Content Catchup: National Geographic’s Engagement Empire, Millennials on Social, and More Must-Reads

Here’s what you missed while trying to figure out if the pope was going to ruin your commute…

How National Geographic Gets 8 Times the Social Engagement of Other Publishers

With an incredibly visual content archive that goes back more than 125 years, National Geographic has the perfect system in place to dominate social media. As Aaron Taube writes:

When we think of the publishers with the best social media performance, we typically imagine new media players like BuzzFeed and the Huffington Post, which not only understand how to best distribute content, but whose entire publishing strategies have been tailored from day one to maximize reach in an environment shaped by Web 2.0.

But when it comes to which publisher generates the most engagement on social media, you might be surprised to discover that the leading publisher was not founded in this century, let alone this decade, but rather all the way back in 1888. That’s National Geographic, if you’re keeping score at home.

Read it.

Study: Not All Millennials Use Social Media the Same Way

Venture capital firm Battery Ventures and market-research company Ipsos just released the results of their 2015 study about the social media habits of millennials. As Amanda Walgrove explains in her analysis, marketers who lump all young people together are making a huge mistake. Read it.

12 Things Marketers Can Learn From the Esquire Archives

To drum up a new revenue stream, Esquire just launched Esquire Classic, a new digital database full of all 1,000 issues of the magazine. While there are plenty of great pieces of journalism worth checking out, we took the opportunity to sort through amazing vintage print ads to see the ways content marketing has evolved (and stayed the same) since the 1930s.

Esme Cribb dives into the most important takeaways for today’s content marketers. Read it.

This Brand Told the Story of Romeo 100K Different Ways, and It’s Freaking Awesome

Most people think of programmatic advertising as a method for media buys, but brave brands are starting to use it for a whole different purpose: generative storytelling. As Tessa Wegert writes:

Steven Spielberg once told Wired, “Technology can be our best friend, and technology can also be the biggest party pooper of our lives. It interrupts our own story.”

But what if technology were used to craft a personal story just for us? Axe, maker of personal care products for men, recently found a way to do just that when promoting its White Label line in Brazil using four brand films based on Romeo and Juliet. The brand’s digital agency used programmatic technology to develop an astounding 100,000 unique one-minute trailers.

Read it.

How to Create Great Finance Content Without Violating FINRA Regulations

The finance industry may be backed up by compliance gridlock, but firms that make a concerted effort to understand all of the regulations that could impact them will undoubtedly get a leg up on the competition, explains Janey Al-Saad:

Until recently, the traditionally old-school finance industry had trouble keeping up with the proliferation of new media. The esoteric reporting regulations from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) impeded even the most forward-thinking firms from publishing.

But today, even the most conservative of firms are realizing the value of new media in their broader marketing strategies. While FINRA can still create a cumbersome operating environment for financial services firms wishing to produce regular content like newsletters, blogs, social media, or emails, there are several best practices that firms can rely on to streamline the content creation process.