Welcome to your preview of Shyama Johnson! Rather than reminiscing, this preview vivisects the current and future state of content marketing. All through the educated eyes of a globalist omni-nerd.
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VOICE
- Consistency
Emotionally driven as we are, we humans relate to brands in much the same way we relate to each other. We remember them and resent them. We hold some in high regard while holding others in contempt. We love them, we hate them and we love to hate them like it's personal. In that sense, Mitt Romney was right: corporations are people, my friend. As with people, we expect familiar behavior from familiar brands. We expect consistency across events, actions and words. One brand, one voice, so to speak. Naturally, this singular voice takes on disparate tones in different situations. Depending on the message, platform and audience, some code switching is necessary for effective communication. But, a flexible voice is still a voice consistent with itself. In life, we may speak in one manner to our superiors and talk a totally different way with our friends, but the words still sound like us. Our voice remains - and the more we practice it, the more real it sounds.
From m to memo, Netflix has mastered . The company even managed to extract positive press from a cease-and-desist letter they sent to a Chicago bar through sheer charm! An aspirational reminder of the power of the pen.
- Disruption, Uniqueness, Recognizability -
In the last few years, Netflix has become a beacon of corporate disruption. This militantly millennial brand consistently produces eye-popping copy that gets people thinking, talking and sharing without ever asking for it. In a media landscape full of nagging calls to action, a loud message with a subtle suggestion sticks out like a well-manicured thumb. This billboard
What a defined personality expressed through consistent style is the very basis of a strong voice. A clear personality makes a voice recognizable across the media landscape. No matter where it’s found, copied, or pasted, a strong voice is traceable like a Shutterstock watermark leading back to its origin. This makes voice a powerful marketing tool, for those who choose to stand out.
Uniqueness requires bold choices, but so does starting a business in the first place. Incorporate this inherent nerve to take a brand's voice from distinct to unmistakable.
- Humanity
It is a common pitfall, when speaking to experts, to only appeal to them through brute-force knowledge. Smart is fun! Youtube’s litany of deeply technical yet lighthearted video explainers proves it. Why should even our most tech-heavy content be different? Speaking to experts as humans who deserve some fun with their insights will make the information memorable and the brand familiar. Fun is smart, you see.
Netflix draws attention to its comedy content without demanding conversions.
In their communication with experts, Netflix dodges a ubiquitous pitfall: talking up to the audience. Being rhetorically treated like a cold, omniscient alien is just as off-putting as being treated like a dumb baby – and yet, it remains the default approach. Netflix seems to understand the obvious but forgotten truth central to communication: that all audiences are human, and all humans love their likeness. We call that identification, and Netflix effectively identifies with its audience, not as customers, but as peers.
A rhetorical shift from B2B/B2C toward H2H (human to human) brings a brand into the modern forefront. That means:
Recognizing that organizations are made up of subjective, social, prejudiced, emotional, irrational, humorous humans, and...
Speaking directly to these humans instead of to the entity they represent from 9 to 5.
By humanizing our brand and speaking directly to the human audience, we can forge strong bonds of personal preference for the brand - a USP that goes a cognitive layer deeper than product specs.
In all three examples, Netflix is disrupting, not just entertainment, but communication itself. Successfully bucking communication conventions is as technically impressive as it is culturally impactful. No doubt, Netflix is bursting boundaries of expression for future generations.
humanity
All thanks to the common thread of a human voice sewn right into the brand.
value
So, your brand is all over digital media. You have a profile on every platform that is remotely relevant. Your resident teeny bopper is snapping, tubing and tweeting, fighting for eyeballs every day. You have a decent-sized following by now, but they aren't really picking up what you're putting down. Engagement is as low as growth is stagnant, and you can't even prove a positive effect on the company bottom line. So, what good is digital media anyway?
Well, what good is your content? Does it offer something uniquely valuable, or is it a stale stream of regurgitation? Not exactly a charming image, but neither is the one your brand just shared all over its followers without thought to their interests.
Just like any product, good content requires genuine effort. Effort to please, to educate, to entertain – an effort to give value rather than steal time.
Customization creates value
Artisan
More than the mere “perceived value” so often discussed in agency conference rooms
Most brands still treat online platforms like old-school promotional channels, when they are, in fact, communities with individual cultures and sub-cultures. You, as a brander, can't just re-purpose old presentations as videos, pass off webinar audio as podcasts or spam press releases
Content creation is like applying for jobs: Yes, you can crank 'em out so you can pat yourself on the back and say you tried, but you're only ever seen when you put in a dedicated effort. If you're only trying to check a box on a list of platforms, get copy-pasting right now! Warming the seat like this is a valid way of establishing a presence and gaining some initial awareness. After a short introduction, however, content must be created for the platform and the people that use it, if it is to have any impact.
Basic psychology (and Oprah) tells that we all want to feel seen more than anything. To be affirmed in our existence and validated in our thoughts.
To understand the digital communication situation, let's translate it to its physical equivalent: Why are you here, at this mixer, talking to these people? And did you bring a dish?
Is your content for you or your audience? If you're going for mindshare like the rest of us, the answer should always be "audience"...
demanding action vs. providing value, giving vs. taking
push, pull
you won’t get a prospect’s attention by talking about yourself. Instead, you need to deliver them something of value; you need to give away some of your best thinking in order to build trust that is necessary for conducting business today.
For this reason, we believe it’s essential to create content that is focused on your audience—content that speaks to their problems or reflects news and trends in your industry. It’s content that will drive the conversation forward in your particular space.
It’s also what Google’s search algorithms are looking for; high-value, share-worthy content is more likely to get you noticed out there on the Great Big Internet.
They’ve focused on news releases and advertising that talks about the organization – milestones, client wins, etc. Yes, there is some value to this typically transactional news because it demonstrates business momentum, but it really isn’t all that interesting to your clients and prospects.
BTS
multimedia
We humans are sensory creatures – believing mostly in what we see and hear. To capture someone's attention, we have to catch their eye first! Some would argue that media choice is mere packaging, but I preach and practice form and function as two sides of a single, valuable coin.
To that end, brands today have myriad media types and even more creative combinations with which to express themselves. Brands of all stripes are expected to use multimedia to enlighten and entertain those interested – yet few do so with any verve. By proudly starring in self-produced videos, podcasts, gifs, animations, infographics and, eventually, AR, your brand can highlight itself against a largely bland backdrop of competing content.
Once you have their attention, you can cultivate human relationships with the audience, connecting the people outside of your team with the people within it - not with their unconscious corporation.
Putting actual human voices to your brand in audio and video goes a long way. It proves in practice that your team is all people. People with ideas worth sharing in fully realized, media-rich content.
Using media to amplify brand voice not only adds humanity and creative flair; it vastly improves content usability and, by extension, shareability. Online, literally anything is easier than reading, and people are much more likely to internalize and evangelize what’s easy.
Finally, go long! Long-serialized content cements the bond with the audience by creating a dependency. Devious. It does require an element of entertainment, but that element can be as subtle as a narrative style. This brings H2H to life by building fan-like relationships between brand and audience.