The point of marketing – any kind – is to inspire action. What that action is depends on your business. But, for most, this usually involves buying your product or service. Effectively, marketing should get people to take notice of you. The content is meant to grab someone’s attention, make them listen and then call them to act. Simple, right?

Well, not always. The internet is an entirely different medium from television, radio and print. Thus, the traditional tactics used to market brands on these platforms, don’t always transpire to success online. The web works in a completely different way. Online, content is the most valuable thing.

On the internet, people go in search of interesting and valuable content. And understanding this is the key to drawing profit from content marketing.

Forget 30-second TV ads and radio snippets of someone yelling at you to ‘hurry, buy now’. It won’t work online. Looking at the digital habits of shoppers, they don’t want to be bombarded with advertising telling them why to buy something. They’re smarter than that and they expect more.

Take the made-for-television ads, which act as previews for many YouTube videos. These ads usually have a ‘skip’ button pop up after 5 seconds – which is the route most of us would choose to take. This goes to show one of the stark differences between television and online ads. The attention span of an online user is far shorter. If you can’t grab someone’s attention in the first few seconds, you’re never going to get it. In essence, the 30-second ad is dead, and instead you only have an extremely small period of time to get your message or name across.

So, to profit from content marketing, you need to create branded content that readers, viewers and users are going to see and share. Don’t make an advertisement. Make content.

How can you do this?

1. Start a blog for your brand and post regularly on it.
2. Create an infographic about a relevant news story and include your logo on it.
3. Start a Twitter account for your brand and use it to interact and connect with followers and potential clients.
4. Create a quirky animation and share via social streams.
5. Produce a video for YouTube, or even found a channel on the site if you want to regularly post videos on here.
6. Comment on other people’s blogs, forums and twitter posts. Rather than fill their pages with spam, engage with them and contribute relevant and values responses.
7. Create an ebook. This is a great way to get your whole brand message across in one lump.
8. Start a free podcast or webinar featuring specialist industry advice. You can then use transcripts of these to produce an ebook.
9. Identify a common problem or issue that faces your industry and produce a report that provides solutions on the topic.
10. Formulate a press release and distribute it through a site like PR Newswire where it has a possibility of being picked up by a high profile site and included in their content.

If you’re looking for a  London based digital Content Marketing agency  to help with your marketing needs, then why not  get in touch  with Quad!

                                           It’s Friday!

As is tradition, on each and every Friday, we like to round up our favourite discoveries from our week on the web. Thought provoking, funny, absurd, tear jerking, we’ve got them all! Let us begin…

This week we’ll start with one of the greatest conversations ever to have taken place on Twitter. There’s currently a trend in the social media departments of some of our well known consumer facing brands which takes customer engagement (not necessarily service) to a whole new level and it has certainly caught peoples attention. This particular thread all started with the tweet below. Click the image to see the whole thing!

Next up is a video that went viral earlier in the year, but it seems to be doing the rounds again and is more than worthy of a place in this list. It’s the story of 17 year old Zach Sobiech, and it’s one of the saddest yet beautiful and inspiring things you’ll see for a while.

Next up is a collection of experimental self-portrait photographs from photographer, Kyle Thompson . He drew inspiration for the project from his anxiety which makes it difficult for him to communicate with other people and the results are stunning. Click the image to see the whole collection.

Next up is our viral of the week… This video by Degage Ministries was posted online on 7th November and in just a week has had nearly 14 million hits!

This next collection of images is a little slice of genius, aptly named ‘guns replaced with thumbs up’. Need I say any more? Click the image to see the entire collection.

I bet you’ve never heard the Russian police singing Daft Punk? Well all that is about to change and I don’t really know what else to say. But whatever they were trying to do seems to have worked, as the video has had nearly two and half million hits on YouTube and 37,630 likes compared to just 1,647 dislikes. Well played Russia, well played.

Well that pretty much wraps things up and that can only mean one thing… It’s nearly the weekend! Look around you, see all those people staring blankly at their computer screens, sinking deeper into their swivel chairs? Well in a few hours chances are that some of them will be making out with each other on the dance floor in Infernos in a sambuca fuelled Friday night office romance.  It could even be you…

Have a great weekend!

It’s FRIDAY!

Another week conquered… Therefore we must cast our line into the metaphorical ocean that is the Internet and see what comes to the surface!

First of all, we have American late night TV host, Jimmy Fallon, and his adaptation of Breaking Bad, Joking Bad…

Next up, we have the history of Ryan Gosling depicted in this illustrated poster by graphic designer and friend of Quad, ! If you like what you see, you can buy it …

This video of an American chap coming round after surgery and confusedly questioning his wife about whether or not she really is his wife is equally as beautiful as it is hilarious…

Arcade Fire have always been a band who push the boundaries of creativity both musically and in their supporting content. This time however, they’ve taken it to a different level entirely with their latest immersive music video experience, Just a Reflektor. It’s described as an interactive short film that explores the themes in Arcade Fire’s “Reflekor” through two devices simultaneously: the computer and the smartphone / tablet.

Check it out,  but you’ll need a webcam and a smartphone in order for it to work. 

Miley Cyrus has once again been creating a storm with her continued insanity… First the VMAs and now she’s released a video of her riding naked on a wrecking ball… As you do. Anyway, inevitably the trolls took hold immediately and this piece of genius was born…

And as an added bonus, here she is riding a dolphin!

Well that’s it for this week! The weekend is oh so nearly upon us! Look around you, see all those people… In a few hours you’ll all be ‘avin it large to Fat Boy Slim in your local drinking facility…

Have a great weekend!