This document discusses best practices for content marketing and social business from a recent study conducted by ComBlu for Lithium Inc. It identifies key trends like live storytelling using video and virtual reality, collaboration with influencers, and personalized experiences. It outlines ComBlu's approach to content strategy development, which includes discovery, workshops, and defining deliverables. ComBlu aims to help clients assess readiness and build frameworks to scale content operations.

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CONTENT MARKETING &
SOCIAL BUSINESS OVERVIEW
Presented by

2. TOPLINE BEST
PRACTICES

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Lessons Learned: Excerpts From a Recent Study Conducted by ComBlu for Lithium Inc.
Big trend #1 is live storytelling that kluges video, live
streaming and virtual reality with social sharing.
• Live experiences replicates the intimacy of F2F
interaction and humanizes a brand in a way that
images and recorded video alone cannot
Big trend #2: Collaboration and co-creation with
influencers.
• According to Jay Baer, brands who win the content
game will be the ones who don’t sell a product but
instead sell how a product fits into the lives of its
consumers
• Influencer stories demonstrate how the brand fits
into a lifestyle: stories are told within the context of
the influencers’ worlds and present the stories
authentically
Engagement is the DNA of relationship
building and content is its atomic center.
• High-performing brands worry less
about traffic and reach, and more about
the quality of time spent with the right
audiences doing “stuff” that makes a
difference
─ Storytelling and unique experiences
are essential
─ Great storytelling is co-created, fun
and ultimately inspires or shows new
ways to do things. These stories
introduce the unexpected.

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Lessons Learned: Excerpts From a Recent Study Conducted by ComBlu for Lithium Inc.
Megatrend: Personalized experiences
• Providing personalized experiences drives
people deeper into the funnel and builds
loyalty
• Achieving personalization on owned assets is a
huge challenge and is even a bigger issue on
“rented” channels like Twitter or Facebook
• As a result, most brands use their social
channels as part of a paid strategy but fail to
gather data from across channels to deliver
content and experience on an individual level
• Building federated or universal profiles is just
starting to emerge as a best practice

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Lessons Learned: Excerpts From a Recent Study Conducted by ComBlu for Lithium Inc.
Opportunities
Most brands do little to engage deeply. They are
stuck in a “broadcast” time warp where content
is pushed with little attempt to engage beyond
“post and go”.
Other brands exhibit a “launch and leave”
mentality by unwittingly creating social ghost
towns. After establishing social channels, they
post infrequently or sporadically.
Smart brands use their full social ecosystem to
aggregate and link to deeper community
content. This results in leveraging community
and social experiences and creating the ability to
engage in consumers’ platform of choice.
Effective content models
include multiple missions
for their content.
Educate:
Teach or give tips
Support:
Customer service or product help
Entertain:
Humor or heart strings
Persuade:
Forward a cause
Promote:
Provide an offer (event, coupon or
code, special deals, etc.)
Convert:
Link to call to action or to an
ecommerce landing page

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Approach
Discovery and Planning
Goal: Determine drivers of
content strategy, identify
delta between current and
future state, and develop
initial framework.
Stakeholder Workshop
Use output from Discovery
to design a workshop for
designated internal
stakeholders. The goal of
the workshop is to begin
the process of aligning
disparate stakeholders
around a unified content
strategy.
Deliverables Definition
Use workshop to define
logical next steps and
determine internal
ownership of various
deliverables.
Form a working team to
drive progress.

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ComBlu’s Role
Conduct Discovery
• Review background
• Create map of current state
• Conduct interviews to gain
preliminary input on future state
• Define delta
• Design workshop

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ComBlu’s Role
Workshop
• Conduct workshop
• Facilitate agreement on a course of
action
• Create action plan and recruit a team
for further planning and execution
Deliverables Definition
• Plan next steps and create a roadmap
for achieving key milestones
• Facilitate execution and collaboration
• Create a sourcing model for execution
• Determine how to socialize and
educate sources on aspects of model

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Why ComBlu?
• Creating and executing integrated content,
engagement and community strategies
and roadmaps
• Developing content journeys for specific
scenarios and personas to maximize
experience across the entire content,
digital, social and community ecosystem
• Implementing content marketing
strategies aligned with business mission
across the buyer’s journey
• Activating brands’ storytellers as post-
purchase advocacy channel and
introducing voice of the customer/UGC as
part of the content mix
• Using social content to drive traffic and
impact conversions
• Measuring the impact of content and
community strategy on defined KPIs
Our content experience includes:
ComBlu is a premier content strategy and
influencer marketing consultancy.
Our goal is to help organizations assess
their operational and organizational
readiness to scale content operations and
to build a framework for realistic solutions.

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Some of the Brands We Have Worked With

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Final Word
• ComBlu’s approach is designed to facilitate
discussion and help come to agreement on a
plan of action
• We then help organizations leverage their
internal resources in a “teach to fish” approach
that guides and transfers knowledge
• We augment with expertise and resources as
required
• The result? An efficient engagement that leaves
the organization capable of acting
independently without additional long-term
commitment to another outside resource. Many
clients then use us for a periodic check-in to
level-set and track progress or to help explore
enhancements and get to the next level.

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Kevin Lynch
kylnch@comblu.com
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