Our American neighbors have just celebrated Thanksgiving this weekend. In honor of that, during the week leading up to festivities, I shared a blog post through social media called “What would the WKRP in Cincinnati Turkey Drop episode look like in the age of social media?” While I have blog readers from all over the globe, and 20% are Canadian, the largest group is from the US, representing 30% of site visits. I had written the piece back in October, originally for Canadian recipients of my newsletter, but I saved it for a blog post until last week because I knew it would resonate with a large portion of my audience the week leading up to American Thanksgiving. Read the original post here.
And it made for an excellent example to illustrate the importance of the four pillars in building your media mogul empire.
The power of one-to-one-to-many
I have to admit, I initially thought the Turkey Drop in the age of social media piece was pretty fluffy. It was meant to be purely fun and entertaining, while positioning me as knowing something about social media. But that appears to have significantly contributed to why it was shared so widely. Simply put, I gave people something that they could turn around and share with their connections that would make them look insightful and funny. But the selection of the content was also somewhat strategic in that it self-selected itself with a certain age demographic that shared memories of the original episode in 1978.
The power of tagging and timing
The timing of the piece was critical. I knew that this past week would be full of Thanksgiving anticipation. I tagged the content with #thanksgiving #turkey and other social media and marketing words. That ensured it showed up in some major feeds on Twitter. I also knew that the days leading up to Thanksgiving in the US are typically full of travel time as folks try to spend time with family over the holiday. Tied to that assumption is the understanding that there would be time to kill waiting in airports, being a passenger in a car, train or bus, and the desire to read and share entertaining news on mobile devices.
How the four pillar plan unfolded
Last Monday I posted the piece to my blog, which is anchor media. I own the space. I then went in and used my social media outposts to broadcast the content. That’s where I “rent space” but don’t own it. Those properties are my broadcast network. There were single posts to Facebook and Google Plus. I made several scheduled posts through the week on LinkedIn with different headlines. And I made 4-5 scheduled Twitter posts per day with different rotating headlines throughout the week. Content was tagged on all platforms for hash tag search words. I went in and tagged Twitter handles of certain influencers on marketing and social media channels that I frequent hoping they would share the content with their followers, which most did. I monitored shares, retweets and comments on all platforms and responded to build engagement with anyone who had liked the content. I also monitored site visits, retweets, likes and shares throughout the week, and adjusted the final last two days with the most successful headlines used to date. Anchors and outposts were used exclusively in this initiative, but the content achieved earned media when a radio broadcaster south of the border shared it. There was no paid boosting of the content.
How metrics measure success
There are a couple ways I measure the success of a media post: consumption, sharing, lead generation and ultimately sales. Think of it as a broad funnel at the top, which eventually leads to business.
- Consumption: The measurement of views, downloads, email opens.
- Sharing & engagement: The number of tweets, likes and shares. But also measuring engagement through interaction on comments, email or direct messaging. Engagement is not just a quantitative measure, it is also a qualitative one, since it leads to the next step.
- Lead generation: This is where the funnel usually starts to close in, but where the magic happens. A lot of companies never get past the first two metrics. And some try so hard at selling in this phase that they turn people off. This is where you measure things like online registration, browser cookies, email sign up, direct connection on other platforms like LinkedIn and direct messages, or phone leads.
- Sales: This is where you measure revenue or profit as the result of a lead generated.
As I’ve noted, a critical component within the sharing stage is engagement and the use of two way correspondence to build rapport and trust. A lot of companies get this wrong and either one way blast, or think that a simple like or share is engagement. What I’m really getting at here is being personable, authentic and yourself in replies and comments. As in dating and building a relationship, engagement requires a series of commitments and delivery. You’re getting to know each other. Ultimately we buy from those we know and trust. That’s how consumption, sharing and engagement turns into lead generation.
Back end analytics for “What would the WKRP in Cincinnati Turkey Drop episode look like in the age of social media?” indicate 2,040 views of which over 650 were from the US. There many tweets, likes and shares, and it generated several new email sign ups and requests to connect on LinkedIn. In one of those cases, a direct message resulted in the request to submit a proposal for an event in Tampa. Plus as mentioned before, it generated coverage from a radio station, which further fueled views of anchored content. The piece itself was pretty light and fun, but I could also see from back in analytics that numerous viewers had gone on to view other more meaty marketing content.
Overall, I’d call it a four-pillar media success, and a clear demonstration of how to leverage content creation for positioning and sales. If you’d like to go back and review the basics of becoming a media mogul through the four pillars of content, you can view it on my blog here.
Curious how this might work in your organization? Contact me mary@charleson.ca Maybe we can apply a structure to what you are currently doing to make it more effective.
