The Five “C’s” of Social Marketing….
Has “Content Marketing” surpassed Search Engine Marketing? Newt Barrett has a website (ContentMarketingToday.com) devoted to teaching how to “connect to your customers.” In a number of thought provoking articles there, he makes a case for “content marketing,” being much more important than Google marketing — SEO/SEM. While “content is king,” as they say, I’m not sure that it is “static” content (articles, posts, etc.) that is more important than Google marketing, but a instead, a synergy of all of the “Five C’s” listed below. Of course, Google and SEM are still a necessary factor in your overall marketing strategy.
Content engages your audience; Community involves your audience; Conversation empowers your community; Connection builds associations; and Convergence brings evolution.
You need a conversation to really engage and involve people in this kind of connecting. A blog is important, and even MORE important, at times, is the comment sections of popular blogs. Have you ever considered what you can learn from the conversations that go on there? If you really want to get the “back story”, on a topic you value… dig your way through the comment section on an active site. But there’s another very important factor to the comment section of blogs — they build connections. Connections with whom? Your key target market… that’s who.
The Five “C’s” are: Content. Community. Conversation. Connection. Convergence.
So the formula goes something like this: Content engages your audience; Community involves your audience; Conversation empowers your community; Connection builds associations; and Convergence brings evolution (not just technologically, but socially). Powerful stuff.
Update: Let’s say you get into the conversational blog commenting thing. Pretty soon, you ask yourself, “how do I keep track of all of these conversations?” Sure, you can subscribe by email — but who needs more clutter in the old in box? Well, at least one company has an interesting answer — provide a service to keep all of your comments in one place with organization tools. Take a look at CoComment.com. I’m trying it out, and it works great.
The Web is a Content Marketing System…
Glenn Nicholas of OM4.com.au (he’s in Australia — the connection is Global, of course… and therefore so will be the convergence), has written an article on content marketing versus traditional SEM. Content marketing wins every time, Nicholas believes. He presents the following points in the article (Content Marketing vs. Search Marketing):
- Search is a Last Resort.
- Avoid Dependence on One Source of Traffic.
- Quality is More Important than Quantity.
Mr. Nicholas has some important points. Again, he is pointing us away from glorifying Search Marketing, and toward what he calls “content marketing.” I agree with his general point, but I think he’s missing the hidden energy of community interaction. True, the good old comment section in a blog can help build links (you need to visit your commenting guests’ site, and reciprocate with a comment which links back to your site, etc.) to your website. But that’s just an HTML link. Good for SEO? You bet.
But, I propose that human networking still trumps site links. Why? Feedback. Adapt. Action. You get feedback from key constituents in your market. You adapt your website, business mission, ecommerce goals, etc., based on that feedback. Then, your target group takes the action you want which could be everything from just becoming a member of your forum, to clicking on ads to support your publishing effort, to buying services and products from you. Heck, it could mean that they begin to recognize you as an expert in your field — you might get invited to speak at a convention. Ka-ching.
And your job is to manage all of this interaction energy using the web — the web is a content marketing system, which used wisely, can take you anywhere you want to go.
Here comes the Convergence…
Convergence in Social Marketing is evolution happeing every day now — mash-ups, combination services, etc. One example of this is DISCUS — a service that captures your blog comments, re-purposes them on a forum, and makes it all “portable.”
You’ve probably heard of PodCasts (basically a recording of a radio-type show which you can listen to on your computer, or an MPEG player), and you may have heard of Skype — a way to call other people over the internet (for free, as long as you connect to another Skype user on a computer). Put the two together… and you get “SkypeCasts” — a sort of recorded conference call… perfect for a multi-host PodCast. Plus, it works great for PodCasters who want others to call into their show, since you can list a time for others to join the SkypeCast conference call. Did you know eBay owns Skype (and they also own PayPal)? Hmmmm… ponder an even wider “convergence.”
How will you use the Five C’s in your Content Marketing System? I look forward to the conversation.
Written by: Scott Frangos
This entry was posted on Friday, November 16th, 2007 at 2:40 am and is filed under Blogging Help, Twitter, Web Help. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
November 17th, 2007 at 6:18 am
Scott…this is a good post. I agree with much of what you are saying, but when you talk about content marketing, it must be anything but static. Content marketing is content that completely meets the informational needs of the target, thus provoking action in some way. This type of content is inherent to the success of any of the other 4 c’s you discuss.
Thanks for keeping up the conversation.
Best
Joe
November 17th, 2007 at 8:59 am
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November 17th, 2007 at 9:25 am
Hi Joe — Good to see you here. Your post reminded me of what my old Communications’ Professor used to say: “All of Communication is an attempt to persuade,” (I wanted to argue with him, but it would only have proved his point). In your case, I think you mean that only Content Marketing “posts” (or stories/columns, etc.) should provoke action. But if all posts (in this case) seek to persuade, it is interesting to ask what an “informational” post is asking the reader(s) to do? I’ll look forward to answers here, and more discussion — then give my own answer too. Thank you for a great blog on Content Marketing.
– Scott
November 17th, 2007 at 10:06 am
Scott,
I think that the persuasion bit comes from being so compelling as a trusted information source that your web visitors and other prospects are ‘persuaded’ that doing business with you is a great idea.
It’s very much like the way that Joe and I both sell. We try to understand exactly what a customer needs to accomplish, then we try to help them understand why, given current marketing realties, creating content that is truly relevant to their clients’ needs will help them acquire and retain lots more customers. Thus, it’s first about persuading them about a world view. Then, if they begin to see us as trusted advisors rather than B.S.artists, they are much more likely to want to do business with us. Of course, you still have to ask for the order: “Click here.” :-)
For example, my most recent client came to me because of an article that I highlighted in my weekly newsletter(MayI add you to the list or would you rather sign up for the RSS feed? How’s that for a sales pitch?) about the BookSurge eNewsletter. The client told me that my article made him to realize that they need to communicate similarly to a new target audience. He saw my company as the logical provider of that service because of specific content that I provided. The content, though, had nothing to do with selling him anything.
There is another piece of persuasion that has to do with ‘persuasion architecture’ a term that the Eisenberg brothers coined and write about in their excellent book, Waiting for your Cat to Bark.(Available on my website, by the way). This involves creating a wesite structure that moves web visitors toward a purchase. That’s a lot harder than just writing good stuff.
November 18th, 2007 at 11:51 am
Hi Newt (& all) – Enjoyed your thoughtful comment. And, I agree with your main point which I take to mean that the content you write, if valuable and on target, will convince a prospect that you know your stuff — and so interest them in becoming your client. You also mentioned “asking for the sale” (yes, sign me up to your list) — there really is an art to that (sometimes called “consultative selling”), whether you are writing, or just meeting in person with a prospective customer.
It will be interesting to see if any readers take issue with the notion of content as a sales vehicle. A pure “journalist” might argue that they are writing simply to inform. In that case, then they are asking us to “buy” their point of view (unless they love endless arguements). In the case of Newspapers, Magazines, eZines (online and off), they are first asking us to “buy” the publication if there is a subscription fee, and then asking us to “support” it by “clicking” on ads and visiting advertisers, to make purchases from them. We “buy” the content this way, perhaps indirectly, because the advertisers pay for it. The persuasion then, is that we have something valuable to read, so you visit, and the ensuing site traffic results in the sale of advertising.
It might also result in direct acquisition of clients.
— Scott
November 19th, 2007 at 9:03 am
The Five “C’s” of Social Marketing…….
Has Content Marketing surpassed Search Engine Marketing? Several new media marketing gurus think it has. But what do they mean by “Content Marketing,” exactly, and why do they think it is more important than Google SEO & SEM strategies? Where shou…
November 23rd, 2007 at 5:33 am
I’ll chime in here (all the way from Oz) to wish you a happy thanksgiving, and to nod in agreement with most of what you say. Everything except the bit about missing the importance of community interaction :)
The web has always been a publishing platform of sorts. The advent of the RSS enabled blog has changed it though. All of a sudden blog-based websites were available for free. They were designed for non technical users (not web designers). More importantly they were designed to support not just publishing, but a conversation. Comments, trackbacks and pings and RSS have all been important factors in making blogs a far more powerful tool for social interaction (over the web) than non-blog enabled platforms.
All in all, a content marketer’s dream come true.
November 23rd, 2007 at 10:43 am
Hi Glenn -
Welcome… all the way from Oz, and tomorrow, into today. Since it’s usually a day later there I always wished you could help us out with the stock market, sports scores, etc. :) Hey… I have to agree with you about the conversational factor of today’s web. I’ve even been noticing some new “meta-conversational” tools like coComment (see: http://www.cocomment.com) — a sort of aggregator of the comments you make. Seems like the dance goes on. What’s next? Maybe to answer that question we need to look backward, into yesterday, instead of forward. I mean, conversations have been around a long time. The new web simply facilitates them. What about town meetings? Best to you down under.
- Scott
February 24th, 2008 at 7:46 am
thats nice piece of info
thank you for sharing it
good job
April 4th, 2008 at 9:59 am
[...] it is about empowering people to communicate — on new levels. In a recent post, I wrote about the “5 C’s of Social Marketing” (beyond simply “networking”, many in business are interested in “marketing” in new ways) — [...]