The ‘Skyscraper Technique’A Case Study

Jared Bennett

A brief history of skyscrapers…

• Vanity spires are often added to the tops of skyscrapers in an exercise in one-upmansship

What the #$&* Does This Have to do with Content Marketing?

• Using a concept called ‘the Skyscraper Technique’ from backlinko.com, I conceptualised and developed a piece of content for Search Factory that yieldedresults like this!

This is How the Skyscraper Technique Works:

• Step 1: Find awesome content

• Step 2: Make it even awesome-er

• Step 3: Reach out to the right people

“Find the tallest skyscraper in your online niche and slap an extra 20 stories on top!”

Step 1: Find Awesome Content• Use tools such as http://buzzsumo.com/ to find related content that has

attracted a lot of social shares or ‘buzz’

• Look at as many results as possible to try and get a feel for what type of content people like to share via their social networks.

• Then see if you can identify any common themes amongst these top results and most importantly how this could be made even better!

FOUND IT!

Step 2: Make it Awesome-er

It was widely reported that these funny autocomplete suggestions are based upon the amount of times people searched for them.

BUT

Just how many confused young souls have asked Google ‘why does my mom turn me on’? For the record the world wide average monthly search volume for that is :

8,100 searches a month.

BOOM!

These searches are way more shocking when you can back them up with statistics.

Step 2 cont.

Using exact match targeting within Google’s Keyword Planner Tool I was able to get the average monthly search volume for the craziest things that jumped into my head.

I then refined the craziness using some common themes that I had noticed do well on the internet:

• Cats (of course)

• Murder

• Naked Celebrities

• Adultery

• Hating YourJob

• Stupidity

• Cute &

• Just plain weird

Step 3: Reach out to the right people:

• I made a hit list of all major tech blogs that had linked to similar contentand sent a personalized email to each (around 30-40 websites).

• Uploaded the content to a premium infographic posting service called dailyinfographic.com which I knew got a lot of traffic.

• Uploaded the infographic to Stumbleupon and boosted the post with some paid clicks.

• Finally, I asked the team here at Search Factory to share it via their social networks and it was picked up by a Facebook friend of a staff member who just happened to write for foxbusiness.com!

• So….. How did it go?

Please hold your applause until the end:

The Results :

Website crashed!

What happens if you don’t build a taller skyscraper?

• The follow up infographic I put together achieved less than half of the totalsocial shares.

• This is because I didn’t build a taller skyscraper

Yep, I had jumped the shark!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumping_the_shark

To Recap:

• Step 1: Find awesome content

• Step 2: Make it even awesome-er

• Step 3: Reach out to the right people

• Step 4: Make sure your website hosting is up to the task!

• Step 5: Bask in the glory of what you’ve done and take it easy at work for the next 6-12 months knowing that you’re an irreplaceable asset to your company.