Bread and butter content
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My presentation from Brighton SEO, April 2013, in which I argued that bread and butter content should be the focus of your strategy, rather than vitral content. Bread and butter content is the affordable, practical, sustaining heart of your content diet; in comparison, viral content is like jelly beans: tasty, fine in moderation or for a quick energy fix, but not healthy in the long-term.
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Bread and butter content
- 2. Bread and butter content is an everyday staple that keeps you going.
- 3. Viral content is like jelly beans – it gives you a rush, but it’s short-lived & you can’t survive on it alone.
- 4. Writing content about shooting zombies that goes viral is one thing…
- 5. …writing content about electricity that goes viral is another.
- 6. Self- Zombies actualisation Self-esteem / Love/belonging Safety Physiological needs
- 7. Trying to create viral content can leave you feeling like Captain Ahab.
- 8. Bread and butter = big win
- 10. Viral v bread and butter: a case study
- 11. Bread and butter content delivers three things: 1. Traffic 2. Revenue 3. Advocacy
- 12. Sugar rush Sustained Sugar energy crash
- 13. Bread and butter content delivers three things: 1. Traffic 2. Revenue 3. Advocacy
- 14. Red Bull didn’t invent brand publishing
- 15. It’s been around since the 19th century
- 16. Image credits Thanks http://www.flickr.com/photos/ericka/ 2867712873/sizes/o/in/photostream/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/ tj_fluffy_online/697307437/ http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File @La_Pope %3AZombies_NightoftheLivingDead.jpg http://www.flickr.com/photos/danielfoster/ 3565225860/sizes/o/in/photostream/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/dunechaser/ 106176078/sizes/o/in/photostream/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/sbmontana/ 5383211553/ http://www.flickr.com/photos oatsy40/6943832969/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/titoperez/ 5423642283/sizes/o/in/photostream/ https://www.redbullcontentpool.com/ resources/2012/10/16/00001-01000/ P-20121016-00084/image_proxy_large.jpg http://www.sunmaid.com/100- year-of- recipes.html
Editor's Notes
- What do I mean by bread and butter content?Static/evergreen content that is about/closely related to your product service. Thinks like who, what, where, when, why, how much? That helps a user to get what they want to get done on your website done.Call it bread and bread and butter because it’s a staple that's affordable, keeps you going and should be at the heart of your content diet.
- I think it often gets ignored at the moment, in favour of viral content. If the content I’m talking about is bread and butter, viral content is like jelly beans - it’s tasty, gives you a rush that doesn't last long and you probably shouldn't try to live on it.
- Idea for that presentation came from seeing wish.co.uk at the Content Marketing Show Zombie experience daysTalking about the success they’d had with creating content that ‘goes viral’ - they’ve had a load of mainstream media coverage, blog coverage, retweets from celebrities. It’s no surprise - they put in a lot of hard work, they had great ideas and they have a really cool exciting product.
- At the time I was working for a business energy broker. I could’ve wept at the contrast.
- Think about why people share things and how people use social media generally - it’s all about how things make them look to other people.It’s not a digital marketing conference until someone drags out maslow’s hierarchy of needs and I like it, so I thought I’d do it. It’s all about esteem – things that win your recogntion, respect and the all important likes.People can create an ideal vision of themslves online, they share things that backs that up, things that make them look funny, clever, cool, on the cutting edge. An infographic about business energy or the price of car insurance just doesn’t do that. Zombies do do that.
- You can make viral content about zombies, I’m not sure you can make viral content about switching energy supplier. My bosses asked me to, God knows I tried.If you work for exciting brand, this isn’t for you. But if you work for a boring brand, if your core business is something like insurance or energy that at best people think is boring,at worst actively hate dealing with, you can work yourself to death trying to create something that goes viral. It’s the white whale, you’re captain ahab. I’m not saying you can’t come up with something viral if you do work for a ‘boring’ brand, just that it will be harder, and I think there are bigger wins elsewhere.
- I think that’s bread and butter is where the big wins are. Bread and butter content is something that everyone can do brilliantly - and actually I think we all have an obligation to our customers, clients and bosses to do right.
- If you’re spending thousands of pounds on creating a video of cats in fancy dress that only has a spurious link to your product, but your website is doesn’t have good content to describe your product/service, or the copy going through your sales funnel is poor, or you’re not helping customers with other basic needs, you’re missing a trick.
- Every year, the PR team ran a piece of research to find out the where had the worst quality of life in Europe. Not a university level piece of research - but it took into account working hours, sunshine, cost of living, cost of alcohol (I know) and it always turned out (funnily enough) that the UK was the worst place to live in EuropeHuge peak of traffic as the story g lot of coverage and we got links from HuffPo, Guardian etc. Then....nothing. No referrals, no more traffic.Found myself asking: was it really a success? We captured attention for a brief period of time with something that had very little to do with our core business.By comparison, we did bread and butter content really well. the example I’m going to use is a page called ‘‘who is my energy supplier?’ That piece of content is probably over 10 years old, I inherited it when I started, and it outlasted me, still bringing in value and traffic and sales after all these years because it gives people a piece of information that they need. And just so I say something SEO-related – it generates links too, valuable links from high quality sites.And it’s one that’s related to what that business does.
- Bread and butter can bring you the three things you probably want from your website.
- 1. Should’ve said consistent traffic.When something goes viral, the traffic will tend to shoot up to a very high peak really quickly then tail off, maybe over the course of a week or two.Like eating a load of jelly-beans, you get a dizzying sugar high, then you crash back down to earth and feel a bit sad.
- 2. You probably won’t see many (or even any) referrals or revenue straight off the bat either, in most circumstances anyway, because you’re having to go so far away from your core business. Bread and butter content will deliver revenue, if you do it right, because it’ll help your customers to understand your product, buy it or use it.3. Advocacy - It’s this thoughtful content that helps your customers accomplish the task they have in mind, that helps sell your product, shows them how to use it.No people probably won’t share this stuff, but it will win you fans. you’ll help them, and when someone asks, there’s a chance they’ll recommend you. That’s deep and really valuable interaction, compared to which, a share seems pretty insignificant.
- People have been talking about brand publishing a lot recently – Red Bull is often used as the classic case study of a brand that’ pioneering brand publishing- they have a separate publishing house, and they’re running amazing campaigns like Stratos, but it’s not a useful example for us to most of us to look at. I’m yet to see another content budget big enough to send a man into space. Brand publishing doesn’t have to be on this scale and it can be your bread and butter too. You can make bread and butter exciting.
- Food manufacturers have been doing it since the 1880s.Thisexample is from Sun Maid in 1915. They’re still doing it today.So what’s my point? I’m not saying that publishing is some kind of magic fix-all for creating life-long brand relationships, but there is something in the idea.If you have a product, and you help people to use it in a new way with content that captures memorable that has lasting value, then I reckon you’re on to a winner.