Using negative storytelling as an effective content marketing tool

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Photo of the dog named Eddie the Terrible

Here is the story of a dog named “Eddie the Terrible” who isn’t for the fainthearted, and this is a good example of negative storytelling as an effective content marketing tool. Who says stories that need to sell something (in this case, selling the idea of adopting this dog) have to be positive and full of praises for what is being promoted? The cute-looking dog that has been put up for adoption isn’t your typical cuddly and sweet dog you would love to run to and squeeze or cuddle with. The description of Eddie begins with

We know, we know. He is adorable. All small and yellow and fluffy. A little bit tubby which makes him seem more softer somehow, like a dog you can trust with your secrets. Don’t be fooled. Yes, he is a great listener. But inside that innocuous adorable blonde package exists tons – indeed, whole square miles – of naughty.

Then the copy goes on with describing how, although till now he has never attacked other dogs, he isn’t quite friendly. He isn’t even friendly with kids so the copy of the ad says that if you want your kids to grow with their toes and fingers intact, you better not adopt Eddie.

2) Want your kids to grow up with a full complement of fingers and toes? Not the dog for you.

Some dogs love kids. We have a bunch of child-lovin’ dogs. Eddie the Terrible, however, is not one of them. Honestly he’s a little whiffy with some adults, too. Not in an eat-them sort of way but in ‘this makes me very nervous’ sort of way. Eddie’s never actually bitten anyone but we’re not saying it could never happen.

What is the writer of the ad trying to achieve by saying so many negative things about the dog that is being put up for adoption?

First of all, all his naughtiness is being cutified. Then, honesty is the best policy when it comes to creating convincing copy. All the peculiarities the dog has have been put in the copy so there is no scope for confusion, misunderstanding and even a libel suit. Just imagine if the dog actually bites and the family with small kids adopts him and then the dog bites off the finger of a toddler. Not only a kid will be maimed for life, but the dog adoption agency will be shut forever for hiding this crucial information.

Nonetheless, if the agency has been able to keep the dog so can someone who knows about his peculiarities. So there must be some family around who would be fine with his misbehaving nature (misbehaving according to us humans, for dogs it might be just OK to act like Eddie). In case you’re worried, a brave couple has adopted Eddie the Terrible.

Photo of the couple that has adopted Eddie the Terrible

Does negative storytelling work as an effective content marketing tool? I don’t think there is anything negative about the whole story. The writer was just being honest in a funny, adorable way. Especially in this case it was very crucial to be honest because adopting such a dog for a family who might think that dogs are all fluffy and cute might be dangerous. You must’ve seen all those dog videos on YouTube where you see dogs being extremely patient with small kids. Such videos can be misleading. Dogs being animals, their behaviour cannot be predicted. So it would be very dangerous to write a honey-coated copy just so that people adopt such a dog. In fact, it is an effective marketing tool in the sense that people will appreciate the fact that the adoption agency is being honest.

So it is not about negative storytelling, it is about being honest. Can this also work if you’re trying to sell a product or a service instead of encouraging people to adopt an unpredictable dog?

Although you shouldn’t focus on the negativities of a product or a service while formulating your content marketing strategy all the time (if there are so many negative things about the product or service, better not sell it, no?), you should be honest about what your product or service can do and what it cannot do. People will really appreciate that. Provided the pricing is right and provided your product or service does exactly what it claims to do, even if there are some problems and even if there are some features missing, you are going to find your customers and clients. Negative storytelling or whatever, make your content honest. Provide the right information to your audience. It will always be appreciated.

Headlines that went viral and what you can learn from them

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Buzzfeed example of a headline going viral

Here is a quick link to a blog post from Jeff Bullas that lists the headlines that went viral and how you can implement some of the techniques in your own content marketing. Here is the gist of the formula:

  • Create a solid mechanism that enables people to share your content on social networking websites. Remember that it isn’t always about your headline or the content it contains. It is also about the sort of people who share your content on their timelines. The sort of people sharing your content can have a big impact on your headlines going viral.
  • The blog post states that David Ogilvy once wrote down 100 headlines for one advertisement. The editorial team at Upworthy creates 25 headlines for every piece of content they publish. Create multiple headlines for your blog posts and articles and then choose the most appealing one.
  • There is nothing wrong in creating long headlines contrary to what is normally advocated by social media marketing experts. Even longer headlines can go viral as long as they are making the right impact.
  • Try to create a sense of curiosity in your headline.
  • Pak a bunch of emotion

Boost your content marketing with hashtags

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Hashtags are everywhere may it be Twitter, Google Plus or Instagram. Hashtags are a great way to boost your content marketing effort because it helps you focus target audience on social networking websites. According to this infographic on Quick Sprout, tweets with hashtags generate two times more responses than those with no hashtags.

Screenshot of the hashtag infographic

What is the sense behind using hashtags? They are like the keywords on search engines. Social networking websites use hashtags to organize information under various, preferably, main topics. For example, when I’m posting content on content marketing I use the hashtag #ContentMarketing so whoever is following this hashtag will be able to see my update.

This is the main strength of using hashtags. Many people follow relevant hashtags so if they happen to be following the hashtag that you have just used in your update, they will be able to see your update which, otherwise, they wouldn’t have seen without having followed you. When you use the hashtag even those people who are not following you will be able to see your updates provided they are tracking that particular hashtag.

But don’t over use them. As you can see in the above graphic, the effectiveness begins to decrease as you use more of them. Preferably, vvv v vv use a single hashtag in one update.

Here is a humorous video on the use of hashtags:

Combine content marketing, social media and SEO for inbound marketing

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Inbound marketing graphic

Inbound marketing is a balanced mix of content marketing, social media marketing and SEO. In fact, these are not standalone activities. Every effective content marketing strategy incorporates social media as well as SEO.

When I work on a client project, this is how I prioritise these three aspects of inbound marketing on the Internet:

  1. Content marketing
  2. Social media marketing
  3. SEO

Although most of my clients contact me to improve their SEO on my priority list it is the last aspect of content writing I pay attention to. Does it mean I don’t think it is important? Of course SEO is important and I would never ignore it. It’s just that, I would prefer SEO to happen automatically rather than making an effort for it. I will explain below how. But first…

Content marketing is the most important aspect of inbound marketing

This is because unless you have quality content and unless you know how to market it and then actually market it, nothing much can be achieved. Inbound marketing means people coming to your website or blog on their own after, either having interacted with you on one of the social media or social networking websites, or having come across your content either on your own website or blog, or somewhere else. But whenever they come across you, they come across you via your content.

And it doesn’t just stop at them coming to your website, in fact, the real action starts when people are on your website. It is on your website that you have to convince them into doing business with you. This is where your content plays the most important part. If your content doesn’t convince them, everything goes to waste. If your content is below par, your social media strategy as well as SEO are going to fail. This is why, at the beginning of your inbound marketing campaign, the first thing you need to take care of is content marketing.

Content marketing automatically takes care of social media and SEO

Yes, for the sake of talking to clients one has to talk about content marketing, social media marketing and SEO as separate plans of action whereas they are not. They are all a part of your inbound marketing strategy fuelled by your content marketing strategy. Content marketing means

  1. Writing/producing high-quality content on your website/blog and elsewhere.
  2. Distributing that content using various channels available to you including social media and social networking websites and email marketing.
  3. Search engine optimizations so that people can easily find your content on search engines for the right keywords and search terms.
  4. Constantly analysing the effect of your content using web analytics tools like Google Analytics.
  5. Tweaking your marketing effort according to the results obtained from the web analytics tools

So why do I say that content marketing automatically takes care of social media and SEO?

Assumption.

Assumption that you are going to take all the right steps. What are these right steps?

  1. You use the right language to write your content – the language used by your prospective customers and clients. If you do that, you are automatically search engine optimising your content and hence, in the process, improving your search engine rankings.
  2. Strategically promote your content on social media and social networking websites. You know that in order to promote your content you need a responsive audience. How do you get a responsive audience? By engaging them with not just high-quality content, but also responding to them whenever they reach out to you. If you do this on an ongoing basis, you are handling your social media well.
  3. You are using the right words at the right places while creating content. If you’re going to address the problems and concerns of your prospective customers and clients you are going to use the appropriate expressions while creating titles. You will also use the keywords and search terms people normally use while trying to find your sort of products and services in your headlines and sub-headlines. If possible, you will also use these search terms and keywords in your bulleted points and the hypertext links.

If you properly take care of your content marketing, you are automatically taking care of the other aspects of content marketing like content writing and content production, content distribution, social media marketing and SEO. All these lead to a solid inbound marketing strategy that can totally transform your conversion rate.

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5 ways to generate more business with guest blogging

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5 ways to generate more business with guest blogging

Guest blogging is a great way to generate fresh traffic to your blog and website, provided you make the right moves and you have crossed a certain threshold level. I repeatedly talk about this “certain threshold level” because unless you have crossed it, nobody is going to bother with approaching you for guest blogging opportunities.

Guest blogging has two sides:

  1. You offering guest blogs to other high traffic-blogs
  2. People offering to write for your blog to get exposure for their own website or blog

As rightly mentioned in this Copyblogger blog post on the power of guest blogging and how it frees you from the clutches of search engines like Google, guest blogging can be a double-edged sword. To understand this, you first need to understand

Why do people guest blog and invite guest bloggers?

Why do you want to guest blog on other blogs and why do people want to guest blog on your blog? You can achieve the following by guest blogging:

  1. Get more direct traffic by publishing your blog post on another, high-traffic blog and getting your byline included.
  2. Expose your ideas to a different, wider audience.
  3. As a person or as a brand become known to more people.
  4. Get fresh content for your own blog by letting others write for it.
  5. Get yourself some respite by not having to continuously write yourself and instead, allowing others to generate quality content for your blog.
  6. Increase search engine rankings.

Unfortunately, it is the last, 6th reason for which people mostly guest blog and this is how you can become a victim of spamming if you are not careful about for whom you write and from whom you accept content. If you can take care of both these aspects guest blogging is one of the greatest ways of getting access to a wider audience as well as continuously getting new content for your own blog.

How do you generate more business with guest blogging?

Yes, ultimately you want to generate more business. How does guest blogging contribute? Here is how…

  1. You get exposure: If yours is a relatively new business or if you are looking for a bigger audience you can either wait for your search engine rankings to improve and your social media and social networking audience to increase or you can guest blog for more famous blogs. A good thing about guest blogging is, provided you use the right sort of blogs, you can gain massive amount of traffic in no time. How does this help you grow your business? When you are guest blogging you are mostly targeting highly focused, niche blogs, read and viewed by people who are already interested in what you have to offer. Suppose you are in the business of producing biodegradable building materials. Which blogs would you choose? Maybe architecture? Alternative lifestyle? Green living? Regular visitors to these blogs will be more eager to check out your website and become your customers.
  2. You expand your influence as an expert:
    Suppose you make a living off advising people how to do a particular thing. For that you need to establish yourself as an expert. You want to be known as an expert in your field. More and more people should know about your expertise so that when they need the expertise that you can provide, they remember that you can provide it. The more you are known as an expert, the better are your prospects.
  3. You get more targeted traffic to your website:
    Generating more business from your website and blog is all about getting targeted traffic. Most of the websites face this problem that although they get lots of traffic, they are not attracting the sort of traffic that turns into business. When you are guest blogging you carefully choose the blogs. As I have mentioned in the first bullet, if you are producing biodegradable building materials you will naturally be guest blogging for blogs that attract an audience interested in nature-friendly architecture, green living and pursuing alternative lifestyles. This will send your way lots of targeted traffic and this in turn will improve your conversion rate and hence, generate more business for you.
  4. You get quality content for your own blog: Just as you are providing quality content to other blogs as guest blogger, when you invite other guest bloggers to write for your blog, you are engaging more and more people to generate content for you. As a small business it might be difficult to produce lots of quality content on an ongoing basis over a sustained period of time. But once your blog has crossed a certain threshold level of popularity and traffic, greater number of people will be interested in writing for you. Just imagine, a single person writing one blog post every day and a slew of writers writing multiple blog posts every day. Wouldn’t that be marvellous for your content quantity and quality? The more content you have, the more content is indexed by the search engines, the more content of yours is exposed on social networking websites and the more targeted traffic you have to your blog and website, getting more business to you.
  5. You strike up new business partnerships: It is not just about traffic and exposure when you use guest blogging to generate more business. You can strike up direct business partnerships with people who get involved with you and with people you get involved with. Many of the guest bloggers may turn out to be your customers and clients later on. Similarly you may end up doing business with people you are right now writing for.

Guest blogging is a great networking opportunity because when someone allows you to write blog posts for his or her blog he or she is allowing you to enter his or her space. This is a great opportunity for you to get close to that person in terms of establishing a mutually beneficial business relationship. The same is applied to people who want to guest blog for you.