Content Marketing

BuzzFeed Brand Stories, Content Marketing Poll, YouTube Looks Global

The Content 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:

BuzzFeed and Social Sharing

The Wall Street Journal, reporting on the rise of social advertising on BuzzFeed, detailed how a recent content ad for Virgin Mobile Live received 2,000 Facebook likes and 330,000 views over the course of a few weeks.

“Aimed at enhancing Virgin Mobile’s brand, the so-called sponsored story was an example of a new breed of online marketing that takes advantage of people’s tendency to share online content with their friends,” says Keach Hagey.

Instead of banner and display ads, the site is focusing on sponsored stories/social advertising.

These types of ads appear to be working. Over the past year, BuzzFeed, Hagey writes, has doubled its traffic. In August, it had 10 million unique visitors.

Content Marketing vs. SEO

What’s more important, content marketing or SEO? This question was posed by Econsultancy and reported on by Dundan Parry of Search Engine Watch.

According to a survey taken by Econsultancy, 90 percent of the 1,300 industry respondents said they believe “content marketing will be more important over the next 12 months.”

And, writes, Parry, “44 percent agreed that ‘content marketing is more effective than advertising at generating sales,’ while 55 percent of brands expected to have a content strategy in 2013.”

YouTube Expanding Worldwide

Also from the WSJ: YouTube, in an effort to double down on its programming, is preparing to offer “cash advances to video producers in Germany, France, the U.K. and the U.S. to create more than 60 original ‘channels’ on the site in categories such as sports, health, and comedy,” writes Amir Efrati.

The site is also looking to create more videos for audiences in Brazil, India and Japan.

According to Efrati, “The new funded channels are designed to produce high-quality shows that are ‘brand safe’ for advertisers, which pay a premium to put ads there. Many large advertisers are wary of advertising next to YouTube’s amateur content, which can be unpredictable.”

In the U.S., YouTube is already funding shows from Michael Cera, Sarah Silverman, and Jay-Z.

Infographic: Content Marketing for Small Businesses

This infographic by PRWeb shows the different aspects of content marketing including social media, articles/whitepapers, webinars, images, and blogs, along with the effect of each.

For example, on social media, “over 56% [of businesses using social media] acquired new business partnerships,” and “articles are the most popular form of content, with 79% of marketers publishing them regularly.”

CopyBlogger on the Art of Storytelling

Kelton Reid of CopyBlogger discusses Dan Harmon, the creator of “Community,” and how an online presence and his compelling stories have made audiences cling onto him and his work.

In addition, he analyzes Harmon’s writing and how it can be applied to storytelling in content marketing campaigns.

How Marketing will Change in Five Years

Over the next five years, AdAge reports that there are going to be some big changes in the marketing business. By 2016, according to eMarketer, TV will continue to own the most marketing shares, at 36 percent, but not by much. Online advertising will own 31 percent, while mobile is predicted to own 5 percent.

Marketers should be focusing more on mobile, because by 2017, “three billion smartphone users will contribute to data traffic that’s 15 times heavier than today’s.”

Another big trend is user experience, and the article suggests thinking “broadly about user experience and designing all consumer interactions as a user-experience expert would.”

Analytics Coming to Tumblr

To get brands involved with the site, Tumblr is now providing an analytics platform for marketers to “understand how their content is being spread on the popular social media/microblogging site,” says Mary Lisbeth D’Amico of ClickZ.

The invitation-only platform, which will later be available for purchase, includes “filtering capabilities that allow tracking of any blog or topic; providing data on overall engagement levels and trends over time; identification of influential contributors and curators; analysis of posts and tags to show which content is most popular, and the ability to analyze the individual engagement level of a single post.”

Brands like Coca-Cola and Reese’s Puffs have seen success on the site.

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