In an age where conventional advertising is becoming increasingly ineffective, more and more digital marketing companies are turning instead to content marketing strategies, churning out content through every channel possible.
There’s nothing wrong with a large quantity of content. But when marketing companies focus too much on quantity, they tend to pump out generic content pieces like nobody’s business. Instead, what online marketers should be focusing on is getting people to engage with compelling written and visual content that sells a story—not an object.
The marrying of journalism and marketing has been a long time coming. Not only does compelling storytelling increase shares on social media, it also ups engagement with the marketing world’s currently most highly sought after demographic—millennials.
Millennials are surprisingly receptive to corporate engagement, whether it involves following Wendy’s on Instagram or watching DJ Khaled’s Snapchats of his lion statue. And Twitter’s new Periscope feature makes it even easier for marketers to reach out to prospective audiences through the most unscripted of channels—live video feeds.
These are all great ways for marketing companies to up their storytelling game. But where does big data fit in? Two words: data journalism. Journalism giants like The New York Times and The Atlantic have committed significant resources to data journalism, and it shows. Original data in the form of infographics and think-pieces are oil to the fire of social media engagement; they provide new information in a clear, concise and meaningful way.
As most marketing companies know by now, infographics are the kind of content most likely to be shared on social media, which gives them high inherent value. Solid visual data presentation not only looks good and shares well, but it adds value and authority to your personal brand as well.
With the abundance of open data available to the general public, brands have near-limitless opportunities for original, engaging data analysis. Don’t listen to that old marketing professor you had in college—fresh, original data makes for a fantastic way to tell a story.
