MySpace Branded Content Strategy, The Onion’s Content Lab, SEO Tips

The Strategist picks the day’s most relevant and interesting stories about the world of content from around the web. Here’s what you should be reading today:

Myspace’s Branded Content Plan

Unlike the old Myspace, the new one won’t overload users with ads, according to Businessweek.

Instead, there will be preroll on music videos, branded content, and native advertising.

Head of MediaCom Beyond Advertising Sloan Broderick says that executives of the new Myspace are “thinking about design in terms of big, bold, beautiful imagery and video. What I think we’re going to see over time is a new place for brands to participate in the storytelling realm that we haven’t really seen on a social network before.”

The Onion’s Brand Collaboration

Digiday reports on The Onion’s branded content lab, which is “dedicated to making overly serious brands a lot more fun.”

The unit has worked on between 15 and 20 branded content campaigns for companies like Dove, EA Games, Microsoft, and Orbitz. The team is made up of eight people from the creative side (writers and freelancers) and sales. In the past, they’ve done illustrations, social media campaigns, design work, written content, and videos for brands.

Tips for Content SEO

Mike Murray of Content Marketing Institute writes about SEO, content marketing, and utilizing keywords.

Marketers should mine keywords through Keyword Discovery, SEMrush, and WordTracker. The keywords should be relevant to the audience, and companies should already know where they stand with rankings. Tools like Web CEO, SEOmoz, and BrightEdge can help with that. Pages with content on them need to include calls to action, and keyword selection has to be relevant to the editorial calendar as well.

He says, “If you have a primary set of keyword phrases, your content planning strategies should reflect your keyword phrase priorities and deficiencies. For example, if you’re already ranking exceptionally high for ‘riding lawn mowers,’ maybe that doesn’t need your attention; but you may be ranking poorly for ‘self propelled lawn mower,’ and want to create content to address this in the near future — your keyword plans should keep this in mind.”

CNN Saying Goodbye to Matalin and Carville

According to the New York Times, husband and wife/Democratic and Republican contributors to CNN James Carville and Mary Matalin will be leaving the channel. 

They used to co-host “Crossfire” and were frequently appearing on “The Situation Room.” CNN will also be losing commentators Bill Bennett and Erick Erickson, along with Democratic strategist Maria Cardona.

Strider’s Branded Content on Mothering.com

ClickZ reports on Strider’s branded content campaign on parenting site Mothering.com.

The site, hosted “a focus group, comments from mothers on the community and a follow- up set of ads that included video, a poll and a contest to win a balance bike.” Strider’s efforts were made possible by Huddler, which helps brands structure their campaigns in online communities.

CEO of Huddler Dan Gill says that doing these kinds of campaigns gives brands “a voice on the site, helps them learn what customers think and enables them to be get in touch with influential voices in the community of users.”

The Viral Video Predictor

Mashable reports on Unruly Share Rank, an algorithmic tool that lets advertisers know whether or not their videos will go viral.

It helps advertisers figure out “the word-of-mouth potential of their video before they spend anything on media,” according to the company. It has not been revealed how it works, but the company says that it’s based on seven years’ worth of data.