2015: The Year of Digital Recalibration (and Déjà Vu)

8 Content Marketing and Social
Media Challenges Facing
Brands in 2015
2015: The Year of
Digital Recalibration

2015: The year of digital recalibration kamber.com.au
For the last few years, I’ve developed a trends feature in an
attempt to capture the big things impacting the digital landscape.
This year, I’ve taken a slightly different approach which is less
flashy, but (hopefully) more valuable.
Why?
We are entering the year of digital recalibration.
An introduction…
After five years of infinite growth and innovation (especially due to the social media
explosion), the time has come to take stock, embrace the lessons that have been learnt,
and use them to develop smarter solutions (which will give creative thinking more
chances to shine).
Inside you’ll find: Eight common challenges and questions facing business in 2015. And,
eight answers. I hope you find them useful.
Thanks and have a great year.
Adam Vincenzini
Managing Partner @ Kamber

Considerations*
Pinch of salt
(I’ve attempted to be as specific as possible, but every
business faces its own unique set of challenges)
Objectives are still king
(Content isn’t king, or even prince, if it doesn’t align
with commercial and communication objectives)
Same old?
(Already familiar with a few of these? Great. Hopefully
a couple are ‘new’ to you too)
Submit yours
(Everyone’s perspective is different which is ace. Add
your thoughts about 2015 via the comments function)
*Often referred to as ass covering, and quite fairly too

2015: The year of digital recalibration kamber.com.auKamber.com.au
1.
‘Always on’ vs.
campaigns
Getting the balance right still eludes many

‘Always on’ vs. campaign ‘spikes’
• This isn’t unique to 2015, but it has become a lot more apparent of
late
• The big flashy ideas will normally illicit the most emotional responses
from brand guardians, but without a solid ‘always on’ program in
place, campaign ‘spikes’ can be futile
• Taking the hard road, spending a sustained period of time building
authority, and THEN adding the campaign layers is the formula for
success in 2015 and beyond
Invest (properly) in the future NOW and enjoy success with
much more regularity LATER

2.
‘Borrowing' an
audience is like great
sex
But what happens after it’s over?

Buying influence versus building trust
• “That beauty vlogger has how many subscribers??!”
• There is nothing wrong with 3rd party publisher collaboration, but it’s
often a short term fix
• If that path is taken, a long term outlook is required – can it be a 2-3
year partnership?
• Expect to see more and more influencer partnerships in 2015,
especially from media buying agencies who are partial to dangling
the ‘reach’ carrot
Collaboration is great, but it shouldn’t be at the expense of
developing channels and audiences you own

3.
How much budget
should we allocate to
content promotion?
But we’ve been spending…

How much is too much…or too little?
• A very common question I’ve been asked of late has been: “We’re
currently spending X, does that seem right?”
• Without knowledge of context, objectives and benchmarks that
question is impossible to answer
• The simple answer, which isn’t a BAD thing, is that a promotional
spend must be part of your toolkit (but that isn’t breaking news)
• As more is learnt about paid content promotion by businesses of all
shapes and sizes, better decisions will be made
Benchmarking will be preached louder and louder in 2015
(and rightly so)

4.
We still don’t know
what good looks like
Trust remains an issue

But we were told…
• Now this IS a trend
• An uplift in agency reviews are occurring as brands question the
impact being delivered by partners that originally came on board in
the early stages of the social media explosion
• ‘Good’ is ultimately defined by the hard and soft metric ‘cocktail’ and
whether or not those targets are being met
• Another way to measure ‘good’ is the quality of output – are you
serving up content that your audience wants?
The ultimate test: If you shut down all of your social media
channels tomorrow, would anyone care?

5.
Everybody’s doing it
But making content work in the participatory
media age isn’t as easy as it sounds

Content is just content, right?
• This is probably going to sound very self-serving given the nature of
my agency, but great content ‘ideas’ aren’t enough if the myriad of
other important variables aren’t taken into account
• What does your audience want? What are your competitors talking
about? What unique subject matters do you have the authority and
permission to talk about? What does empirical data tell you?
• Developing content strategies which answer these questions (and
many more) is a skill which is in short supply
Agencies must adapt constantly to remain relevant, but
making content work in the modern landscape over a
sustained period is a challenge…to all

6.
Decision time
Is it really right for us?

We’ve been at it for a while now…
• The participatory media landscape is naturally suited to the three F’s:
Food, fitness and fashion (just ask any Instagram user)
• It doesn’t mean others can’t thrive – technology-based brands are
naturally suited to regular publishing as ‘news’ is never in short
supply
• But, is the social media thing really doing anything beyond placating
senior management? Do other methods of marketing and
communication deliver more impact?
In 2015, we might (and should) see some brands pump the
breaks, instead of hitting the accelerator, which reverses the
recent trend

7.
Channel or content?
It should be an easy answer

18-35 yr old males are active on…
• Just because your audience is active in a particular place, doesn’t
necessarily mean you should be
• The things you can talk about and the content you can produce,
which can add real value, should be the first thing you address
• Then, channels can be considered, but with caution
• If Facebook died tomorrow, would your content strategy seamlessly
adapt to a different environment?
The participatory media environment isn’t going anywhere,
but the places where participation occurs might change.
Content first, channels second. Always.

8.
Ready, fire, aim
Yes, that is in the right order

Things might change tomorrow…
• We operate in the most fluid and fast-paced era ever
• Obsessing about getting your ducks in a row for too long almost
certainly means you’ll never have them ready, something will change
• This is a huge challenge across all business departments, but
especially across the digital disciplines
• Adapting to changes from the platforms and people as they occur is
something that needs to be preached (and accepted) with more
regularity in 2015
Start, test the waters, learn from it, and then roll out with
greater fervor. The longer you wait, the harder it gets.

8.
Ready, fire, aim
Yes, that is in the right order
Wrapping
things up

summary
Trends, challenges, questions…
As mentioned at the start, my hope is that this isn’t another
guest at the echo chamber hotel.
However, I do think that the all challenges addressed and
the questions posed are important ones.
The fact that they aren’t especially earth-shattering
(potentially) adds to their weight – common questions are
common for a reason.
The digital recalibration has begun and could be THE key
theme of 2015.

Kamber is a specialist content
marketing and social media agency.
We plan, produce, publish and
promote digital content that people
crave.
For more information:
Adam Vincenzini
Founder and Managing Partner
M: +61 428 342 323
E: adam@kamber.com.au
T: @AdamVincenzini
kamber.com.au

2015: The Year of Digital Recalibration (and Déjà Vu)

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