Content to succeed

Orlagh Bailey on what’s required for engaging content

Social media has grown hugely as a business channel. In efforts to embrace and engage communities, there is an extortionate amount of boring, costly and wasteful content. Spot competitions, vague polls and superfluous ‘interactive’ social questions flood newsfeeds. Social content creators realise it is time to go back to basics.

Instead of just filling our social calendars with the recommended two or three posts a week, there is a need to focus on storytelling. Stories need to be properly planned for different platforms and targeted at the right audiences. There is also a need to evolve the traditional story arc so it sits across different mediums and make sure it makes sense across the board.

In the third Spotlight interview, ex-creative director for Buzzfeed and consulting editorial director for joe.co.uk, Philly Byrne spoke about creating content for a social audience. What makes a wow! story? Byrne believes first and foremost a good story provides something for the reader, whether it be an emotional response or sparking intellectual curiosity. Good content entertains and informs by appealing to people’s emotions. The Spanish Christmas Lottery viral posted on YouTube and Facebook is a prime example of a story well told.

It features a lonely security guard who is eventually celebrated by his colleagues. It appeals to the human emotions of kindness, loneliness and friendship. Emotional stories do not have to take the form of video to work. Airbnb’s Instagram account developed into a series of beautiful stories written by its users about their experiences in some amazing homes.

Byrne says another way to generate traction is to tell a story which sparks intellectual curiosity. Content around US Presidential hopeful Donald Trump, right, generates endless news stories and analyses. At its core, ‘The Donald’s’ journey is a story with heroes and villains, and it makes us observe the world around us. It is social honey for content producers.

Great content should really add value. During the recent Luas strikes, Hailo did not push out a funny meme sending up tram drivers. Instead, they ran an email, text and social campaign informing commuters of a special discount to help them get to work on strike days. Through the use of data-driven content, Hailo moved the branded message to point of purchase.

It all leads to the question of content output. Should we produce an endless amount of low quality content to fill our social newsfeed, or should we focus on long form content that provides a deeper experience for the user and possibly a more meaningful brand affinity? It is what Vizeum describes as the quality versus quantity paradigm.

Jonnie Walker’s six-minute Gentleman’s Wager video with Jude Law generated 12 million views on YouTube and its soundtrack featured on several music platforms. With such high quality content, the brand gives itself the budget and the time to develop insights to create a moving film which resonates with consumers, generates traction and deepens brand affinity.

Naturally, budgets limit the number of brands which can afford such content. But a brand can still achieve a lot with a strategy to spread views across content of lower production quality. A high volume, low quality content strategy may mean a Buzzfeed article or a weekly social post. When content is produced at such a high rate, it can be hard to predict the ‘hit’.

Byrne says brands need to produce a fair amount of output to produce amazing content. But Vizeum argues this only suits a publisher. Brand followers will be less forgiving and quicker to drop a brand if it is failing to provide them with value and encroaching too much on their newsfeed. Unlike a publisher, a brand’s raison d’etre is not content.

Burberry produces content almost of a cinematic standard. They hired top creatives to fuel a user generated website called Art of the Trench. With a hefty budget to drive a strong social community around images of models in trench coats, Burberry generated over seven million views, a strong social following and a 14 per cent increase in revenue in the last quarter.

King released a video with Conor McGregor chomping on a bag of crisps and winking at the camera while his butler extolled the snack’s virtues. The viral caught the nation’s interest and featured on the Late Late Show. Often content pieces find success because they hit on the current zeitgeist. With a modest budget, the McGregor video scored about 300,000 views.

Regardless of where a brand sits on the quality-quantity paradigm, investing in promotional support is essential. Without it, your content has limited chance of going viral as social media sites favour posts with paid support. When unsupported posts manage to win some engagement it can be fleeting and the flashes of success are soon forgotten.