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Digital Reputation Index provides insight into social media performance

Those who want to grow online would do well to measure their online performance. The Digital Reputation Index is an excellent tool for this. It measures the most important metrics, allowing you to discover how your channels are performing compared to those of competitors.

Almost everyone uses social media such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, TikTok, Twitter and Pinterest. These social media platforms are unimaginable and incredibly widely used worldwide. Your presence in the online, public realm takes place on those social media. The same goes for competitors. They, too, are active on these channels.

How much insight do you have into the performance of your organization (or yourself) on social media relative to competitors? With the Digital Reputation Index, we enable you to periodically measure the performance of your organization's channels and those of the competition.

The Digital Reputation Index maps your digital landscape based on 4 metrics: Post rhythm, Post interaction, Engagement and (real) Followers growth. Let's take a closer look at these metrics.

1. Post rhythm

Online, you need to post content with regularity. The post-rate metric shows the frequency and regularity in which you post - and that of competitors.

2. Post interaction

If the content is actually relevant, the post will get likes and comments. This is what the post interaction metric is for. High post interaction means that individual posts are performing well.

In the long run, two other metrics become relevant: engagement and page growth.

3. Engagement

A channel on which two posts are made in a month, both of which have high interaction, will have high post interaction. Engagement measures the extent to which post interaction is consistent over a period of time. So the channel with the two posts (with high interaction) would have a low engagement score. After all, only two posts were posted in an entire month.

4 Growth of followers

A channel that is attractively found to score well on the preceding metrics grows the fastest in (real) followers. We express this in the metric page growth; the number of new (or lost) followers.

Digital Reputation Index

Together, these four metrics form a complete picture of how a company or person scores on a specific channel. We express this in the Digital Reputation Index, which combines these four metrics of your channels. We always start with the baseline measurement, in which we answer the question: how did this organization or person perform on average so far? Per channel we set a value per metric. This shows how the company scored on the channel in question.

Then all scores are periodically compared to the baseline. Does a company have ten percent more followers? Then it has a follower index of 110. It is also relevant to compare an organization's performance with that of its competitors. This reveals the results between them. Divide the market average by its own metric and compare it to the baseline measurement. This creates the index value that shows growth relative to the competition.

Ultimately, all index values average out to a final average. This forms the digital reputation index of one social media channel. The average of all channels together forms the global digital reputation index. Measuring all individual channels creates a ranking. Those rankings answer questions like: which company performed the best in my industry this week? Or which company has the best score of all time?

This data very efficiently shows what the social media success factors are within a specific industry. What channels, what type of content and what post frequency are valued in this industry? You can also do follow-up analysis, discovering why a specific competitor is performing better. What can you learn from this organization? The Digital Reputation Index gives you the insights to optimize your social media strategy and grow online.

What does the Digital Reputation Index for your online landscape look like?

Want to know what your company's (or your own) digital reputation looks like within that of your competitive landscape? We would be happy to set up your own Digital Reputation Monitor for you as well.

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Without a good digital reputation, you won't survive corona

What do Bol.com, The Dutch Lottery, Bas Smit and Bavaria have in common? Not only are they successful brands, but above all, their online presence is well organized. Their online reach and fan base grew tremendously by consistently sharing thought-provoking content. With the right insights, anyone can achieve such a successful digital reputation strategy.

9 out of 10 consumers buy a product or service from a company they follow on social media, Sprout researchers found. Moreover, 75 percent spend more money each year on companies they follow. In short: those who want to engage people and achieve higher sales must have their online channel reputation in order during and also after corona. NXTLI has developed its own Reputation Index in recent years. In order to realize a grip on its clients' online channels.

Fan relationship is essential

"The fan relationship has become the most important business capital of companies in the dance industry. Especially during the corona period. The whole organization must be geared to that. Investing in the right insights can improve the fan relationship and multiply value. Especially in the area of content, organizations need to make great strides now. Of course, what applies to the dance industry applies to any industry or sector. If you are not able to build a valuable digital relationship with your audience during the corona period with relevant content, chances are you will lose the competition when this period is over," said business and industry hacker Denis Doeland.

Ognjen Jovanovic in charge of data at NXTLI concurs:

"In our experience, many companies operate blind or do not create the right context when it comes to social media performance and maintaining fan relationships. When this performance does get measured appropriately and measured against competitors, everyone involved gets motivated to make the most of their digital reputation. Nothing fuels the fire better than healthy competition."

Digital Reputation Index offers relief 

Those who want to achieve online success follow the principle of "Relevance-Consistency-Discipline. First, you determine what content is relevant to share (Relevance). Next, you determine how often you want to reveal these aspects (Consistency). Finally, the key is to keep it up (Discipline).

Also measure how you are performing on digital channels. Is your channel relevant? Then your fan base is growing and there is a lot of interaction with posts. Whether you are consistent enough is shown by your posting rhythm (the regularity with which you post) and that of your competitors. If your post-rate is consistent, these metrics will be stable or growing over a longer period of time and your engagement is high.

The Reputation Index measures, combines and analyzes the above metrics of your channels and those of the competition. This allows you to see at a glance your digital heartbeat and an industry benchmark. This will give you answers to questions like: which channels are performing well, which not so well and which content works best?

With the Reputation Index, you develop a feel for your industry. You will discover the success factors of the competition: what are they posting on which channels to reach their target audience. And what can you learn from them? These insights give you unprecedented advantages - you might almost call it an unfair advantage.

Social media as a lifeline

Doeland recounts an article in the leading Mixmag. "There was an interesting piece published last year, with the nothing to the imagination title: 'FUCK THE ALGORITHM.' This piece raised the question of whether DJs can have a career if they don't use social media. That question is very relevant now, because artists like Nils Frahm and The Black Madonna decided at the time to distance themselves from social media.

Imagine if you would have made this choice before the corona virus broke out. That basically means you signed your death warrant. The consequences of this choice become grimly visible in the Reputation Index and directly affect the primary revenue model, which is streaming. In the long run, it makes a DJ less attractive to book, because you are likely to have fewer and fewer streams without social media."

In addition, data analyst Jovanovic states, "It's crucial to invest in digital reputation right now, even though in the corona period many businesses' income will come under pressure or shut down completely. Unfortunately, it is almost inevitable that in the hardest hit industries, such as events and hospitality, not everyone is going to survive.

The companies that are best able to maintain their fan relationships (via social media and other channels) during this period will stay on consumers' minds. This puts your company in the best position to get off to a flying start when the world goes off the grid again. You may even discover new, digital revenue models in the meantime to bridge the period."

Do or die

The turnaround currently being brought about by the coronavirus is not unlike the paradigm shift previously brought about by the third and on the heels of the fourth industrial revolution. The new - mostly digital - developments present an organization with a "do or die" choice. If you don't transform to a digital first company, your business or business model is doomed from the start. Even after corona. If you have the opportunity or ambition to keep your business alive during the corona period, then you have only one choice: invest in digital. Indeed, the other choice is to go out of business.

Disillusionment and fatigue are bad advisors and impact the value of your business. To get through the "do or die" wall and survive, you have to make quite a few fundamental adjustments to the business. That requires firm choices. The only certainty is that it is time for change.

Now that every organization is challenged with transformation, it is well and truly "do or die. There is no turning back, no second chance; the path taken must lead to success. Even if the primary revenue model is not working optimally right now. Given the dynamics and unpredictability, accurate planning is unfeasible.

Organizations must bring professionals into the fold, trust them with their professionalism, their commitment to common goals and their intrinsic motivation. The coming months until the spring/summer of 2021 will have to be dominated by digital reputation.

Conclusion

The corona period is very challenging for many companies. But it presents an excellent opportunity to gain an edge over competitors in the digital field. For many companies, the best thing they can do now is to invest in digital reputation. By doing so, they secure the long-term future.

NXTLI has created several industry indices that we will publish soon. Such as the Digital Reputation Index for DJswho have been in the DJ Mag Top 100 for the past 15 years. And an index of more than 400 Dutch festivals. Both indexes use data from 2016. NXTLI is also going to publish a new index every week. Starting with Eredivisie, Formula 1 and all Michelin restaurants in the Netherlands.

Want to know more about digital reputation?

See how the Digital Reputation Index is created.

Want to know what your company's (or your own) digital reputation looks like within that of your competitive landscape? We would be happy to set up your own Digital Reputation Monitor for you as well.

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5 ways to get more return from your existing content

Anyone who is actively involved with content and digs somewhat into its analytics knows that certain content performs much better than others. However, many miss opportunities to make the most of this insight. This is a shame, but also quite understandable! After all, almost every creator wants to create "new" things and take on new projects.And we often forget to do more with our existing content or we do not know what the possibilities are with it. Recognizable? In this article I highlight 5 ways you can revitalize your existing content!

A musician prefers to work on new music, a blogger is often already working on the next topic after writing the last post, and when a podcast creator has uploaded a new episode they are already thinking about the next podcast.

Still, there is value in diving into your own catalog of content and continuing to highlight it well. It especially pays to share extra content that was getting a lot of attention from your audience anyway. If your analytics are in order and you monitor them well, you can immediately see what the best-performing content has been.

Here are five ways to repurpose well-performing content to keep it under the spotlight.  

1. Create content snippets 

Many long content such as blog posts, videos and podcasts lend themselves perfectly to snippet creation. Often these forms of content contain multiple interesting elements that are also suitable for sharing on their own.Take advantage of this and cut out these snippets to highlight the original piece in different ways. 

Dutch company TRX Music shares videos with tips on how to best use music among audiovisual productions. For example, an audio engineer gives 3 tips on the importance of music in video productions. Each tip is valuable on its own and therefore lends itself well to separate snippets to share on their social media channels.  

Another example is Live on Stage, a completely new 30-minute online talk show. This talk show is broadcast in its entirety, but interviews and other relevant parts of the show are also used as separate content in different formats.    

2. Terublik at special moments 

A good way to highlight content again is to capitalize on a special date. This way you can celebrate with your audience, as it were, that a noteworthy event occurred on a certain date. 

Dutch soccer player Gini Wijnaldum (active for Liverpool FC and Orange), for example, has an overview of all the highlights he can look back on every year. With this, he brings extra attention to moments that are important to him and can thus keep supporters of various clubs involved. 

For example, he gives Feyenoord fans a great moment to enjoy when he highlights his debut match, lets Newcastle United supporters reminisce about his 4 goals in 2015 against Norwich City, and once again brings Liverpool fans to ecstasy when Gini does his throwback to the match against FC Barcelona, in which he had a big part in one of the most spectacular comebacks in history and the eventual Champions League victory with 2 goals.

3. Periodic content update 

If you see that certain content is performing well, you can choose to update this content. Your audience has already shown that they find the topic interesting, so you can capitalize on this in this way. How to envision this?

For example, the food platform Chickslovefood saw in the analytics that their recipe for banana bread is very popular. They cleverly capitalized on this by creating new variations of the recipe with additional ingredients. Among other things, this resulted in new blog posts on making dark chocolate banana bread, Bounty banana bread and banana bread cheesecake.

4. Making Compilations

Creating compilations is a proven strategy that also works well in 2020. By compiling your best-scoring content and launching it as a new product, you bring attention to both your new and catalog products in one fell swoop.

Although DJ/Producer Hardwell has temporarily taken a break, the Dutch artist did release a new album early this year. The album "The Story of Hardwell (Best Of)" is a compilation consisting of a mix of his most popular tracks and more recent releases. This gave his songs another big boost on all streaming services.

Thereby, this compilation connected well with the conclusion of 'The Story Of Hardwell'. In this 15-month "social docu," Hardwell took his fans into his story daily and looked back on all the highlights of his career through his online channels.

5. Polls

You probably have a fair amount of content that outperforms most of the content you publish. Take advantage of this by cleverly comparing them and eliciting interaction from your audience through a poll, for example.

Hardstyle record label Scantraxx does this well by regularly polling two popular releases from their catalog. This way fans of both artists get involved and at the same time it is a perfect way for the label to bring these top tracks back into the spotlight.

What content are you going to highlight again?

With the above ways, you can get much more return from your existing content without costing you a lot of time and money. Try to find a good balance between developing new content and reusing existing content. What ways do you most like to highlight your existing content even better? Or do you have your own suggestions that also work very well from experience? We are curious. Let us know!

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The 9 essential building blocks of your Content Marketing Strategy

Many marketing managers and business owners experience a challenge in properly aligning and integrating content marketing activities throughout the business. As a result, the marketing team is often very busy developing and publishing content, but lacks clear business results. That x number of posts have been posted on socials and some growth in followers has been achieved is - especially in this severe corona crisis - no longer enough. It is essential to have a content marketing strategy that really makes a difference and clearly contributes to business results!

In the more than 10 years that I have now been involved in content marketing, I have developed the Content Impact Model through trial and error. This model is a structure with 9 building blocks that to me are indispensable to develop a successful content marketing strategy that properly integpricing all parts of the organization. In this article, I share these building blocks that will help you develop and execute a content strategy that truly makes an impact.  

Content Marketing, what do we mean by that? 

In case you're not very familiar with the term "content marketing," let's first briefly review what we mean by it. This term was created around 2010 by American Joe Pulizzi. He is considered the "godfather" of content marketing and is the founder of Content Marketing Institute and Content Marketing World.

Joe describes content marketing as follows:

"Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience - and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action."

So content marketing goes far beyond some posts on social media for some awareness, promotion and sales. It is a strategic marketing approach to really build a valuable relationship with your audience that ultimately creates a profitable business model.

Michiel Schoonhoven - Joe Pulizzi
Together with Joe at Content Marketing World

The 9 building blocks of the Content Impact Model

As content marketers, we often dive into execution mode very quickly. 'We need a post for Facebook, Instagram . 2 blogs... and oh yeah we also have a LinkedIn and Twitter channel where we need to post. And we have a target of 3-5 posts in the week, so hup to work'. Such a situation is a daily occurrence in many organizations. Recognizable?

During the implementation process, all sorts of questions also often arise such as "Who exactly do we want to reach with this post, what is the best time to post, what do we want to achieve with it?

I find that many organizations lack a clear strategic framework. Many puzzle pieces are present, but the puzzle has not yet been put together. This requires a good structure that connects the puzzle pieces all together.

In my search for the most complete and workable structure, I defined 9 blocks and connected them into a model. I renamed this model the Content Impact Model, the model that allows you to do content marketing that has real impact!

1. The "Why?

What is the higher purpose of your business?

This first building block is the long-term direction where you want to go as an organization, your compass. This is not about a certain market share, profit or financial value of your organization, but about your organization's right to exist. Why do you really matter and what is the result of the added value you ultimately want to achieve for people or society. This is deeply rooted in the intrinsic motivation why the founder started the company. And people who work for the company if all goes well get out of bed every day for it!

2. The "How.

How will you realize your higher purpose?

Once your higher purpose is clear, you can begin to determine what it will take to actually begin to achieve your goal. In what short and longer term steps do you want to achieve your goal? What does your organization look like? How will you work together? How do you serve your audience? In what ways do you really want to add value? What is your company's philosophy?

Suppose your higher goal is to reach Mount Everest. Then your "How" describes what it takes to go about achieving it. Materials, preparations, team, cooperation, etc..

3. The "What.

What products, services, services and/or experiences do you deliver in a certain way (how) to start achieving your higher purpose (why)? Also, are these "propositions" all clear? Is it clear what value it adds for your audience and what it brings to yourself? In what way does it contribute to achieving your higher purpose?

Perhaps these three building blocks look familiar to you. They correspond to the well-known 'Golden Circle' of Simon Sinek. As far as I am concerned, these blocks are also the heart of your organization, the starting points to work from and to further develop your organization. In these 3 building blocks we lay the foundation for the necessary content culture and organization.

In the next building block, we connect your audience to that.

4. The "Who.

Who is your audience that is interested in the products, services, services and/or experiences you provide in some way to start achieving a higher goal? What matching characteristics do people have that you are relevant to? The pitfall is often: wanting to appeal to everyone. Define a clearly identifiable group of people with similar characteristics (your "audience," "persona," or "target audience"). The more specific and smaller this group of people is, the better you have defined 'your niche'. Dare to choose very clearly and become super relevant to that group of people.

These first four building blocks form your positioning (why, how, what and who). With these you can position your organization from the higher goal very powerfully and distinctively and align all marketing and communication expressions with this. If the positioning is clear, unambiguous and distinctive, you have a solid basis for the following building blocks.

You can now create a clear positioning statement. To do this, use the following structure:

I / we ...... (describe what you deliver, your 'what')
To ...... (your audience, your 'who')
By / in the following way ........ (how you deliver 'what' to your audience. Your 'How')
Because I/we...... (your why)

You can then incorporate the above into a concise positioning statement.

5. The Fan Trip

What phases does someone go through from not knowing you at all to someone being your biggest fan, your ambassador? To work this out properly, it is very important that you know your audience very well. What information does someone need at what point in the fan journey? What questions do people ask themselves to eventually come to a decision related to what you offer? How does someone search for these answers, which search terms are used? Good luck with selling your products through your Facebook page.

6. Your story

What story are you telling? What real, honest and relevant stories do you tell during the different phases of the fan journey so that they match the needs of your audience? What answers do you give to the questions people ask during the fan journey? 

7. Content service

What forms of content do you create to tell your stories? Are there content themes, different content types? Is there a content style guide? Is there a schedule for developing content?

8. Content distribution

How do you distribute content? What distribution channels do you use to distribute your content? How do you deploy them and what is the goal for each distribution channel? How do you use marketing automation to make distribution more effective? Which channels perform well and not so well? Which channels are relevant to your audience at what stage of the fan journey and how are you performing there?

9. Measuring and adjusting

How do you measure performance and make adjustments? It is difficult to answer the above questions if you do not measure the performance of your content and distribution channels properly. Define your goals very specifically so that they can be measured. That way you can make timely adjustments. How do you organize the tracking of your content? How do you store important data to make it actionable? What are the objectives per step in the fan journey, what are the conversions and how do you measure them? How do you make the analyses insightful and report them? There is still a world to be won here.

Build your content marketing foundation 

You can use these 9 building blocks to develop a successful content marketing strategy. Make sure all the puzzle pieces are complete and well laid. Then you will have a solid foundation to take the next steps with your content marketing activities. And to start accelerating in the digital landscape.

Want to know how your organization is doing digitally and how you can accelerate? We'd be happy to do a Quick Scan for you.

Do you have questions about improving your content marketing results? Ask them via chat or email and we'll be happy to help. You can also call me at 06-43046468 to exchange thoughts on this.

Want to know more about real-world results?

Read 'How Chickslovefood achieved 50% growth'
Read 'Scantraxx prevents steering by gut feeling'

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THIS IS HOW YOU SELL PRODUCTS ON FACEBOOK BY TAGGING THEM IN POSTS

That you can generate sales with Facebook through advertising is known to most people. But we are often asked whether it is possible to sell products through your own Facebook page and how that works. We would like to explain to you how you can set up your own shop and tag products through your regular posts. You can get started right away!

Your own shop on Facebook

Facebook offers tools to set up your own shop, allowing you to "tag" (physical) products in posts. This eliminates the need for links to external pages, such as your own website. In fact, using these links will 'squeeze' the reach of your posts on Facebook and fewer people will see them.

Facebook's interest is to keep people on Facebook itself for as long as possible, so it is not encouraged (read; you are "punished") if you use external links to direct people to other channels outside of Facebook.

3 steps to sell products through your Facebook page

Here you can see an example of what it looks like when you have the shop set up properly and add (tagged) a product to a post.

Step 1. Open a Facebook shop

To sell products, you first need to create a shop environment on Facebook.

Follow these actions to set this up:

  1. Go to your Facebook page settings.
  2. In the left column, click on "Templates and Tabs.
  3. Find the tab for "Shopping" and turn this setting on.
  4. Click Save.

Step 2. Add products to the Facebook catalog

Now that the shop is activated, you can add products to it. This is how you do it:

  1. On your Facebook page, go to the shopping section.
  2. Go to "Manage Product Catalog.
  3. Click "Add Product.
  4. Add images and/or videos of the product you want to sell.
  5. Enter all the details of your products such as the product name, price, description and the URL (recommended to use a link here that you can measure well, called a trackable UTM link) where people can checkout.
  6. Make sure the visibility of your products is set to "Public.
  7. Click "Save" when you're done.

Step 3. Tag products in your Facebook posts

Once the desired products are added to Facebook's product catalog, you can tag them in posts to generate sales. Here's how to do it:

  1. Create a post you want to share with your followers.
  2. Click on 'Product tagging'
  3. Choose the product you want to promote
  4. Publish the post 

Good luck selling your products through your Facebook page.

Do you have any questions about this? Ask them via the chat (click on the chat icon at the bottom right) or send us an e-mail. We are happy to help you further.

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Excess content invest in quality

There was an interesting article on TheDrum, also printed in an edition of Adformatie. In this piece, Samuel Scott, keynote marketing speaker, describes what marketers should do when a recession occurs. His advice? Cut back on content, social media and content marketing. I think that's perilous advice and would be happy to explain why.

Samuel Scott is a respected writer and speaker in the field of marketing. However, this former journalist manages to spoon-feed three misconceptions in his article If there's a recession in 2019, here's what marketers should do. Here are the misconceptions:

Misconception 1: lots of content is inherently worthless

"A Meaningful Brands survey released by Havas found that 60% of the world's brands create 'content' that is absolutely useless," I read in his article. He himself shares his experiences as a content marketer. When he worked for a software company, he saw that eighty percent of "his" content had no effect. The strategy behind his content marketing does not seem very hopeful:

"I once had various high-tech software companies as clients at an agency. Part of my job was to write countless blog posts that the clients would then spam around the Internet to get website clicks (and hopefully sales leads). Yes, it was direct response by a new name. (...) But most 'content marketing' fails because it skips those two parts of the process. It mass produces and distributes anything and everything without any strategic or tactical thought. All that matters is that you make and transmit 'widgets' with direct-response calls to action next to them."

You don't have to be a content marketing expert to know that not every piece of content needs to result in a Call To Action (CTA) following. By tying a target audience to your platform (site, newsletter, social media channel), you are solidifying A relationship with true fans and customers (when you are careful about the hygiene* of your channels) and your investment in content marketing is in fact already paying off. Return is just a lot more subtle than Scott states.

Misconception 2: Content boom is reason to quit content

The fact that many companies put out content that their target audience doesn't want is a reason to stop content marketing as a whole, according to Scott. There's a saying for that: throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

"Marsha Lindsay of BrandWorks University said at EffWeek that there is a 'content crisis' because output per brand per channel is up 35% per year but engagement is down 17%," Scott quotes. One response to a surplus of supply and a shortage of demand for content is to decide to stop producing content. That is lazy and lazy. By investing in quality, content stands out again.

That means you need to think from the target audience, research what motivates them to consume content and collect, access and update data from your target audience.. Compare publishing content to launching a new product: you don't do that without knowing if there is a market for it either.

Misconception 3: Social media have no effect

"If most companies would close their social media accounts tomorrow, nothing would change. To maximize effectiveness in a recession, the resources spent there are also best allocated elsewhere." Bold is such a statement, but it does not make much sense. Companies and organizations that neglect their social media activities are abandoning their relationship with their target audience. One party that can speak to this is the festival Pitch. After neglecting their post-rate (the digital heartbeat), interaction with fans dropped drastically and the festival eventually disbanded.

"I will never understand why companies conduct customer support publicly on social media. Just see the flack that Slack got last week when the company released a new, divisive logo. Social media rarely builds brands but certainly inspires people to damage them. There is little to gain and much to lose from being there." This shows Scott to be unworldly or at least hopelessly old-fashioned: instead, we expect 24/7 contact with companies, through all available channels.

If a service or product is not working properly, we want to be helped quickly and appropriately through a platform where we are already present. Not having a presence on social media: an ostrich approach that you hope is meant to be ironic.

Invest in quality

Frankly, I hope Samuel Scott's article finds much hearing in the marketing industry. After all, it creates opportunities for organizations, artists and brands. If others are not more committed to publishing content, there is less supply. As a result, your content will stand out more.

At the same time, it doesn't relieve you of the obligation to invest in quality content and be continuously present on the channels where your (potential) fans and customers are. Having the right hygiene of your channels is the magic word for 2019!

* Channel hygiene means: getting rid of "mass followers" or "suspicious accounts" that follow your brand on social media. Regarding email addresses, this means: email addresses where your messages arrive that belong to real people.

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This model ensures that content leads to revenue

As an artist, brand or organization, you want to connect with potential followers or customers. Indeed, you depend on them if you want to have any future sales. To do that, you use - if all goes well - content: videos, texts, images, etc. To score with content, two things are important. Those are a digital heartbeat and very relevant content.

From a session I had with my colleague Michiel Schoonhoven of in 2016, a new working model emerged. This model drives the second layer from the framework and provides the execution. Schoonhoven explains how the Content Impact Model helps you generate revenue, cut costs and even develop new revenue models with relevant content.

Building valuable relationships

Schoonhoven has been involved in content marketing for more than a decade. "Actually, this field only really emerged from 2010 and got this name in America, namely by one of the founding fathers, Joe Pulizzi." What is content marketing? "Traditional marketing is primarily based on the 4Ps (product, place, price and promotion), with marketers mostly focusing on campaigns and advertising: buying reach and converting that to sales.

Content marketing is about the whole process involved in building a valuable relationship between an organization and its audience (its fans, customers, prospects, partners and suppliers). You do this by developing and sharing relevant and impactful content (in the form of information, education and inspiration, among other things) at all stages of the relationship. From the very first contact to ambassadorship."

How did your passion for content marketing arise?

"Before I started working as an independent content strategist in 2014, I worked for a long time at a financial advisory organization. Here I was responsible for marketing activities to increase mortgage and insurance sales. Around 2009, I took my first steps in what is now called 'content marketing.'"

"At the time, it didn't feel right to me that we were primarily engaged in 'lead generation' for the sale of financial products and did nothing about the relationship with all those customers who had purchased those products. This triggered me to start developing marketing activities in a different way. In that transition I asked myself the question: what is the higher goal of this financial advisory organization? The answer to that turned out to be: making and keeping people financially healthier."

"Starting in 2010, this resulted in completely new concepts, such as a Financial Fitness Program, Month of Finance and a Financial Check at Life Changes. Programs that were completely content-based and offered people insight into their financial situation. We provided valuable financial tips and a personalized roadmap to healthy financial management. These content programs became a product in their own right, which are still being used today."

"Eventually, an insurance policy, mortgage or other financial product became a means of getting or staying financially 'fitter,' but the financial product was no longer the starting point of marketing activities. With that, we put content very clearly to build a relationship between customers and the financial advisors. Many enthusiastic responses followed, such as: 'finally an organization that doesn't push products, but really helps me with valuable information'. The results were positive as, among other things, a much better relationship developed between advisors and their clients. This new marketing approach gave me so much satisfaction that I started to specialize further on this topic."

Content Impact Model

Content Impact Model

Exactly this question ("what is our role, who are we?") is still Schoonhoven's starting point when he develops a content strategy for a company. "I have shaped my experiences into a model, which I have fine-tuned further in recent years. In it, the 'why' question is still the starting point of every project we do." You can therefore see this 'Why' at the core of the model.

"Creating and distributing content should always be done with the higher purpose (the 'why') in mind. It must also be fully aligned with the needs of your audience. If content is used solely as a 'sales trick,' then you are not being credible. It starts with figuring out what content really adds value for your audience and how best to share it with them in a rhythm (the digital heartbeat, ed.), so you're not just haphazardly posting something on social media."

"So always ask yourself the question: why would someone spend their precious time following me? For this, it is extremely important to think 'outside-in.'

What do you inspire or inform your followers or fans with? The people who deal with content at our agency are called 'fan experience managers' for a reason: they manage fans' experiences, and not entirely coincidentally, they do so through content."

Three reasons why content pays off

Schoonhoven lists three reasons to start using content today to build valuable relationships with your followers, fans, customers and prospects:

1: Increase your sales

"In this era, it is of utmost importance to think audience first. Build a (digital) relationship with a clearly defined audience first with valuable content. After all, that relationship is what will allow you to generate sales in the long run."

In fact, you should be able to summarize any content strategy into a promise to your audience. A brief example:

"Dear ....,

My goal is to get more people around the world moving to become healthier and more confident. Everything I do enables me to make this happen. If you think this is so important too, then I would like to invite you to join our community. There, members and I share all kinds of experiences, information and tips that help you move more. Our members report that after only 3 months they have started moving 50% more and feel much fitter. And more importantly: because of all the inspiration in the community, they also keep it up easily and don't fall back into old and 'lazy' habits."

If you formulate this promise well and direct it, you will automatically develop content and offer products that are fully in line with it. The content can even be used sustainably, allowing you to develop new revenue models. Consider, for example, access to the community in the form of a monthly subscription, if the content is so valuable that someone is willing to pay for it.

With sustainable content, you also avoid just passing by in fleeting social media timelines, where people are busy scrolling and occasionally bothering to move their thumb to the 'like' button. With your content, let them continuously have a 'stop, I have to check this out because I always find this cool/interesting' moment! In doing so, you work to grow sales and you do it efficiently. Having your own content platform that you have control over is also very important for this. Don't become too dependent on "borrowed" channels like Facebook!

2: Cut costs

If you don't share relevant content with your followers, you become less and less visible on their timelines. "For example, Facebook announced on Jan. 13, 2018, that channels on which there is little or no dialogue or interaction will be considered irrelevant. That content is going to be shown less and less in users' timelines."

"If you are no longer visible in someone's timeline, then you have to start reaching them in another way, for example by advertising. That is a costly and unsustainable operation. After all, you don't build scalable content, so you have to continually re-spend ad budgets. However, content can be used for all forms of information, at all stages of the relationship with your audience.

Consider, for example, answering questions: instead of having to continuously answer the same kinds of questions via direct message or by mail, you can develop content and a process that answers fans' questions directly and automatically. For example, via a chatbot, as Hardwell (see: chapter 30) does. With that, information becomes truly scalable, instantly available to your fans and you save enormously on costs."

3: Develop new revenue models

"If you see content as an integral part of the business model, it is possible to develop numerous new revenue models for it. The starting point for this is having or building a clearly defined audience. Then you can introduce revenue models, where your audience pays for the use of the content, for example through a subscription. Or you let other parties pay to have you communicate with your audience via e-mail, your social media, a webinar, etc.."

Schoonhoven finds the following more urgent: many products are becoming commodities and easily copied. "A very important part of your distinctiveness and value is increasingly going to lie in the audience built up and the relationship people have with you. If very relevant content is shared, where you really impact your audience, then a valuable relationship with your audience is created.

If you use content only to sell a product or service, you are missing a huge opportunity to add value and have a competitive advantage. Chances are your competitors are jumping into that gap. Without relevant content and a valuable relationship with your audience, you're going to lose out in the competition in the long run."

Relationship Economics

Part of the Content Impact Model is your digital heartbeat. This is the rhythm in which you share content (at regular intervals), on the channels where your audience expects you and (if all goes well) looks forward to you. Learn more about this in this post.

In today's (digital) economy, companies are increasingly dependent on the relationships they build with fans and customers. They build those relationships by sharing content (and answering timely questions from customers or fans). Getting by in this new economy requires a true digital vision, which lets you work with the Business Acceleration Roadmap and Framework. The latter lets the organization take off into the digital realm. However, a digital vision starts with setting goals to the digital transformation.

One of these objectives is to improve brand reputation. This is the approach to marketing (and key milestones), which you should be able to summarize as a graphic overview on one A4. This document should show a rhythm in an organization's communication. In addition, content content also affects this objective. In other words, the Content Impact Model helps you work on the brand reputation of your artist, organization or brand. If you don't use the model, chances are you're not going to make it in the relationship economy.

Strategy

Schoonhoven recommends using the Content Impact Model because it forms the basis for developing the Content Impact Strategy. "This makes it very clear which content is relevant to your audience and through which channels you can best distribute the content. It is important to take into account the 'fan journey' of your audience. By this I mean the different stages someone goes through from the moment he or she doesn't know you yet to the moment he has even become a fan or ambassador of your company."

"The phases of the fan journey are: awareness, interest, consideration, decision, purchase and experience. Each of these phases requires different content and uses different channels. For example, if you visit a festival (and are in the 'experienced' phase), then it makes sense that in this phase you are willing to leave a review or share your own experiences via social media. You also exhibit different search behavior than someone who has yet to orient themselves to a festival. If you went to the festival in 2017 and loved it, chances are you will return in 2018 - and thus search for the date for the same festival in 2018. Someone who has never been to the festival is often looking for more and different information about the festival."

Below is a brief example of the fan journey, worked out as part of the Content Impact Model. Here the time (the step in the buying process) and the process (what do I do with what content) are clearly opposite each other in a diagram. You'll also see a diagram showing what type of content to post for each week. As you can see, more information streams become relevant once more time has passed.

Sales curve

Every organization, brand or festival has a sales curve. It is pointless to get people to sell a ticket (or product) in week four (during the orientation phase), because they are still orienting themselves. The Content Impact Model is therefore a good indication of your sales curve, which helps you deploy marketing budgets even smarter.

Once you've developed a Content Impact Strategy, you can get started with the Content Impact Roadmap. That's the translation from strategy to execution - and it's in a diagram that shows you when to publish what type of content on what channel. It also shows which content is relevant to publish. For example: news items, columns, photos, videos, music (demos and releases), podcasts and streaming (relevance). This is the daily translation of your content ambitions (the Content Impact Model) and reality (your digital heartbeat).

Conclusion

Those who measure know whether their content efforts are paying off. Therefore, a number of analyses must take place. The most important analysis involved is IPM. That is the number of interactions per thousand fans. The IPM formula is: ((Number of comments + likes) / number of posts)) / #fans) = IPM. This number expresses how many interactions take place around your website or social channels. The higher your IPM, the more relevant your content is likely to be to your target audience.

Above all, organizations, brands and artists who want to make content really work for them need to be proactive with content. That means not sharing a post on their social media channels only once they win an award. Set up a good Content Impact Roadmap in advance, showing a healthy rhythm. Also determine in advance what the IPMs of the various channels are. If you stick to these principles, chances are you will score with content.

Decide how often (rhythm) you want to reveal content (consistency) and then keep it up (discipline). Therein lies the real challenge: This combination of rhythm, consistency and discipline is often underestimated. If you meet - and overcome - that challenge, you can ensure that content contributes to the growth of your business, provides cost savings and even creates new business models. Above all, Schoonhoven's warning is urgent: "if you are unable to build a valuable digital relationship with your audience through relevant content, chances are you will lose the competition."

* This article previously appeared as a chapter in the book "Digital Capability" and has been edited for this blog.

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