on Google or not? Let’s not worry about that right now. Let’s focus on Google.
What do Panda, Penguin, and Phantom have in common other than they all start with P and they were all Google updates (and they are all nouns)? They were all created, at least allegedly, to weed out weak content.
Panda. This update was created in order to make low-quality sites or weaker content rank lower on the Google totem pole. What this meant was that higher-quality sites with strong content got bumped up in the rankings and made it to the top of Google searches. And let’s face it, who is going to page 10? The higher you are, the better your chances of someone clicking on you.
Penguin. This update was created in order to punish “link baiters.” Link baiters are the websites that post links back to themselves all over the Internet in order to appear like a quality site. (If you have ever wondered why someone would take the time to leave a comment on a post about, well, pretty much any topic, in order to mention their completely unrelated and often gibberish sales pitch with a link back to their site, now you know the reason.) Google was not fooled by this scheme and fixed their algorithm to reduce the success of these link impersonators.
Phantom. Now, there is the phantom. At first, Google was not commenting on the update, and so we were all left to speculate. What was pretty popularly decided was that Google was targeting informational sites and How to sites that had lower level quality content. However, we have since found out that this was a little misleading. According to a press release by ASEOhosting, Google is not targeting informational and How to sites. Instead, they are simply targeting sites with poorer quality content, which happens to include some informational and How to sites.
What this tells you is that the content game is survival of the fittest. If you create strong content, you are going to beat out weaker content. And the stronger your content is, the less you have to worry about Google. If everything they do is done in order to make life easier for quality content, you know that you are going to remain on top as long as you keep creating the best content.
Lesson: Do Not Write Bad Content
I am not repeating myself here. Write good content and do not write bad content are not synonyms. You could write good content and bad content if you wanted to. I would advise you not to, though. Google does not reward good content, it simply punishes bad content.
Ari Levi discusses Gabe’s, the search engine expert’s, assessment of the phantom in a CNBC article. What Gabe found was that even informative, well written pages were being ranked lower. In other words, an entire domain was being hurt because of its bad content even if it also created good content.
Basically what this means for you is that it does not matter how good some of your content is if the rest is awful. It is not enough to start writing good content, you have to stop writing bad content.
How Do You Write Good Content and Avoid Bad Content?
It is easy to say that you will get rid of your weaker content and start churning out good content. It is a lot harder to actually do it. With everything else you have going on in your career and business, how are you supposed to start over from scratch if you have not already been creating strong articles?
As difficult as it may seem, there are some foundational easy ways that you can do this.
The first, and perhaps easiest, is to outsource. Hire someone else to write your content for you. Professional writers know what they are doing not only because they are good writers with a passion for words, but because they have to stay on top of things. Their job is to research what makes good content, how to properly use SEO, and what Google wants. They get training and alerts when the rules change. They make a living by consistently giving you good, quality content. So you might as well take advantage of them.
If you do write your own content, whether entirely or even just some of it, do your research and perhaps get some training. Make it a point to keep up with these changes. Follow some blogs that talk about web writing. Maybe even take a training course on content creation.
When you write, write for a human being. Yes. Make sure you know and use important keywords. Yes. Think a little about what Google might like. However, do not write for Google, write for your audience. But more about that in a second.
Never write something just because you want to post something. Always have a meaning and a purpose behind your words.
Be trustworthy. Back up your claims with research. Don’t just say, “Buy us because we are the best.” Say why you are the best and convince your readers that you really are.
Worry a Little Less About Google, a Little More About Your Readers
I mentioned it above, but it is important enough to merit its own section: worry more about your readers than about Google.
Google is smart. Google is kind. Google is important. But in the end, your readers are more important. Who cares if Google thinks you should be number one on people’s search results if the reader does not agree. They might click on you, but they won’t click back on you if you do not convince them to stay.
When you write, think about your readers. What do they want to hear? What do they want to know? Base what you write on those facts. In the end, it is the readers’ opinion and thoughts that will make a sale or conversion. So focus on them, and you will not have to focus as much on what Google is plotting in its secret lair hidden away from prying eyes.
Here is the thing, though. If you write what your readers’ want to know, then not only will it make your content better, but it will make you fall right into their searches anyway. That list of keywords your SEO guy sends you did not come out of thin air. It came from data about what your potential audience has been searching for.
If you write what they want, then they are going to be searching for what you write. It’s simple logic. So ultimately, if you write for your readers, you are going to rank higher in Google anyway. Win, win.
Cross Your Fingers and Hope for the Best
In the end, you can do everything I am writing, and Google can change the game again tomorrow. Even Gabe, who is a well-respected expert, admits to being at a loss as to what should be done and how to handle Google.
A lot of your web writing life is trial and error, guess and predictions. However, if you consistently create good content, you do not have to worry about all that. Google wants readers to find you, and even without searches, readers keep the very best websites bookmarked.
So what should you do about the phantom? Give it what it wants – high quality content that readers can trust. And you should be doing that anyway with or without Google.
The world of content and social media is buzzing with some of the latest news coming out of Facebook HQ. Facebook is planning to host various content pieces from a select number of websites for a new experimental feature that could bring about epic change to social media content.
The new feature is called Instant Articles and it aims to bring content directly to users in a quick, efficient manner. What is this new feature and what can you expect? Take a journey with me to find out.
What is the New Feature?
Instant Articles is a new feature Facebook is testing to see just how well it works for their users, as well as publishers. According to Tech Crunch, Instant Articles gives users access to the news and content they want without having to click and go to a publisher’s website, waiting for it to load. Sometimes, users experience too much load time with various sites, and Facebook wants to help them cut that time down and have quicker access to their favorite sources. The new feature is currently being tested by a few publishers to see how well it works for them and users alike. These publishers are Buzzfeed, The New York Times, National Geographic, and a few other well-known news sites. This is only available on mobile so you will not see Instant Articles within your browser.
Will Instant Articles Give Users More Control Over Their Newsfeeds?
Facebook has recently said that it plans to give users more control over what they see in their newsfeeds, which many are excited for. However, many experts are questioning just how this will play out with Facebook’s newest addition. No one can say for certain if people will get the control they desire over their newsfeeds, and it is likely everyone will need to wait for a bit to find out. However, one element of Instant Articles is to give users the ability to see content that is curated specifically for them. For example, according to the Tech Crunch article I shared above, if users like, comment, and/or share certain types more often, their newsfeeds might be tailored more to show more Instant Articles on topics they like. This isn’t truly control over one’s newsfeed, but it might be a step in a direction that helps Facebook users feel they are getting the content they want.
Will This Help or Hinder Businesses?
Since Instant Articles is in the experimental stage, it isn’t entirely sure just how much it can help or hinder a business. However, there will be an easy-to-access share button on all Instant Articles postings, which can help get content shared by more people on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. Remember, I said earlier that this was only available on mobile, which means that the share button for Facebook will help push the content from mobile availability to browser availability.
It will also be great for users because there won’t be a delay when they open web content. They will get to see their content right away without waiting, and possibly leaving the story before it loads. The feature will also support the ability to expand images and GIFs, giving publishers the ability to create trendy pieces that will resonate with a social media crowd.
The main way it can possibly hinder a business is if Facebook does do what I mentioned earlier in the article. If the social media giant starts to tailor a user’s newsfeed based off of what Instant Articles the user likes, comments on, or shares, this could mean other articles get lost. This can be a detriment to different companies, and it is a legitimate worry. Will this truly happen? We will just need to wait and see how Facebook uses this feature, and how it will impact the newsfeed. It is too soon to say if this will be the main hindrance or if there will be other hindrances to look out for in the future.
This is What Paper Was Supposed to Be
Do you remember when Facebook released a new app that incorporated the person’s Facebook account plus news content? If not, don’t feel too bad. Many people ignored this app, known as Paper, making it an epic failure for Facebook. That didn’t stop the social media company, however. In fact, this new feature is very similar to what Paper was supposed to be for the company. It features the ability to access curated news stories quickly, giving users the ability to read their content in the app. Now that Paper isn’t really being used for that purpose, Facebook has implemented Instant Articles, hoping it will prove to be successful. It might just be since it will be in the Facebook app as Paper could have failed simply due to needing to download yet another app.
Who Does This Really Benefit?
When Facebook implements a new feature, the natural question is who will it really benefit. Many times, people believe that the feature will only benefit Facebook, but the company is trying to make sure people know that is not the case with Instant Articles. First of all, it will benefit the users of Facebook because it provides them with a quicker load time by not making them leave the platform to read the article. It will also benefit publishers because Facebook has said they will receive 100 percent of revenue from Instant Articles ads. Another way publishers benefit is that Facebook is also planning on sharing analytics to help the publisher create perfectly tailored content.
Obviously, Facebook will see benefits such as making it a leading news source, which the company hopes will beat Twitter. If the company is set apart as the leading social channel for news, this means more publishers will work with Facebook, which will bring more viewers, and eventual revenue, to the company. This is all speculation, of course, as everyone waits to see just how Instant Articles will work and if it will be the success Facebook is hoping.
Content is, Yet Again, King With Instant Articles
Just a year or so ago, people were questioning if content was king, or if that statement was starting to be irrelevant. With the new Facebook feature, it is once again driving home just how important content is for websites. This means you need to focus on creating content in the form of web pages, blogs, and social media to help bring in and convert new clients. Express Writers can help you create this content with our web content and social media services. Take a look to see how we can help you by preparing your content for Instant Articles.
This is our first guest blog from Alecs, our Client Accounts Manager. She stays busy running the daily business of managing different client inquiries and our billing department. When she’s not doing that, you can find her busy on social media.
We can all use a little inspiration now and then, and there is plenty out there for everyone. When it comes to social media, there are some truly excellent people who know how to leverage it for the good of their business or career.
Someone who excels at social media is DC Comics’ Arrow star Stephen Amell. You could easily call this dude the superhero of social media. Let’s take a look at his approach to social media and see just how you can gain superhero social media strategies for your very own.
Who is Stephen Amell and What is Arrow?
If you aren’t a big superhero fan or don’t watch much TV, you might be unaware of who Stephen Amell is, as well as Arrow. Amell plays the lead character in the CW’s adaptation of the DC Comics Green Arrow franchise which follows the story of a young man who fights crime. The Arrow, played by Amell, is a sort of vigilante who fights crime and corruption wherever he sees it, helping to make his city and the world safe. The show has been vastly popular and has been on the air for three seasons. The show has helped take over the television world, giving it into the hands of several fun, and wonderful superheroes many of us know and love. However, Stephen Amell doesn’t just play a great crime-fighting character, he also has an epic social media strategy that I firmly believe you can learn from.
4 Ways Arrow Star Stephen Amell Wins at Social Media
There are many reasons why Stephen Amell is quite literally the superhero of social media, which means there is plenty for you to learn. I want to delve into some of what he does to show you a few excellent things you can apply to your business’s social campaign.
1. He Regularly Interacts With His Fans Through Question and Answer Sessions. Something that is growing in popularity amongst celebrities, especially within the nerd culture world, is hosting AMAs or Ask Me Anything sessions. What an AMA is, is basically fans getting to ask their favorite celebrities questions and hearing back from that person. Sometimes an AMA is done on Reddit, where they originated. However, some celebrities, such as Stephen Amell, host them regularly on Twitter or Facebook.
What this does is provides a great opportunity for famous individuals to answer fan questions, which helps to build and expound upon a relationship with the fans. Fans are more likely to watch a celebrity’s show, read his or her books, and see his or her movies if the celebrity, such as Amell, is willing to talk to them.
This is a great lesson for all businesses utilizing social media because connecting and engaging with your client base will help bring in revenue. In addition, regularly engaging with clients or fans can help bring in visitors that will then be converted into leads. Take the time to host a few question and answer sessions, engage in a few within your industry, and whenever a client comments or tweets, always be sure to answer back.
2. He Approaches Social Media With a Genuine Attitude. When Stephen starts writing and engaging with his fans on social media, he does so in a genuine matter. Fans don’t have to question what his aims are when he posts a photo, suggests a charity, or holds a question and answer session. They know that he is there to connect with, which provides a more genuine experience for both Amell and his fans. Even when he is “advertising” for a charity or his TV show, it never comes across as such.
What can you learn from this for your business? This shows that you need to approach social media in a genuine matter and leave the sales pitch behind. Yes, you want to sell your products or services, but you don’t want to come across that way. Just start engaging with your clients, and when you post about your business, make it fun. When you leave the sales pitch behind, people are more likely to spend money on your business.
3. He Live Tweets Arrow to Engage With Fans. While the show is currently over, Stephen made sure to live tweet when he was able to and connect more with fans. Live tweeting shows is incredibly trendy right now amongst stars of any TV show and is something you will regularly see on Twitter. Live tweeting simply means that, as the show is airing, stars and fans alike will tweet out their thoughts on what just happened. Amell knows that people within the Arrow fandom love live tweets, so he makes sure to do something for them. This is truly fun for fans, and I believe it is quite fun for the stars of the shows, as well.
While you might not be live tweeting a television program, finding something to tweet about with your clients is a great way to boost engagement. It can be a Twitter question and answer session as I mentioned above, or it can be making up a silly hashtag and having people join in for fun and games. Just find something that you can connect with your audience and they will love it.
4. He Gives Fans a Glimpse Into His Life, Making Them Feel Part of it. The adage says a picture is worth a thousand words, but it is so much more than that. In fact, pictures are a great way to promote engagement and connection with someone. Amell does just this with his Instagram account, as well as with Facebook and Twitter. He gives his fans a tiny glimpse into his life, and those small snapshots are enough to make his fans feel like they are part of something with him. He also encourages fans to share images with him, whether they are fandom art for Arrow or if he has them make a meme out of an image. Once they share the images, he usually re-tweets or shares them himself.
You can do the same thing whether it is with behind-the-scenes snaps of your business or sharing customer images that are sent in. Providing your clients with some way to interact with you and see just what you are doing can really help foster a great business to client relationship.
Hit the Target, Every Time!
Take a few lessons from Mr. Amell, and start creating excellent social media content that will help you connect with clients and convert visitors into leads. If you aren’t sure that you can effectively create great social media content, you can always contact Express Writers. We have a team of highly trained social media experts that can help create content that your followers are sure to love.
Marvel is one of the biggest, and hottest, production companies right now. It is an incredible place to seek and gain content marketing inspiration from, too! This company has an excellent approach to content marketing, as we can all see with their ad campaigns for their films, including the latest The Avengers: Age of Ultron.
(If you have yet to see that film, take the chance to go and have a fun, summer movie experience, all while learning from some of the top marketers and writers in the comic industry.)
Just what can you learn from Marvel for your small business and content marketing? This blog is going to look at that and how it can help you create an excellent, effective content marketing strategy that will bring in tremendous success.
7 Tips from a Giant in the Content Marketing World: Marvel
What are the lessons you can expect to learn from Marvel? There are many different ones, but I take a look at a few of the top ones that can really help to impact your business. Get ready to take some notes and learn just how to improve your content strategy, and bring in new clients with a superhero-sized plan!
Marvel Builds Their Brand Through Content, Constantly. When it comes to the content marketing world, Marvel can’t be beat with their epic content strategy. Their main way of survival is to, obviously, create excellent content, and they make sure that they are always doing so while building their brand through it. The Marvel brand isn’t exactly as it was ten or twenty years ago and this is because they’ve taken the chance to build and grow their brand over the decades. Their superheroes have taken on different elements and have had mega life changes throughout the comic books, and when it comes to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, we see even more changes to characters and their stories. Marvel has multiple universes with multiple hero and villain story variations, making their content very strong, which helps to make their brand incredibly powerful.How can you apply this to your content strategy? You can easily use your content whether for web, blogs, social media, or any other type to help build your brand and make it better. You can create an incredibly, strong company that people trust just through content, which is what Marvel has been and is doing with their client base. Start working on your content to help create and improve your brand to bring in more clients, as well as helping you keep your existing ones for many years.
Marvel Provides Multiple Content Formats for Fans. I’ve mentioned this multiple times when it comes to creating content; multiple formats are vital to your content marketing, and Marvel understands this. If you aren’t a big fan of reading comic books, you don’t have to worry because you can easily go to many different Marvel films to watch superheroes battle it out with villains. In addition, if you prefer comic books to movies, then you are perfectly fine there. You can also watch various Marvel television shows ranging from Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. to Daredevil, and soon there will be even more Marvel television taking over the TV world. Marvel doesn’t just limit themselves to story-based content, however. They provide access to a variety of things including conventions for their fans and are constantly growing and evolving to meet the demands of the comic fan world.Providing different formats for your clients is a great way to not only give existing customers easier ways to consume content, but also to bring in newer clients. You will be able to reach a wider customer base by doing so, and you will see a significant increase in your views, clicks, and revenue just by providing different formats to your clients. The formats can be anything ranging from YouTube videos to social media content and infographics. Don’t limit yourself; be like Marvel and allow your content to develop in order to grow your client base and business.
They Approach the Entirety of Their Universe. Marvel doesn’t just pick and choose which aspect of their universe they will promote and provide content for – they approach it all. They take a holistic type of approach, which helps make their various universes feel consistent. When you approach the Marvel Cinematic Universe, you will see an overlap of heroes and villains throughout several movies, bringing stories from different films together to create a larger, more impressive story. No matter which Marvel film you see, you will see reference to another and another. This is mighty impressive as they have a huge cinematic universe, but it helps make it an incredible experience for fans. This is a great example of what a holistic approach can provide to your content marketing strategy. You aren’t necessarily keeping stories together to create an impressive universe, but if you approach your marketing holistically, you will notice that you have a higher chance of being incredibly successful with your content. A great way to start approaching the entirety of it is to sit down with people in your business to brainstorm ideas across all content formats and fields, helping create a consistent strategy. Once you do that, you can then implement it and watch as the success starts increasing.
Vision Isn’t Just an Awesome Avenger. The Avengers: Age of Ultron was an epic film that introduced a few new characters to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, including Vision. Vision is a pretty cool character, but his name is also a great example of what Marvel has. When it comes to making films for their cinematic universe, Marvel has an incredible vision and is planning all the way to 2020 and beyond for their releases. If you aren’t sure of just all that Marvel will be releasing, you can take a look at the full calendar. Remember, Marvel does keep releasing news about upcoming films in various phases, and we might just hear of more films soon.What this shows is a great example of planning ahead and preparing for what your clients want. There are many movies listed that involve some of our favorite characters from the MCU such as Thor or Captain America, but we are also seeing some “new” faces. If you’re a fan of Captain Marvel, then you’re in luck! Planning this far ahead and letting everyone know seems like it might be a silly move on Marvel’s part. However, with this whole list, people are beginning to mark their calendars and countdown to the films they are most looking forward to. This shows just how important planning a ways into the future is, as well as how great it can be to involve your clients in the process.
Symbolism is a Vital Aspect to a Marvel Superhero. Marvel places a major importance on symbolism, as does DC and any other comic production company. Symbolism is what helps set their various superheroes and villains apart, making things easily recognizable for fans. We all know what Spider-man’s symbol is, same with Captain America, Black Widow, the Hulk, and more. This symbolism helps to drive a personal connection between fan and character, which helps to promote the brand and provide an epic marketing strategy without doing much sales copy. When you go to buy a shirt based off of a superhero, you look for the logo, not a long description of said hero, right? Marvel knows people like the symbols, and that we connect with them.Why is it important for you to follow this particular aspect of Marvel, or any superhero franchise company? Because people love symbols and they connect with them easier. Having a logo with an ICON can help you bring in more clients and create a brand that people know and trust. We recently rebranded, and if you look at our Twitter page, you’ll see our icon representing our whole brand. Much like the simplicity of superhero logos, it’s easy and fun to recognize. This is going to help immensely to set us apart from other writing agencies, and the same can be said for you and your logo. Create something that is unique to your business, and help yourself stand out in the sea of other businesses. Being recognizable is a great way to bring in new customers.
Everyone Loves a Hero and Marvel Knows It. No matter what, everyone loves a hero, and this is constantly seen in Marvel comics and films. The company knows how important heroes are to people, and they work to create heroes we can all look up to and love. By doing so, the company works to create a personal relationship between the company and the fans, as well as the specific hero, such as Captain America and the hero’s fans. Personal relationships are great for Marvel because this means that more people will be willing to buy comics, toys, and see films if they have that connection. No, Marvel doesn’t know the fans’ favorite color, food, or the names of their pets, but they still create the sense of a relationship with fans. They embrace the idea of emotions, which helps them to establish that relationship with their fan base, creating long-term, happy fans.
Cap has arrived! See Marvel’s Avengers: Age of Ultron,” in theaters May 1.
This is a great model for all sorts of businesses. You can easily achieve this personal connection by embracing what people love, and what they want to see from your business. Don’t hesitate to get a little emotional with your posts to help establish that connection. This will help set your business apart from others as one that can be trusted. A great place to start with developing a relationship with your clients is via social media and engaging with your customers through your customer service. Get personal on social media and promote excellent relationships with every one of your clients.
Iron Man and the Need for Being Social. Another lesson you can learn from Marvel is how to be social with your clients. If you know anything about Iron Man, you know that Tony Stark loves being social and can throw some epic parties. Marvel embraces this Tony Stark spirit by having incredible social media campaigns for all of their films, comics, and more. A great example of an awesome social media campaign is that of Marvel’s Deadpool. If you don’t know much about Deadpool, people refer to him as the “Merc With a Mouth” because he isn’t your classic do-good Marvel superhero. In a way, he is the epitome of anti-hero, and everyone loves him. Due to his sassy, and (be warned) not safe for work (NSFW) ways, the social media campaign has been hilarious. Photos are being released that are perfectly Deadpool, and people are getting more and more excited for the film to be released in 2016.
While you don’t have to, and most likely shouldn’t, go the way of Marvel’s marketing for Deadpool, this does show how to use social media. First of all, Marvel is expertly reflecting the brand of Deadpool and second, they are also connecting with their fans in new, fun ways. Take this as a lesson to use social media and reflect your brand accurately and perfectly through your tweets, posts, and interactions. Don’t be afraid to be a little silly with memes and jokes, either! That will help make the social media experience a fun one for you and your followers.
Copywriters and Content Marketers, Assemble!
What are some of the lessons from Marvel that you plan on implementing into your content marketing strategy? These are all great to use and you will see some pretty great success if you start following Marvel’s amazing examples. If you need help creating awesome content to go with your new content strategy, choose Express Writers! Our team is top notch when it comes to producing expert copy, and we can help get you to Marvel-levels of awesome with our work. Take a look at our web content and copywriting services to see what all we can provide you and your business.
