MARKETING
15 Digital Content Mistakes That Can Hurt Your Brand
Just as content can help your brand, it can hurt it, too.
Publishing the wrong content can take many forms, but the end results are similar. At worst, it could seriously damage your brand. At best, your content will be ignored.
I’ve rounded up most of the biggest suspects when it comes to content that does more harm than good, so you can avoid them and only create content that really helps your brand.
1. Too much promotional content
Ever been stuck in a conversation with a serial bragger? Yawn.
People who go on about how great they are get boring fast – the same goes for brands. After all, your relationship with your customers should be about them, not you. If you ignore their needs, they’ll assume you’ve got nothing for them and head elsewhere.
The 80/20 rule has been cited as the effective social media content ratio. Focus 80% of your posts on informing and entertaining your followers, while just 20% should be about your business. Similarly, the five-three-two rule says for every 10 posts published, five should be curated from others’ content, three should be original to your brand, and two should be personal and fun to humanize your brand.
But do these rules still hold true? In general, yes. While the ratio may vary, always put your audience first when choosing what to publish.
Always put your audience first when choosing what to publish, says @IrwinHau via @CMIContent. #ContentMarketing Click To Tweet
TIP: Not sure if your brand is dominating the conversation? Review your past month of posts and identify how many are related to what’s important to your brand and how many are related to what’s important to your audience. (Some may address both audiences.) If the number for your brand is higher than for your audience, you’re talking too much about the brand.
2. Email inundation
Consider these two eye-opening statistics: 76% of customers expect consistent interaction with a brand regardless of department. Yet only 54% say it seems sales, service, and marketing teams are siloed and don’t share information.
That disconnect often shows up in the customers’ inboxes. For example, a promotional email is sent. Within minutes, a newsletter shows up in an inbox, followed two hours later with a feedback request from customer service.
That lack of cohesive distribution can prompt your audience to be frustrated with the quantity and disparate connection of your brand’s communication. They are likely to unsubscribe from all your brand’s emails – even the ones they found some value.
Work across silos to coordinate your email outreach with your audience. If that’s not feasible, update your “unsubscribe” form to give them choices on what content they would like to receive (and not receive.)
Word across silos to coordinate #email outreach with your audience so you don’t inundate them, says @IrwinHau via @CMIContent. #ContentMarketing Click To Tweet
HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT:
3. Overly negative content
Doomscrolling is a thing, but it shouldn’t be something your brand leans into. Though negative content is shared more than positive content, the publisher of that negative content is not necessarily regarded more highly.
I don’t see talking about a customer’s pain points as the same as negative content. If you offer a solution, that’s good marketing. But if you start and end on a negative note, your brand is just being a downer.
4. Talk about potentially controversial topics
Since the 1800s, some form of the saying, “Never discuss politics or religion in polite company,” has been around. And the same holds true for brands when talking to their audiences.
Bring up highly polarizing and emotional topics only if they are part of your brand’s mission and approach to business. If they are, do so in a measured and well-researched way.
5. Bad writing and design
If your words are riddled with poor grammar, your message won’t sit right and may not even be understood. The same goes for poor design of your content. Good writing and design have the power to build your brand’s personality, weave stories, and inspire.
6. Inconsistent voice
Along with bad copy and bad design, content that seems to have a personality crisis is another major turnoff.
#Content that seems to have a personality crisis is another major turnoff, says @IrwinHau via @CMIContent. #ContentMarketing Click To Tweet
One minute, your brand posts cat memes related to your topic. The next post is a deep think piece. You end up with a puzzled audience who don’t have a clue as to what your brand’s voice is.
Always keep your brand voice and style in mind as you create and publish content.
7. Boring subject lines
Sixty-four percent say they decide to open emails based on subject lines, according to a 2021 Barilliance survey. And still, subject lines like “read me” or “check this out” are a dime a dozen. While they may directly invite someone to open the email, they don’t really speak to the recipient. They also don’t help the readers understand what they might get if they open it.
Craft engaging subject lines and personalize them whenever possible.
8. Same content on every platform
A lot of brands cross-distribute the same content on all their social media channels. But that possible time-saving technique could have a negative effect because the platforms are not interchangeable.
Each social platform has a distinct style, tone, and format. They also attract different demographics. LinkedIn is professional, text heavy, and formal. Instagram is visual and image heavy, whereas Twitter is good for bite-sized bits of information and images.
As you create the content, think about your platform and your audience on that platform, and tailor your content accordingly. If you don’t, it’ll feel out of place, and your audience won’t respond as readily.
Think about your platform and your audience and tailor your #content accordingly, says @IrwinHau via @CMIContent. #SocialMedia Click To Tweet
9. Unaccredited content
Using someone else’s content and passing it off as your own is not a good look. The same is true for incorporating images, quotes, videos, survey results and not giving proper credit to the original source.
If you want to republish or excerpt content significantly, get permission and credit accordingly. If you don’t get the OK, look for an alternative source. If you use information from another source in your content, cite and link to the original source.
10. Hashtag-stuffed content
Hashtags have a place: They help people find your content and join the conversation. But add too many, and you just look a bit desperate. Too many hashtags can also make the content difficult to read and dilute the impact of the most relevant ones.
Instagram allows up to 30 hashtags per post, but it recommends using only three to five for the best results. While Twitter allows as many hashtags that fit in its 280 characters, it recommends no more than two as a best practice. That’s another reason to tailor your content for each platform, not automatically cross-publishing.
11. Unreviewed user-generated content
When you share user-generated content indiscriminately, you could end up in trouble. It could include incorrect assertions, images or content that weren’t theirs to share, or come from someone who publicly doesn’t align with your brand’s voice and mission.
To minimize the risk, make sure your brand does a little research before they share the content on your channels. Review the creator’s profile, double-check any facts cited in the content, etc.
12. Writing that doesn’t reflect your audience
You can create content about topics relevant to your audience, but you won’t attract your target audience if you don’t write with that audience in mind.
For example, writing on a topic so the general public would understand wouldn’t be appropriate if your target audience are already well-informed on the topic. As you create, ask: Is this content appropriate for my readership? Will they find value in the information? What reading level should I target?
13. Outdated or unsubstantiated material
You publish factually correct content, but what happens if the facts change over time? What if new information is learned that makes your older content out of date? When in doubt? Take down the potentially outdated content. Delete the page. Or, if the page has a good search ranking, update the page to reflect the most accurate or recently available information.
Whether old or new, avoid claiming something to be true unless you have proof. If you don’t, you could face legal complications, or at least your audience will see your content as less trustworthy.
14. Non-EAT content
Gaming your content to attract search rankings in Google doesn’t bode well. Gone are the days of keyword stuffing and content published only in hopes of ranking higher. Google is focused on content that its users find valuable.
That’s why Google adopted the E-A-T guidelines – expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. While you can keep up to date on the latest SEO rules, tips, and tricks, the most important thing to keep in mind for search, your brand, and your audience is EAT content.
15. Jumping on trends that aren’t on-brand
Hopping on viral content can be a great way to generate traffic. But, if what you’re posting isn’t on-brand with the rest of your content, it’s confusing to your audience and builds little brand equity.
If you’re unsure about whether something is on-brand for your company, ask a non-marketing person in the organization for a second opinion. They’ll have both an outside and inside perspective, so they can point out inconsistencies or confusion between departments.
Help your brand
As much as we’d all love for this to be true, everyone has seen examples of each kind of bad content mentioned above at least once in their internet life. Now that you know what types of content hurt brands, make sure you steer clear of these common mistakes when creating pieces for your own company’s blog or social media page.
Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute
MARKETING
The key to correcting the C-suite trust deficit
Take a moment to search “CMO tenure” and you’ll find a wide variety of content discussing the short tenure of CMOs and how it’s among the shortest of roles in the C-suite. If you dive deeper, you’ll find that CEOs don’t seem to trust CMOs.
Boathouse’s CMO Insights study (registration required) noted several sobering conclusions:
- 34% of CEOs have great confidence in their CMOs.
- 32% of CEOs trust their CMOs.
- 56% of CEOs believe their CMO supports their long-term vision.
- And only 10% of CEOs believe their CMO puts the CEO’s needs before their own.
If these statistics also apply to the CMO’s entire organization, then it’s clear we have a trust problem with marketing leadership.
If you haven’t read Patrick Lencioni’s “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team,” I consider it required reading for anyone in any leadership role. In his book, Lencioni builds a pyramid of dysfunctions that need to be addressed for a team to succeed. The foundational dysfunction — with which one cannot build a successful team — is “absence of trust.” We see it at scale with marketing organizations today.
Introducing objectivity through data
In “Hamlet,” Shakespeare writes, “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” Each organization that makes up a company looks at the company from a different perspective. What marketing sees as positive, finance may see as negative. But who’s right? No one.
Usually, there is no objectivity because leadership comes up with an idea and we execute it. It’s like the fashion proverb “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” Unfortunately, we’re going to struggle to run a profitable organization if it’s run like a fashion show.
Therefore, we need to introduce objectivity to how we work. Leadership needs to come together to agree on goals that align with the goals of the broader organization. One element of this conversation should be an acknowledgment that this is turning a ship.
Often leaders — especially those without marketing backgrounds — are likely to expect instant gratification. It’s going to take time to turn the ship and you and your team would do well to set reasonable expectations right away.
Dig deeper: KPIs that connect: 5 metrics for marketing, sales and product alignment
Aligning goals and metrics across the organization
With goals in hand, we need to assign metrics to their progress and agree on the source(s) of truth. Once these objective measures are in place, perspective doesn’t matter. 2 + 2 = 4 regardless of whether you’re in HR or accounting.
Every public road has a speed limit and whether you’re in compliance with it has nothing to do with your perspective. If you’re above it, you’re wrong and subject to penalties. Referring to the fashion example, it’s not a fashion show where some people like a dress and others don’t.
By using data to objectively measure marketing’s progress within the organization and having the rest of the leadership buy into the strategy, we build trust through objectivity. Maybe the CEO would not have chosen the campaign the marketing team chose.
But if it was agreed that a >1 ROAS is how we measure a successful campaign, it can’t be argued that the campaign was unsuccessful if the ROAS was >1. In this example, the campaign was an objective success even if the CEO’s subjective opinion was negative.
Data-driven campaign planning
Within the marketing organization, campaigns should always be developed with measurement top of mind. Through analysis, we can determine what channels, creative, audiences and tactics will be most successful for a given campaign.
Being able to tell the leadership team that campaigns are chosen based on their ability to deliver measured results across metrics aligned to cross-departmental goals is a powerful message. It further builds trust and confidence that marketing isn’t run based on the CMO’s subjective opinions or gut decisions. Rather, it’s a collaborative, data-driven process.
For this to be successful, though, it can’t just be for show, where we make a gut decision and direct an analyst to go find data to back up our approach. This would be analytics theater, which is a perversion of the data. Instead, tell the analyst what you think you want to do and ask them to assess it.
For the rest of the organization’s leadership, ask questions when the marketing team presents a campaign. Find out how they came up with the strategy and expect to hear a lot about data — especially the metrics you all agreed would support the company’s overarching goals.
Dig deeper: 5 failure points of a marketing measurement plan — and how to fix them
Data literacy: Building credibility through transparency
Building trust doesn’t happen overnight, but a sustained practice of using data to drive marketing leadership’s decisions will build trust if the metrics ladder up to the organizational goals and all of leadership is bought into the measurement plan.
Over time, this trust will translate into longer tenure and more successful teams through building the infrastructure needed to tackle Lencioni’s five dysfunctions.
Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily MarTech. Staff authors are listed here.
MARKETING
How Tagging Strategies Transform Marketing Campaigns
As a marketer, I understand how today’s marketing campaigns face fierce competition. With so much content and ads competing for eyeballs, creating campaigns that stand out is no easy task.
That’s where strategies like tagging come in.
It helps you categorize and optimize your marketing efforts. It also helps your campaigns cut through the noise and reach the right audience.
To help you out, I’ve compiled nine ways brands use a tagging strategy to create an impactful marketing campaign.
Let’s get to it.
How Brands Use a Tagging Strategy
Tagging involves using keywords or labels to categorize and organize content, products, or customer data. You attach tags to specific items or information to make searching, sorting, and analyzing data easier.
There are various types of tags, including meta tags, analytics tags, image tags, hashtags, blog tags, and more.
So, how do brands use a tagging strategy to make their marketing campaigns stand out?
Improve Social Media Engagement
With over 5 billion users, social media provides an easy way to connect with your audience, build relationships, and promote your offerings.
Use a tagging strategy to boost social media interactions. Consistently use hashtags that align with current trends and topics. This encourages people to interact with your content and boosts content visibility.
You can also use tags to monitor brand mentions of your products or your industry. This allows you to engage with your audience promptly.
Consider virtual social media assistants to streamline your tagging strategy. These AI-driven tools can suggest relevant hashtags, track mentions, and automate responses. Implementing them can save time and resources while ensuring consistent engagement across your socials.
Build a Personal Brand on LinkedIn
LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional networking platform, with over 1 billion members across 200 nations. It offers excellent opportunities for individuals and businesses to build and nurture their brands.
However, simply creating a professional profile isn’t enough to build a personal brand on LinkedIn.
Use various tags to increase your visibility, establish thought leadership, showcase expertise, and attract the right connections. For instance, use skill tags to showcase your expertise and industry tags to attract connections and opportunities within your industry. Use certification tags to help showcase your expertise and credibility to potential employers or clients.
Facilitate Customer Segmentation and Personalization
Personalization matters—more so in today’s data-driven world. In fact, 65% of consumers expect your brand to adapt to their changing preferences and needs.
To meet this expectation, consider using a tagging strategy.
Segment your customers based on shared characteristics, such as demographics, interests, purchase history, cart abandonment, and behavior.
Here’s a summary of the steps to customer segmentation.
With your customer segments ready, use tags to tailor your marketing messages and offerings to specific segments. Imagine sending targeted email campaigns based on what your customers need. That’s the power of segmentation and tagging in action!
Enhance SEO and Content Discoverability
Tagging content can have a profound impact on search engine optimization (SEO) and content discoverability. When users search for specific topics or products, well-tagged content is more likely to appear in search results, driving organic traffic to your website.
Additionally, tags can help you analyze the most popular topics with your readers. Then, the results of this analysis can help you adjust your content strategies accordingly.
And get this— certain AI tools can help analyze your content and suggest relevant tags and keywords. Using these tools in addition to a tagging strategy can help optimize your SEO strategies and boost content discoverability.
Partner with the Right Influencers
Influencer marketing has become a go-to marketing approach for modern brands. Recent stats show that 85% of marketers and business owners believe influencer marketing is an effective marketing strategy.
But how do you find the perfect influencer for your campaign?
Utilize tags to identify influencers who are relevant to your niche. Beyond this, find influencers who align with your brand values and target audience.
Additionally, look for influencers who use hashtags that are relevant to your campaigns. For instance, fashion influencer Chiara Ferragni uses #adv (advertising) and #ghd (good hair day) hashtags in this campaign.
Monitor industry-specific hashtags and mentions to discover influential voices and build profitable relationships with them.
Track Hashtag Performance
Tracking your hashtag performance helps you understand your campaigns’ engagement, reach, and effectiveness.
To achieve this goal, assign special hashtags to each marketing project. This helps you see which hashtags generate the most engagement and reach, enabling you to refine your tagging strategy.
Here’s an example of a hashtag performance report for the #SuperBowl2024.
This curated list of hashtag generators by Attrock discusses the top tools for your consideration. You can analyze each and choose the one that best fits your needs.
Categorize Content Accordingly
The human attention span is shrinking. The last thing you want is for your audience to have difficulty in finding or navigating your content, get frustrated, and bounce.
Untagged content can be difficult to navigate and manage. As any marketer knows, content is important in digital marketing campaigns.
To categorize your content, identify the main categories by topics, themes, campaigns, target audiences, or product lines. Then, assign relevant tags based on the categories you’ve identified. After that, implement a consistent tagging strategy for existing and new content.
Organizing your content using tags can also help streamline your content management workflow. Most importantly, readers can easily find the content they’re looking for, thereby boosting overall user experience, engagement, and conversions.
Boost Your Email Marketing Strategy
Email marketing remains a powerful marketing tool in today’s digital world. It’s also another area where brands use a tagging strategy to directly reach their target audience.
Use tags to segment your email list and personalize your marketing messages. Then, you can send targeted emails based on factors like purchase history, interests, and demographics.
Personalization can significantly improve open rates, CTRs, and overall engagement and conversion rates. It’s a simple yet impactful strategy to make your email marketing strategy more effective.
Plus, you can use tags to track how well your emails perform with each group. This helps you understand what content resonates best with your audience and provides insight on how to improve your emails going forward.
Enhance Analytics and Reporting
Every marketer appreciates the immense value of data. For brands using tagging strategies, tags are powerful tools for gathering valuable data.
Analyze how users interact with your tagged content. See which tags generate the most clicks, shares, conversions, and other forms of engagement. Gain insight into audience preferences and campaign effectiveness.
This granular data about your marketing efforts allow you to make data-driven decisions, allocate resources effectively, and refine your marketing strategies.
Final Thoughts
There isn’t a single correct way for brands to use a tagging strategy in marketing. You can use a tagging strategy however you see fit. However, the bottom line is that this strategy offers you a simple yet powerful way to create attention-grabbing and unique marketing campaigns.
Fortunately, tagging strategies are useful across various marketing initiatives, from social media and email marketing to SEO and more.
So, if you’re ready to elevate your marketing campaign, build a strong brand presence, and stand out among the competition, consider employing effective tagging strategies today.
MARKETING
Tinuiti Recognized in Forrester Report for Media Management Excellence
Tinuiti, the largest independent full-funnel performance marketing agency, has been included in a recent Forrester Research report titled, “The Media Management Services Landscape, Q2 2024.” In an overview of 37 notable providers, this comprehensive report focuses on the value B2C marketing leaders can expect from a media management service provider, and analyzes key factors to consider when looking for a media management partner such as size and business scenarios. B2C marketing executives rely on media management services to:
- Augment the efficacy of media investments
- Bridge media impressions to commerce transactions
- Enhance ad campaigns to drive performance
Report authors, VP, Principal Analyst Jay Pattisall and Senior Analyst Nikhil Lai call attention to the pressing need for providers to prove their value, deliver profitable ROAS, and drive alignment between CMOs and CFOs and thus liberate strained marketing budgets.
Our Always-On Incrementality tool – which is a part of our patented tech, Bliss Point by Tinuiti – empowers marketers to validate the incrementality of their spend on each ad set, media channel, and marketing tactic so marketers can create stronger, more focused campaigns that get the job done without sacrificing the bottomline.
B2C marketing leaders often seek and expect key business scenarios from media management service providers including media measurement and attribution, data strategy, and marketing mix modeling. MMM’s adaptability to the post-cookie/ post-IDFA world positions it as an essential tool for marketers. As businesses seek to connect the dots, leverage data, and make strategic decisions, MMM is a crucial ally in the dynamic realm of mixed media advertising. Our Rapid Media Mix Modeling sets a new standard in the market with its exceptional speed, precision, and transparency.
According to the Forrester report, “46% of senior B2C marketing and advertising decision-makers say they plan to integrate performance and brand media assignments with a single media agency in the next 12 months…”
In our quest to better understand all revenue-driving aspects of a given campaign, we have started on a process to quantify the impact of Brand Equity, which we believe is one of the largest missing pieces in more accurate and complete measurement.
Learn more about Bliss Point by Tinuiti, our use cases, and our approach to performance and brand equity.
The Landscape report is available online to Forrester customers or for purchase here.
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