It’s the Friday before Valentine’s Day, and love is in the air…as in we love that it’s Friday Fix Day (did someone say candy overload?), and we love this week in content marketing. In addition to a closer look at the best examples of storytelling in Super Bowl 50’s commercials, we also look at ways some of the commercials could have been better as well as how to approach all content like it’s heading to the Super Bowl. We also analyze the differences between storytelling and story starting and how to create killer Valentine’s Day content. So, grab a handful of candy conversation hearts and get your sweet tooth fixed while you get your Friday Fix.
Killer Content Marketing: Valentine’s Day Branded Content
It’s the weekend before Valentine’s Day. Love and content marketing are everywhere, and conversation hearts are on the shelves. Like Emily Faget says, Valentine’s Day short-run marketing, products, and promos are nothing new, but that doesn’t mean that the day of amore isn’t something that can’t be cleverly and creatively capitalized on. Emily shows how brands like M&M, Pillsbury, and even Forbes spread their branded love on this candy-coated holiday.
The Next Wave in Storytelling is Short-Form Video
venturebeat.com
Revolution Productions’ Anish Patel hits the nail on the head with this one. In past Fixes, we’ve talked increasingly about storytelling going digital; in this article, Anish talks about how to go beyond creating video; Anish explores how to get audiences to pay attention (because isn’t that the whole point?). From streaming directly into Twitter to Snapchatting (sidebar: if you’re not on Snapchat, you need to get on it 10 minutes ago) to live Facebook to curating on Instagram, there are multiple ways to reach your audience with short-form video and to tell your story in the newest, most compelling medium.
3 PR Strategies You Should be Using Now
Per Aly Saxe, your PR team may be one of your best (and possibly under-used) resources provided it has three top skills, which are: influencer relations, long shelf-life content, and intelligent measurement. For example, even though the logical part of our brains (and my German dad) attests that logic and logic alone should be the determiner in making major decisions, the reality is that emotion trumps logic (one survey showed by a margin of 65% in B2B execs); hence, your PR team needs to be able to develop and leverage those influencer relations to make those emotionally-driven connections. Read Aly’s article for more on oh-so-desirable winning PR-team qualities.
12 Mistakes Content Marketing Experts Make
instantshift.com
As much as we’d all love to be perfect with our content marketing game, the reality is that it doesn’t always happen and that some follies are more common to all of us (even the best of us). In this piece, John Rampton explores those mistakes like “forgetting to write down your goals and strategy.” I liken this to having a really great idea pop into my head before I’m falling asleep and sweating to myself that I’ll remember it in the morning (yeah, right) only to wake up and not even remembering what I had for dinner the night before (it was a baked potato). The fact that these are easy-to-fix mistakes that we all swear we don’t or won’t make as we’re making them is what makes John’s list so clever. So, how many of these mishaps are you guilty of?
Content Marketing: 10 Rules for Success
Since John Rampton reviewed 12 mistakes content marketers make, it’s only fitting that we share John W. Hayes’ 10 rules for success. Unsurprisingly, planning is integral to more than one of John W. Hayes’ rules as is striving to solve problems (if you read Rampton’s article, the concept of using content to “address a problem” should sound familiar). Hayes also advises to distribute widely, to recycle / re-appropriate content, and to keep publishing. Read Hayes’ other tips and ask yourself…are you “ruling” with your content?
Three Ways to Growth Hack Your Content Marketing Strategy
skyword.com
Whether you’re new to content marketing or an old hat, Alex Frias’ three approaches to growth-hack your content marketing strategy are so right that not doing them is just plain wrong. First, Alex advises to make data-driven content decisions; if you’ve been reading the Fix lately, you’ll know that we agree in making data-based decisions (and in telling data-driven stories). Second, are you encouraging consumers to share your content because if not, you should be. Lastly, are you incorporating visuals? After everything we’ve been through together, Fix-readers, I would like to think so, but if not, check out Alex’s article and let him help us further compel you toward visual mediums.
Brands Doing More Content Marketing with Less Return, TrackMaven Says
The cringe-worthy headline of Shawn Hessinger’s article might sound scary, but keep calm and read the article. Shawn and the related TrackMaven data aren’t decrying the merits of content marketing but rather supporting that more isn’t better; rather, creating quality content distributed through the right (best) channels (like mobile) is what’s needed to break through the noise and to provide return worthy of your best efforts.
Marketers Need to Treat All Content Like It’s Being Made for the Super Bowl
mashable.com
If there was an Olympics for commercial advertising, it would be the Super Bowl. Brands pull out all of the stops and blow the budget (well, hopefully they budget for these million-dollar masterpieces) to produce cleverly 30-second (give or take) stories. In this article, contributor Mia Pearson suggests approaching all content as though it was going to run during the Super Bowl. No, Mia doesn’t mean having a seven-figure budget; she means approaching content with the same kind of carefully contemplated strategy as one might for a Super Bowl ad. Check out her piece to get ideas on making your content worthy of the year’s biggest pro-game.
Storytelling vs. Story Starting: A Tale of Five Million Dollars
Like many of this week’s pundits, John Bohan takes a closer look at the benefits and drawbacks Super Bowl ads, which as we all know are 30-60 second spots that cost brands millions of dollars to get out there. Meanwhile, there are the GoPro awards, which John also evaluates the benefits and drawbacks of. According to John, Super Bowl ads are models of storytelling while GoPro’s StoryStarting Campaign centers on StoryStarting. So, which is better? Which better aligns with content marketing, and which is a better vehicle for your big, bad budget? See what John thinks and why.
5 Brand Storytelling Missed Opportunities from This Year’s Super Bowl Ads
skyword.com
As much as we wished everyone at the Super Bowl could’ve had the best-day ever, the fact is amidst the winners, there were losers (to be clear, we’re talking about the commercials and not the Manning / Newton / Beyonce / Coldplay smashups). Okay, maybe losers is a strong word…maybe it’s better to say they were winners who could’ve played harder. While we took a look at the best moments from some of the stronger contenders, Taylor Mallory Holland looks at some of the best commercials but explores how they could’ve better-played their moment in the sun.
Best Examples of Storytelling in the Super Bowl Commercials This Year
Every year, over 100-million people tune in to watch Super Bowl commercials…I say this because the topic of conversation months down the line isn’t the big game itself or even the (often epic…be it epically good or epically bad) halftime show; it’s the commercials. The crème de la crème of these oh-so-pricey ads are usually the ones that tell the best stories and whether they make us laugh or cry…they always leave us wanting for more, which is why this week’s Tips of the Trade Tuesday takes a closer look at the best-told stories of Super Bowl 50 Commercials.
Amy Delcambre is a freelance content and travel writer from Mobile, Alabama with a Master's in Creative Writing. When she's not painting the page with nouns, verbs, and adverbs, she's slaying grammar beasts as a freelance editor and saving the world one sentence fragment at a time teaching university writing classes. In her free time, Amy enjoys cooking, traveling, and testing which plant species best survive prolonged neglect.
Connect with Amy: LinkedIn
