social media disengagement:...

EBOOKMarch 2016

2012-2014

2014-2015

2006-2012

OVERCOME THE CONTENT CRISIS

Social media disengagement:

Social media disengagement: overcome the content crisis EBOOK - March 2016 2

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter 1

The all you can eat buffet ....................................... 3

Chapter 2

Infobesity and the content crisis ........................... 4

Chapter 3

Content Promotion ................................................ 11

Chapter 4

Integrated marketing ............................................ 13

References .............................................................. 15About Exo B2B ........................................................ 16

http://exob2b.com/en/


THE “ALL YOU CAN EAT” BUFFET Do you remember the web, amidst its optimism and the promise of new marketing, roughly between 2006 and 2012? It will soon be some ten years since it all started! Here, and around the world, it was the golden age of social media. In 2007, Time magazine called us all THE person of the year. We were the “masters of the information age” surfing the new Web 2.0. Sheer euphoria!

Marketing firms now had a vast amount of assumptions to test out. Blogs had come into being just a few years earlier. Facebook had started out in 2006, followed by Twitter and LinkedIn. Then there were Flickr, YouTube and the rise of Wikipedia, the collaborative encyclopaedia. All of which opened a world of possibilities that marketing experts tried to interpret and integrate into their practices and especially, their strategies.

In fact, from 2006 to 2012, the vast majority of companies, agencies, consultants and even individuals, worked to establish their presence on social media and various networks. They followed good practices, wrote on their blogs a lot, relayed this information on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter in order to establish their personality on the Web,

through organic search. They vied for credibility and leadership in their fields. In fact, they were unknowingly developing the beginnings of inbound marketing strategy (the term ‘inbound marketing” was created in 2005) based on “Thought Leadership”.

These practices, which were based on sharing, generated a lot of excitement and led to a slew of theories and specialized books on “Tribes”(1), “Trust”(2), the “Wuffie factor”(3), the “Facebook Era”(4), “Pixels of Separation” (5) and finally “Inbound Marketing”(6), a term created by the author and CEO of HubSpot, Brian Halligan. A term which is also the subject of another Exo B2B eBook(7).

The big content rush The euphoria that prevailed naturally led companies, such as Web and marketing specialists, to create ambitious inbound marketing strategies. These focused heavily on generating commitment through the creation



of high-quality content, optimized for search engines and social network sharing. In fact, the idea was to engage customers and partners in conversations on platforms designed exactly for that purpose (blogs, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn). It was then that the terms “Inbound Marketing” and “Content Marketing” became buzzwords.

Many authors, such as Joe Pulizzi(8), have noted that this period of communicative enthusiasm brought about a Web marketing gold rush, which in turn generated some brilliant “inbound” marketing strategies. But, as everyone flocked to this social media “all-you-can-eat”, this new “content marketing buffet”, we unintentionally created a traffic jam. Suddenly, so much was being offered at the buffet table, that no one knew exactly what they should be consuming, particularly when it came to content marketing. Thus, certain strategies implemented around 2012-2013, started to malfunction. Lost in the clamouring crowd, who to believe? Who to listen to?

The all-you-can-eat buffet period was a reflection of that era. It may seem strange to read something like this as eras are usually longer,but remember, this is the Web we are talking about (and web marketing) , where eras last only a few years. That one lasted only seven.

INFOBESITY AND THE CONTENT CRISIS

Becoming “infobese” on the Web is a common and recurrent phenomenon in all companies. But with the advent of Web 2.0 and social platforms such as blogs, enabling everyone to publish content on the web, this “disease” has spread at breakneck speed, particularly in content marketing. In four years, content production has exploded and now far exceeds its consumption. In fact, it has reached a saturation point ...

Some, such as Mark Schaefer (9), call this “Content Shock”

“Of course the volume of free content is exploding at a ridiculous rate. Depending on what study you read, the amount of available

web-based content (the supply) is doubling every 9 to 24 months. Unimaginable really. However, our ability to consume that content (the

Fig. 1



demand) is finite. There are only so many hours in a day and even if we consume content while we eat, work and drive, there is a theoretical and inviolable limit to consumption, which we are now approaching”.

In his opinion, available content (Fig. 1) doubles every 9-24 months. Let’s extrapolate and say it doubles every 12 months. That would mean that between 2010 and 2014, available content would have multiplied by 16! No wonder we are bombarded with such graphs.

And according to Chad Pollitt, who also speaks of “Content Shock” in his “Content Promotion Manifesto”(10), more than 2.73 million blog posts are written and published on a daily basis. Are we to believe these figures, or the ones on the graph? It’s not important because either way, the number is staggering.

The numbers make your head spin but also highlight the nature of the illness, like an electrocardiogram: content production is no longer in tune with customer demand, as demonstrated on the graph (Figure 2.), produced by Mark Schaefer:

His chart is not quite accurate as it dates back to early 2014 and still puts us below the bar where supply exceeds demand, which for us, has been the case since at least 2013. It does however force us to face reality. Such an increase in supply vs. demand is like a constant increase in blood pressure leading up to the inevitable. A crisis ... an alienation crisis, a disengagement. Enough is enough. Individuals and companies can no longer follow and simply disengage, becoming

participation “drop-outs”, which leads to the following graph by Steve Rayson, in a study published in Buzzsumo(11) (Fig 3.):

Fig. 2

Fig. 3



In this graph, 50% of the content gets 8 shares or less and 75% has no referral link. It ends up looking like a kind of “long tail”, an unwanted one for the Web and marketing...

And to be more explicit in this illustration of the drastic decline in engagement levels, Rayson publishes statistics of three well-known sites (fig 4).

To further illustrate our point, let’s have a look at this telling graphic from a study by Brian Carter and Marketo on Facebook (Fig. 5), with a weak 20% of shares and comments. It wouldn’t take a huge jump in logic to say that the “Like” button is partly responsible for disengagement on the Facebook. Notwithstanding, It clearly indicates a trend towards disengagement, a trend that some in the USA have described as “social media fatigue”, especially among the leading brands and especially on Facebook (Fig. 6).

There’s also this observation, derived from a Forrester study: “posts from top brands on Twitter and Facebook reach just 2% of their followers and only 0.07% of those followers actually interact with those posts”.

Fig. 4

Fig. 5

Fig. 6



How can businesses possibly make their way in this noisy landscape, filled with mountains of content? And what about marketing strategies? How do you emphasize your needle in this immense haystack? How do you re-establish contact with customers?

No more relying on organic referral as a remedy for Search Engine Optimization, and relying only on using SEO to re-establish contact. As Pollitt points out in his Manifesto, curing the patient will require a very different content strategy. Before talking about a cure however, we must defeat the disease because information overload has created a monster that some call “Content Shock”, but that others call Big Data.

In the present context, it is best to stick to the first of these two monstrosities, as both require different treatment.

For companies and all those who work in web marketing, the “infobesity” that developed between 2012 and 2014 has had disasterous consequences: a catastrophic decline in the level of interaction and engagement of active or potential customers.

The word “decline” is actually an understatement. That’s why we are using the crisis metaphor…A drastic drop, which since 2014, has brought companies and their content strategies to the edge of the abyss. Mere dustings of comments on blog posts, Facebook statuses or LinkedIn; no more retweets on Twitter. But lots of “Likes” or little stars ...where is the commitment? Where are the influencers?

In short, how to deal with this loss and what strategy should be followed? In more recent years, companies and agencies have used paying channels in their marketing strategy (paid media, paid content), to promote their content with traditional advertising, promotional content and even sponsorship, which falls under content distribution (right circle below, in Fig.7). In some cases they’ve also used public relation channels, which has more to do with media coverage of content, among other things (earned media, earned content in the circle on the left).

The mass adoption of social networks, especially in the last five years, has had its corollary with “inbound” marketing and content marketing: explosive growth! Traditional ways of doing things were quickly put aside in order to focus almost all efforts on the new so-called native or proprietary channel (owned content “Fig. 7”).



Companies and agencies then had to produce their own content, on their own platforms such as websites, blogs, social networks, newsletters and even email, essentially bringing their own content to the forefront.

Companies and agencies became content distributors (owned media, owned content in the bottom circle). This is a major paradigm shift for both businesses and marketing agencies, as well as advertising or public relations.

According to a study called “B2B Enterprise Content Marketing: 2015 Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends – North America “ (8), almost 90% of companies and agencies were practicing marketing content in 2014 (Fig. 8) and of course, of all marketing professionals questioned, 65% of them responded that they published more content (Fig. 9) last year.

As we saw in the previous chapter, producing more content and repeatedly using the “owned content” channel, has not always produced the desired results. The study’s survey results prove it: even though 88% of them use this marketing

Fig. 8 Fig. 9

Fig. 7



strategy, only 28% of them find that it is effective and only 15% are able to identify a return on investment (ROI). But still, 51% of them say they want to increase their investments in this kind of strategy in the next year (Fig. 10).

And curiously, the figures are better in B2B (in blue). 38% find their strategy is effective and 55% will invest more ... These figures confirm three important points.

1. B2B marketing strategy based solely on proprietary content is neither efficient nor cost-effective

2. The content offered in B2B and B2C far exceeds the demand

3. Businesses are struggling to “niche” their offer and make themselves known

The more your industry suffers from content saturation, the bigger your content promotion investment will be!

Fig. 10



To help promotionFor the sake of efficiency and to avoid compromising present and future sharing of your content, it is crucial to ensure its relevance. Publishing uninteresting content will effectively encourage the reader to ignore it. But how do you identify content worth sharing?

It is said that “The science of your past is your passport to the future”. This expression is particularly meaningful here. Analyze content that’s widely shared by your readers: what are the similarities? Can you highlight themes, times, specific people? Regularly ask your customers what they want to read. There is often too much emphasis on the products and the perspective of the company generating the content.

Ask yourself what might help your readers in their work or their understanding of industry trends. Feel free to check out content produced by others in your industry. You might realize that you are not even addressing certain important subjects or themes. The most important thing to keep in mind ?

Speak their language, talk about their problems!

Stop blaming yourself for your content’s performance Content quality is evaluated by your readership, which is composed of targets and influencers. Content quality measurement must be done daily, and not just using “likes” and “shares”. Take into account the nature and the importance of those who share or comment on your content. Integrate this into your content creation. Probe your readers’ opinions, their desires and their needs. These may change over time. Also take into account stakeholders. Ultimately, the challenge is to create “social” relationships with them, using content that is loaded with emotional value.

Logic and order of distribution

One of the peculiarities of B2B lies in the purchasing process. Your content must line up with this process by taking into account the target and its location in the buying process. Offering relevant content at the appropriate time, on the right platform and to the right person is key.



Pitfalls to Avoid

Content creation and dissemination has many pitfalls. There can be a lack of strategy, budget and influencers, and a lack of knowledge about the industry media or its keywords. It is also illusory to think that publishing content frequently will generate more site visits, just as it is deceiving to believe that good content will necessarily generate commitment. To avoid pitfalls, you can rely on qualitative data as indicators to identify the most appropriate platform to publish on, and to understand what generates commitment.

What else must be done?

• As in many other areas, quality trumps quantity. Thinking on how to optimize your content from a qualitative point of view for your industry readers and influencers is essential.

• Think about how this content can be repurposed.

• Real-time measurement must be performed from the first day you broadcast content. Be prepared to promote it if it generates interest. Have a budget established and platforms selected. Monitoring influencer publications in your industry will help you identify where your content gets “traction “, a true indicator when launching a paid promotion strategy.

CONTENT PROMOTION One way to stand out from the pack and to make one’s niche known is to combine, in whole or in part, the channels previously identified. As shown in the Venn diagram above (Fig. 11), there are many different tools (and this is by no means a complete list) that make up the content promotion ecosystem. They can also differ greatly from one another. What they do have in common however, is their ability to help promote brand content in one of the three channels (paid, owned, earned) or in two. Several tools may influence two or more channels.

On average in 2014, marketers spent 15% of their content marketing budget on promotion.



Some case studies have shown the need to invest 50-60% of content marketing budget on content promotion!

The solution to this B2B crisis clearly seems to be to return to old tactics, but not for the same reasons. In fact, Mr. Pollitt’s study “Content Promotion Manifesto” (10) also confirms the obvious: the use of all marketing channels (online and off-line) may be more effective. In this graph, taken from the 2015 survey on 2015 B2B enterprise trends and conducted by the Content Marketing Institute and Marketing Profs (Fig. 12), 73% of those surveyed said their most effective tactics are events where people meet (conventions, conferences, etc.) and this result is up 4% from last year.

Ideally, to stand out from the rest, you must effectively use all marketing communication channels, not just the three mentioned above. Although “inbound” and content marketing strategies prioritizing the “owned

Fig. 11



content / media” channel are still the cornerstones of B2B marketing, they no longer suffice...

As shown in the graph (Fig. 12), it would be wise to also build on the strengths of the other channels in order to find ways to engage the target audience in terms of content. But even integration of various channels is not sufficient. Integration must be done comprehensively. When it comes to comprehensive integration, the most promising concept is integrated marketing.

INTEGRATED MARKETINGIntegrated marketing is the strategic use of all the traditional, new and hybrid marketing activities (Fig. 13), to strongly focus on the client and to develop relationships, products and services that meet their needs and

contribute to solving their problems. Thanks to evolving technologies, these activities can be

identified more precisely than ever and therefore, addressed more quickly and

efficiently.

To summarize, integrated marketing is:

• Using appropriate combinations of online and offline channels for sales and marketing activities, and coordinating them for maximum impact.

• Getting the full potential of available technologies and

utilizing their extensive listening and measurement capabilities to improve

Fig. 13

Fig. 12



your understanding of customers and their needs, to be able to better engage them in the buying process.

• Doing your Sales and Marketing work assisted by related disciplines, such as communications and public relations. Having Sales and Marketing work in tandem on opportunities (leads) while sharing common objectives in the targeted segments.

• The possibility for the related disciplines to nourish marketing with content to use at each stage of the sales cycle, namely at pre-sale, purchasing and after-sales.

• Using research, strategic planning, a judicious choice of tactics and an accurate go-to-market strategy supported by rigorous measurement to achieve business objectives.

At the intersection of integrated marketing and content generation you’ll also find online and offline integration. And that’s not all: There are also all the opportunities for marketing-related disciplines to feed into content to be used at each stage: pre-sales. sales and after-sales !!!

Be much more focused on your customer then on your desire to “talk” about subjects in particular

With a better understanding of your customers and the content they want, your choices are based on data and regular analyses. If you are constantly listening to the feedback during the process, you will not only get a better idea about what content to produce, but also the best place and the best time to promote it!

It will help you be specific in your efforts

In short, it is simply good practice to talk to customers in the right way, at right time, in the right place, with the right solution, and publish on YOUR media (owned) because don’t forget: The other two tool (paid and earned) aren’t yours!

HAPPY CONTENT CREATION

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References

(1) Tribes by Seth Godin – 2008 : http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/files/TribesQA2.pdf

(2) Trust Agents by Chris Brogan & Julien Smith – 2010 : http://www.amazon.ca/Trust-Agents-Influence-

Improve-Reputation/dp/0470635495

(3) The Power of Social Networking : Using the Whuffie Factor by Tara Hunt – 2009 :

http://www.amazon.com/The-Power-Social-Networking-Business/dp/0307449408

(4) The Facebook Era by Clara Shih – 2009 : https://www.facebook.com/thefacebookera/

(5) Six Pixels of Separation by Mitch Joel – 2009 : http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0446548235?ie=

UTF8&tag=sixpixeofsepa-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0446548235

(6) Inbound Marketing by Brian Halligan – 2010 : http://www.amazon.com/Inbound-Marketing-Found-

Google-Social/dp/0470499311

(7) E-Book: B2B Social Networks, they work!– 2013 http://exob2b.com/en/publications/e-book-b2b-

social-networks-they-work/

(8) B2B Enterprise Content Marketing by Joe Puluzi – 2014 : http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/wp-

content/uploads/2015/04/2015_Enterprise_Research_FINAL.pdf

(9) Content Shock: Why Content Marketing is not a sustainable strategy by Marc Schaefer – 2014 :

http://www.businessesgrow.com/2014/01/06/content-shock/

(10) The Content Promotion Manifesto by Chad Pollitt – 2015: http://connect.relevance.com/content-

promotion-manifesto

(11) 50% of Content Gets 8 Shares Or Less: Why Content Fails And How To Fix It by Steve Rayson –

2015: http://buzzsumo.com/blog/50-of-content-gets-8-shares-or-less-why-content-fails-and-how-to-fix-

it/

(12) Contagious Content by Brian Carter – 2015 : http://www.marketo.com/_assets/uploads/

Contagious-Content.pdf

(13) A Fully Integrated B2B Communications Strategy is Essential by Tim Asimos - 2015

http://www.business2community.com/communications/a-fully-integrated-b2b-communications-

strategy-is-essential-01366233#t8yqkfAulHLiliSo.99



ABOUT EXO B2BExo B2B is a strategic and operational marketing agency in Montreal that has specialized in integrated marketing since 2002. Its full range of services extends from strategic planning to marketing to sales and marketing tools. The precision of Exo B2B’s actions creates sustainable value.

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