We’re starting a series of curated posts, called The Great Content Roundup.
Welcome to Week 1!
What to Expect?
In these “roundup” posts, we will summarize and link to anywhere from 5-15 posts in one blog post. These articles and pieces we link to will be the ones that we found held value and use for direct businesses in the areas of content marketing, SEO, and social media. These are posts you won’t want to miss!
For Week 1, I want to share some awesome resources with you on curation, since that’s exactly what we’re starting to do with this first post.
Welcome to Week 1 of the Great Content Roundup!
Our Topic: Content Curation
Content curation is becoming more and more a big topic online. As you may or may not know, we launched full content strategy services that include content curation in late 2014. Here are a few great guides that explain content curation in general, and a few more specific posts that offer intelligent insight, including a few of our own guest blogs.
Lastly, view our Google Hangout event that happened January 13, 2015 with Julia McCoy (our CEO) and the Scoop.It CEO, on content curation (we use their tool in our curating).
And, a bonus link…
BONUS:
Five Social Media Predictions for 2015 via HuffingtonPost, authored by Tania Yuki. In this brief but thorough piece, Tania explores how social media will change in 2015, including a focus on more personalization and building real relationships. People won’t be in “static buckets” anymore. Since content is all about real people, we totally agree with Tania! She also predicts that Snapchat will become more popular than ever.
Sassy and smart – it is the way of the Internet and Denny’s knows it! This brand is a perfect example of how to create amazing content whether on social media or advertisements bringing in people from a wide demographic. We’ve all seen at least some part of their successful ad campaigns throughout the years, but how did they become so successful again?
4 Ways Denny’s Just Makes Their Content Irresistible…Mmm, Breakfast Anyone?
Let’s take an insider look at Denny’s and their incredible approach to content marketing & overall copywriting, making them the champion of breakfast food!
1. Denny’s Began Reinventing its Brand. Before we get to the different things that make Denny’s remarkably successful with copywriting, let’s focus on what made them get to that point. Denny’s used to be an incredible place for family and friends to eat at, complete with that fun diner flare. However, it eventually lost its spunk and began going downhill. This is the point in a business’s life that can either mean it will disappear forever or the owners can come out fighting and be stronger than ever. This is just what Denny’s did.
A few years ago, the eatery began with a Super Bowl ad offering free breakfast for everyone in America and included a value menu to spark more interest. However, the business knew it couldn’t stop there. In 2011, Frances Allen, the chief brand officer, realized that the brand needed more emotion and spunk to get going. It was around this time that the restaurant started reinventing its brand and became what we all know now. They said “so long” to irrelevance and are now a powerhouse and inspiration for copywriting and content marketing.
This shows just how important it is to reinvent your brand. Yes, you like it the way it is, but if it isn’t working, then you need to start making changes. If you are hesitant, just look at Denny’s; it is now wildly successful and everyone wants to go there at some point. Don’t hesitate to reinvent your brand if it isn’t working right now. Changes here and there can really impact your business in positive ways!
2. They Have a Sassy Social Media Approach. When you think of a restaurant that sells breakfast food, you don’t see how it can really have a great social media approach. However, Denny’s proves this wrong with a hilarious, sassy approach to social media. They have a wide variety of posts they send out from hilarious one-liners to emoticon filled stories. They also started a hashtag #poorjack to tell the story of a robotic car named Jack that drove itself to a specific location. The restaurant’s social media pointed out that the car drove past so many Denny’s on the way but was deprived of enjoying delicious breakfast food.
Poor Jack Image:
a car named jack drove itself to CES but how many denny’s did he pass on the way, unable to enjoy, his happiness denied? #poorjack
They utilize multiple social media channels, and always hark on current pop culture trends that are likely to resonate with audiences more. You can check them out at Facebook, YouTube, Tumblr, and Twitter. Denny’s is a great example of how fun, relevant social media usage can boost your engagement, and reach a wider audience. Relevant content is a great way to make sure you create a great place for engagement for your audience. This can be on social media, but also in your blogs. Who can forget the ever-relevant Hobbit menu from Denny’s? Relevancy and fun are great when creating unique content that is sure to help engage your audience.
Waffman:
thanks to reports of a new walkman we’ve had to rush out our Waffman project. not even sure what it does yet, smh. pic.twitter.com/WdVqY0Ftgr
3. Utilizing a Web Series to Reach Young Adults. Denny’s also knows the audience that is going to help make them more successful – young adults. College-age individuals are more likely to frequent this establishment because of affordable prices, good food, and it is usually open at perfect times for the college-age crowd. Because of this, Denny’s undertook a campaign to reach out to this demographic. You can easily see this with their social media campaign, but they also did a whole web series for young adults. The series features an alumnus of Saturday Night Live interviewing different celebrities as they sit down to enjoy a meal together. It is a great chance for witty one-liners and things that will resonate with a young adult crowd.
This is a great example of reaching out to various demographics. Denny’s can obviously resonate easily with older crowds, especially appealing to those who enjoy diners, but they realized young adults were being widely missed. Take a look at your demographics and see if you are missing any group that could find your company interesting and helpful. You might be surprised at how limited your scope is, so take a chance a broaden it.
4. Denny’s Reaches Out to More than Just English Speakers. Denny’s also knows that they need to reach out to wider audiences that aren’t just English speakers. The restaurant created a Latino Facebook page for their Spanish-speaking costumers. They interact with them and reach out to a demographic that can easily be overlooked in marketing. Spanish is the most popular non-English language spoken in the United States, which makes it wise to create Spanish ads and social media campaigns.
This goes hand-in-hand with Denny’s reaching out to young adults. They saw a demographic that was being overlooked and changed their campaign to reach it. Again, take this to heart and see which demographics you might be missing and consider adding a Spanish (or different language) branch to your company, especially if you are based in America. This will help you reach a demographic that is looking for companies that are willing to speak to them in their language.
Turn Denny’s As Inspiration For Your Next Fab Copywriting Idea
Denny’s is a great example of how effective copywriting and content marketing can help turn a slowly declining business back into a massive success. Take a few of these great ideas and apply them to your business’s content marketing campaign and make things fun for your audience! Remember, you can always be professional while still adding a fun flair to your social media campaigns, web content, and blogs. Which of these ideas do you think will help inspire your business to do better?
On January 13, I held a Google Hangout on Air with the CEO of Scoop.it, where I interviewed him about Scoop.it and the value of content curation this year. Below is the video and full transcript. It was a very insightful chat. Enjoy!
Content Curation Interview with Guillaume Decugis Transcript
Julia: Hello everyone, I’m Julia McCoy, the CEO of Express Writers, a copywriting agency. I have with me today the CEO of Scoop.it. Can I ask you to pronounce your name, if you don’t mind?
Guillaume: Sure, so hi everyone, I’m Guillaume Decugis.
Julia: Guillaume. Did I say that right?
Guillaume: Yes!
Julia: Great! Awesome. So, to start this off, I just wanted to talk to you about your tool. I think it’s an excellent tool for content curation that is a huge need coming up this year. We’re just seeing so much content happen, and we need tools for content curation, to be able to sort this content, and to be able to share it. So, tell me a little about Scoop.it, how you built it, and how it helps businesses today.
Guillaume: Well, thanks for the praise. So Scoop.it was something we started and launched three years ago. We launched it because we realized that Web 2.0 was creating an opportunity and a pressure. The opportunity and the pressure is actually the same. The opportunity is we can become a media publisher, we can publish a lot of content. That’s what all those tools around Web 2.0 helped us do. It’s not just an opportunity, it became a pressure.
Now that everybody can publish content, if you do not, then you simply don’t exist.
Or if you publish bad content, you might hurt your brand. So we felt that pressure is going to be something that a lot of professionals, businesses, companies, big and small are going to have a tough time with. Because..
Not everybody is a content creator. It takes time, energy, talent, inspiration to create good content.
And so we felt a lot of people will be struggling with that. And there’s an alternative to create content, or complement. We like to talk about complement, which is content curation. We felt not everybody can become an awesome blogger, an awesome video producer. But, we believe that fundamentally all businesses, all professionals have expertise. When you’re good at what you’re doing, you’ve done that for a few years, you have expertise and you can apply that expertise to curate content, which means selecting great content that you feel is relevant to your field, and adding your own value, your own context: telling your audience why this was an awesome piece of content. And we felt that was much more accessible to professionals in general, and it is a great way to build your content strategy for your business. So that’s the background behind it.
Julia: That’s excellent! I agree with everything you said about getting content, and staying on the map with content. As you may or may not know, I developed some content strategizing products in our own company. We wanted to go beyond just creating content. So we looked into creating curation, and we were going to try to plan content, and show people how to find content. One of the tools I found was Scoop.it. I was so happy it was so simple to use, and I was researching maybe 20 different tools. Scoop.it was a key of how we find content.
How do you see it as answering a big need for curation coming up this year?
Guillaume: So, first of all, I love the fact you found Scoop.it simple, because that’s really I think the key to what we’ve been trying to do. We wanted to make it super simple.
Let’s clarify something: curation in itself is not simple. If you don’t have tools, it’s actually very complicated, and you can waste a lot of time trying to find great content.
You’ll have this experience of, like, I’ve been browsing the web for FOUR hours and I felt I achieved nothing. And so we felt we needed to combine a couple of things. First, a piece of technology that could automate your content monitoring. And let’s be clear: automation, we automate the discovery of content, we never automate publishing. So we empower our users to publish in their own name what they’ve selected, and we make it easy for them to find content instead of searching for it hours every day. In just a few minutes, you can have the most relevant content in your field, directly on your Scoop.it engine. So simplicity is at the core of what we’re trying to achieve.
I was asked by the Content Marketing Institute, what’s my prediction for 2015, and I think, you know, content marketing has been around for a few years. It’s maturing and it’s something that large companies have embraced. They’ve moved from traditional advertising, which is kind of old fashioned, to creating excellent content.
The company which I admire which is probably the pioneer of content marketing is Redbull. If you look at what Redbull has become, they’re not a soft drink company anymore. They’re a media company. They have this content pool with 50,000 pieces of content, they launched a man to space and broke the record of parachuting down to earth. They’ve done amazing stuff, they’ve done amazing content. But the thing is they’re a large company, and they’re making a bold bet of transforming their company into a media company. A lot of the small midsize companies have not been able to do this, because it takes resources, it takes a long term horizon that large companies have and small companies don’t have. So my prediction for 2015 was that content marketing is now going to become mainstream. It’s going to become something that millions of SMBs in the US or in the world are going to be able to embrace. And, I think curation is going to play a very important role there, because if you think of content marketing where a lot of people like to mix up creation and curation, and the large brands have resources. They can create a lot of content, they can have agencies work for them. But for more SMBs, they usually don’t have access to that, they usually don’t have a budget for that. So, curation is necessary for them to embrace content marketing, and that’s what we see coming in 2015, a lot of SMBs embracing content marketing through content creation and curation.
Julia: I totally agree with you. Everything you said is really insightful. I see that there is so much content on the web and it’s growing every day as you know, and it’s so important to curate and create to make your own mark.
Guillaume: Having a mix is really important. We’re not saying stop creating content; we’re saying if you have a day job, or if you’re not a natural born writer, it takes time and you should really focus on exceptional pieces of content. And we believe that curation forms creation. By curating you will spot the gaps in your field that nobody is writing about, like the things you’ve learned, you can tell. Instead of adding to the noise by creating another piece of content that’s already been written, you can use your curation abilities to say, I’ve shared some really good articles by other people, but nobody has been writing on that particular point, and I can share that and I can educate my audience. So, we’re strong believers in balance and there’s strong synergies in curation and creation.
Julia: Exactly. That’s something I’ve been blogging about in a few of my recent blogs, I talked about that exact idea. Guillaume: Yeah, I love your blog posts by the way, I’ve curated a few of those already. Really good.
Julia: Now about blogging, I also wanted to ask you how businesses can use Scoop.it to publish their own content. Tell me more about that. Guillaume: So our view is, the way we look at content and content strategy for businesses, we look at a couple of things. We think you should have a content hub, a place where all of your content, whether curated or created, can reside. A lot of businesses blog already, and if you have a blog you should make it your content hub. Scoop.it integrates with Wordpress, or Tumblr, so it’s very easy to consolidate everything in something that already exists, like your blog. So we look at you should have a content hub, which is where you’re going to drive your audience to, which is going to be a place where people can see all of your content that defines you.
We like to say you are the content you publish.
Whether it’s created or curated, and you can organize that content the way you want. It’s also going to be a place whether you can drive SEO content, where people will be able to discover you from search, not just from your social channels. You will also be able to convert. You know, we’re doing content strategy, content marketing because we think it’s fundamentally good for your business, so it should be a way to drive and generate leads, and convert people to either subscribe, or buy, or drive a sale. And you have to have your own face to do this. It could be a Wordpress blog, it could be another blog. And for those who don’t have a blog, we have a live publishing platform on Scoop.it so you can create pages with your created and curated content. You can use that as like a blogging platform.
So that’s one thing that’s your content hub; then you should think about all the distribution channels you could use, social media of course. Scoop.it is connected with all the social media channels, so in the same way you feed your blogs or your content hub on Scoop.it, you distribute that content to social media, to Facebook, LinkedIn, not just for files but for groups. We also integrate with the ability to create newsletters. Email has been under the radar for a few years because we say, ah, social media is the new way to distribute. We still believe that email is super important, super relevant, still in 2015. We integrate with Mailchimp to make it super easy to distribute by email. So, I like to think about creating a content hub wherever you feel affordable. But you should really own it. And with the premium version of Scoop.it, you can really make Scoop.it pages your own, you can really integrate with Wordpress, and distribution channels which should be social, SEO, email, to name a few ones.
Julia: Wow, it sounds like a really thorough platform. We’ve been using it to find content, but I don’t think we’ve been using all the features of being able to publish. So, instead of a social media competitor, it sounds like really you’re your own content hub.
Guillaume: Yes. You know, again, I think it’s an evolution of Scoop.it which is evolving. We’re actually about to launch a new version of the platform.
Julia: Yes, tell me about that.
Guillaume: That platform is really going to be reaching all around the needs of SMEs. And I think, as Scoop.it grew we evolved from being a tool to becoming a solution. And what do I mean by that? Very quickly, Scoop.it started as a discovery tool. The first users of Scoop.it liked it, that they could discover content very rapidly, and then share that content to their social handles. Then we’ve added the ability to create content hubs, or view existing content hubs on Wordpress. The solution people need is actually a combination of things. We think SMEs actually need a workflow. They don’t need just discovery, just distribution, just content hubs. They need a combination of that, of all things, and they need to be able to manage it. We have this new version coming in a couple of weeks, which is really about planning your content. Number one, having a calendar that gives you a full view of what is it you have plans for the next few days. Second, sourcing which is essentially the discovery part but enriched with a lot of admins features. So sourcing all of the content that feeds that planning, and then integrated with feeding a destination but also feeding distribution channels as we discussed, and also all of the analytics activity, did you get traffic, engagement, leads. So we’re packaging all of those things into a very neat solution that takes you through a content workflow with a 360 global approach.
Julia: Wow! So that’s really impressive. So that’s getting ready to launch next week?
Guillaume: Next week or the following week we’re getting ready. So in the next two weeks. Before the end of the month. Julia: That’s a good goal! That sounds really great. So, thank you for your time and going through all of that. It’s really great to see all the features of Scoop.it and what it can bring just coming up this year, because content is going to be a monster. And this tool can help businesses get control of it, and just not be average with content. And, you know, just do better than your industry competitor. So do you see a lot of growth coming up, do you anticipate that this year?
Guillaume: Do I see a lot of what, sorry?
Julia: Growth.
Guillaume: Oh yeah, absolutely. I think right now we’ve been seeing large companies embrace content marketing, and we’re used by large companies as well, as more and more are using collaborative features. We’ve been used by 1.5 million professionals primarily as a discovery social media tool, and so I think we’ve seen more and more SMBs embrace Scoop.it as part of everything. So we have been growing very fast, we’re closing our books and so I don’t know the final numbers yet, but we’ve been focusing on that for about 15 months now. We’ve grown in a year from 0 to 3,000 business and enterprise plans, and I think it’s going to accelerate throughout the year. I see a lot of, the story that you just told, businesses are now embracing content, they’re realizing it’s not just talk with peers on social media, they’re realizing you need to have that publishing capability in order to build your SEO, your inbound marketing, your inbound leads. I think that’s going to be an essential drive and an essential strategy to grow yourself. We’ve moved from SEM and emails to getting social media, trying to explore social media. I think those companies will understand that. It’s a powerful sales channel for us. The companies that do that will grow much faster than their competitors. And that’s going to happen this year.
Julia: That sounds really great. It’s just amazing how much content has grown in the past few years and how it’s changed so much.
Guillaume: Yes! And you know, another thought I would like to bring is, if you think that this whole change, driven again by Web 2.0, is about us becoming media publishers, as professionals or as businesses.
I would encourage you to look at what are the media outlets that really became rockstars in the past 5-10 years. It’s not the NY Times, it’s not the Washington Post. If you look at the history of media, it’s completely changed.
The media that created a lot of value and grew the fastest were the Huffington Post, BuzzFeed, Business Insider, Upworthy.
They don’t produce 100% of their content. They use a mix of their own content and curated content, or even some of them, like Upworthy, just do curation. They do awesome curation, which means that curation really can drive amazing traffic. So if you’re going to become as businesses, media, because Web 2.0 puts us in that corner and puts that pressure on us, we shouldn’t look at becoming media in the old-fashioned, twentieth-century way, like the NY Times 20 years ago, we should look at becoming media in the modern way like the Huffington Post, BuzzFeed, and Upworthy. That’s using that mix of curation and creation, that makes it easy to scale and helps you become lean with content. We like to talk about lean content as a way to be efficient with your content strategy. And I think those media are a good example of that.
Julia: That’s a great point.
Just to wrap this up, I know you’ve mentioned a couple times just a mix of curation and creation. What do you recommend, knowing what you do, having gone through content, building Scoop.it, what do you see as a good schedule for curating (something that’s not original, but relatable to what you do) and then creating your own content? Would you say 50/50, like two blogs a week, and then a few curated?
Guillaume: So the way I like to define, for some people it will be 50/50, for others 80/20, the thing that I would encourage people to look at is what comes naturally. Focus your creation activity in creating really epic content, something that if you’re going to devote some time away from your business, away from your customers, away from your employees, you should really make it count. To me, that’s the rule. If you’re talking about a 3 people shop where the business owner has a lot of things, that could be once a month. If we’re talking about 200-people company which already has a marketing team, it could be blogging once a day (everybody publishes, you know, once a week, and if they’re a 5 people team, that’s once a day). But then, look at curation to fill in the gaps for everything else. And so I think it’s depending on,
The minute you start creating low quality content is where you should stop.
You should stop and say, well, instead of creating low quality content, create less content but curate more content. You will augment the quality of whatever your readers receive. To me that’s the signal, when you start realizing, ah! I’m pressuring myself too much, and I’m creating something I’m not really proud of. You’re better off spending that time curating. Julia: That’s a really great rule. I think anyone could take that rule and make it work.
Guillaume: Yeah, I mean that’s the rule I apply myself, whatever I feel uninspired, and I feel I’m going to force myself to blog, force myself to create something, maybe two hours later I’m going to go through content suggestions on Scoop.it, and I’ll find a great piece of content and I’m inspired, and suddenly I turn that into a mini blog post, using the publishing capabilities of the platform, and that’s so much better.
Because I’ve added to the discussion, instead of adding noise.
That’s been working a lot better for us as well, and our clients.
Julia: Yes, great rule. I would add nothing to it. Really good.
Thank you so much for your time today! This was a really insightful chat, and it was really good to talk.
Guillaume: Thank you, and if anybody has a question they want to throw out, my Twitter handle is @gdecugis. Feel free to tweet me, and I’m passionate about this discussion, so we are engaged.
Julia: Yes! That sounds great. We will have to probably schedule another one of these.
Chances are that you have heard of Under Armour. They are well known for their ultra-warm athletic clothing, serving not only athletes, but those who are looking for top-quality clothing for multiple purposes. Under Armour has nailed their branding image through quality products and catchy copywriting and motivational phrases. Business owners take note: Under Armour has dominated their niche, and here’s how they did it.
Under Armour’s Target Audience Defined
Half the battle of a successful marketing campaign is to understand your target market. Throwing your products at the wall to see what sticks can lead to disastrous results. With that said, Under Armour’s audience is defined as athletes, those who want top-of-the-line clothing, and even those who see Under Armour as a status symbol.
Under Amour’s grasp on their target demographic helped pave a pathway to success, but their work still wasn’t done. The next step of Under Armour’s branding success was establishing a connection to their athletic audience.
Hitting Home Runs With Athletes
In order for Under Armour to successfully connect with their audience, they needed to get inside the head of athletes. What do athletes want in their apparel? What motivates them to continue training? How do they manage to push through pain or being uncomfortable?
Motivation Comes From Within … or From a T-Shirt
Almost every athlete knows that your ultimate source of motivation comes from within yourself. However, that doesn’t mean that athletes can’t use a little help every now and then. In order to give athletes a boost during their training, games, or competitions, Under Armour incorporates copywriting that scores big both on and off the field.
Experiencing The Power of ‘I Will’
Under Armour’s slogan has gone through a transition as of late. Originally, the athletic apparel powerhouse frequently used Protect This House. This context could have been taken several ways: protecting the playing field of your home base, or protecting your body by exercising and keeping it healthy.
Today, Under Armour’s mostly operated under the catchphrase I Will. In fact, there was recently a lawsuit settlement between Under Armour and Nike, with Nike using the I Will catchphrase on some of its products.
Using The Motivation of ‘I Will’
Under Armour strategically uses their slogan to I will to help motivate almost any athlete. Here are several examples of how the megabrand incorporates their slogan into key motivational phrases — mostly screen printed on T-Shirts.
I Will Change The Game
I Will What I Want
Attack I Will
I Will Never Quit
Protect This House I Will
I Will Crush My Personal Best
Show The World I Will
These are just a few examples of how Under Armour incorporates their slogan to motivate athletes. Under Armour uses the power of branding, top-notch copywriting, and quality clothing to score with their audience.
I Will Learn From Under Armour
When it comes to capturing your audience and creating killer content, there’s a thing or two we can learn from Under Armour. Whether you are just starting out on your content strategy or you are looking for a few pointers, let’s look at the ways that we can connect to our own audiences with Under Armour’s guidance.
Tap Into Your Core Audience
As a marketer, sometimes it is hard to step outside of your own mind and into the head of your readers. However, we see here that this is exactly how Under Armour was able to become so successful. Here are a few tips to help you connect, really connect, with your readers.
Ask more questions. You might think that you know what your audience wants, but until you ask, you might not really Don’t be afraid to ask probing questions. Ask your audience what exactly they need to solve their problems, and what persuaded them to look into or buy your product.
Conduct a split test or review your Google analytics. Don’t always assume that your audience favors your how-tos or in-depth guides. Your entertaining or humorous posts might be the content that is pulling your audience in. To get a thorough understanding of what your audience is valuing the most, you will need to split test a few pieces of content, or simply review your analytics for traffic patterns.
Use your best customers as resources. It goes without saying that your best customers see the value in you. Pick their brain and find out what exactly it is that the value so much about your product or service.
Don’t try to be everything to everyone. One of the key branding traits that Under Armour nailed is zoning in on one particular target market. There’s nothing wrong with servicing a niche; in fact, it can work out better for your business in the long run.
The 10 I Wills For Winning With Copywriting
Now that you have an idea for how you can connect to your audience, your next obstacle is to write some top-notch content that kick starts your sales. When it comes to writing content that resonates with your audience, be prepared to put your best foot forward — and do it with a plan.
1. I Will Meet My Audiences’ Needs With My Content
In the world of content, it is almost never about you. The purpose of developing content is to satisfy the needs of your audience, whether it is through answering questions or providing relevant information on a regular basis. Whatever your audience is seeking, it is up to you to be the go-to source for their needs.
2. I Will Produce Content Of Top Quality
If you really want to get the most out of your content strategy, producing top quality content should be at the top of your list. Your content should always be 100 percent original, free of spelling and grammatical errors, and exclusive to your company.
3. I Will Educate My Audience With My Content
One of the latest Google Panda updates put an emphasis on educational content. As far as quality content is considered, content that informs and educates is one of the characteristics that Google looks for when ranking content.
4. I Will Format My Content So It’s Easy To Read
Presenting your content as one big block of text is a big turn off to your customers. Properly formatting your content involves breaking it up into easy-to-read paragraphs. Use bullet points, bolds, and italics where necessary. Don’t forget to break up your paragraphs with headlines.
5. I Will Write Attention Grabbing Headlines
Studies have shown that 80 percent of your customers will read your headline, but only 20 percent will click and read. In order to increase the number of click-throughs to your content, you must write compelling headlines. Compelling headlines typically consist of numbered lists, questions, and statistics.
Simply winging your content strategy will have you running out of blog ideas and losing your readers one by one. In order to maximize your content strategy and get the most mileage out of your efforts, incorporate an editorial calendar into your content campaign. It’s as easy as A-B-C.
7. I Will Curate Content Often
Curated content is predicted to take a big turn in 2015. Showcasing the hard work of others on your own blog will put you in the position of a thought leader. The key to successful curating is adding your own twist with expert insight — give it a try.
8. I Will Re-purpose My Content To Reach More Audiences
Add a twist to your usual blog post by trying out an infographic on for size. You can also expand your blog posts into slideshows and videos, which will help you reach a larger audience pool.
9. I Will Run Regular Content Audits
Content audits aren’t the most fun activity in the world, but they can help you find gaps where your current website needs improvement. By filling these gaps, you can satisfy the needs of more customers, which can ultimately translate to sales.
10. I Will Develop Content Like A Thought Leader
The best content marketers write and think like thought leaders. Thought leaders blaze trails and think outside the box with their content. Strive to develop top-notch content that is original while showcasing the very best of your products and services.
It is safe to say that Under Armour nailed the I Will slogan, as you can apply it to pretty much anything in life. By following this set of guidelines, you can start connecting to your audience on a deeper level while producing the best content in your industry . . . and you will.
Are you in shock that it’s 2015 already? It seems like 2015 is going to be a great year for social media and content. Although they say looking back is not a good thing, when it comes to Twitter, looking back can be a wonderful experience. They’ve created a custom domain just for the 2014 tweet moments of history that occurred last year. So, let’s sit back, enjoy some coffee or tea, and take a look back at 2014 at some of the best and most powerful hashtag moments.
Ready? Here Are The 35 Best Hashtag Moments
They range from silly ones like #RoyalTweets to remembering some wonderful people we lost such as Robin Williams. The 2014 hashtags also saw an incredible turn towards moving discussion around various social issues, and many things such as protests around the world, may have been overlooked had it not been for the social site. Let’s take a look at some of these hilarious, sobering, and amazing hashtags from 2014. (Review all 2014 hashtag moments on the collection from Twitter.)
#FirstTweet. You might think that everyone should already be on Twitter by now, but 2014 saw several new faces. All tweeted out their first tweet, complete with the accompanying hashtag. The Twitter newbies ranged from news sources and businesses to fans of Iron Man and Iron Man himself, Robert Downey Jr.
#Marvel. 2014 sure was the Year of Marvel. Throughout 2014, the studio released film name after film name and made major waves in the comic and film industry. You can expect a huge lineup of amazing superhero movies in the next few years, including Captain Marvel and Doctor Strange, which just so happens to be starring Benedict Cumberbatch in the title role.
#NewYearsEve. This hashtag is self-explanatory, but it was a popular one nonetheless. Tweets ranged from showing pictures around the world, Times Square, or people talking about their wild night in with Netflix, a mug of tea, and their cats.
#GoldenGlobes. One American pastime is watching different sports; another is watching tons of award shows. When award season comes, the trends start rolling out. Last year, thousands of people took to live-tweeting the Golden Globes giving their opinions or making snarky remarks throughout the show. Snarky retorts are the lifeblood of the Internet!
#RIPPhillipSeymourHoffman. While 2014 was a great year for many, it came with its fair share of sad news, one being the death of the beloved actor Phillip Seymour Hoffman. It was a sad day for many, and people took to Twitter to remember the Capote actor and all of his amazing successes.
#SuperBowl. I featured an awards show, so naturally I am going to feature sports for you sports lovers out there! Football is one of America’s favorites, and the Super Bowl brings everyone together (even non-football fans) for great laughs, amazing football food, and of course those hilarious (or powerful) commercials.
#Sochi2014. Does it feel like Sochi happened last year? My, how time has flown by! In 2014, we were privy to the various disasters and puppy adoptions of Sochi as well as Olympians showing us what they are made of. It was a great time for Twitter, and of course, how can anyone forget that ring not opening?
#ALSIceBucketChallenge. It seems impossible that anyone could forget this trend just yet! The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge took over our social channels for weeks, and provided those of us in hot summer climates the chance to cool off for a cause. People dumped ice water all over themselves to raise money and awareness for the ALS Foundation, which became quite successful for the foundation. Even Stephen Hawking participated in the event!
#DoctorWho. Series 8 of the 50-year-old show began in 2014 with a new face as the Doctor. It was met with a blend of excitement and criticism, but the one thing we can all tell for sure is that Doctor Who is still strongly winding through the Time Vortex to our televisions.
#Oscars. I’m not sure there is any way we can forget the Oscars of 2014 all because of Ellen’s awesome selfie that broke Twitter records. Not only did the Oscars have the selfie moment with Ellen, but also Benedict Cumberbatch’s epic photo-bomb of U2.
#BringBackOurGirls. Earlier in 2014, the world received the horrible and sad news of the kidnapping of over a hundred girls ages 15 to 18 in Nigeria. A group called Boko Haram, which means, “Western education is a sin,” was behind the kidnapping and subsequent murdering of school officials. People all over the world reacted negatively to the news, and the campaign to “Bring Back Our Girls” began.
#BlackLivesMatter. 2014 had its ups and downs, but it also was a big year for major social issues. One issue is that of white cops killing black individuals and never receiving an indictment. The Black Lives Matter trend began after the police officer that shot Michael Brown was not indicted. The trend gained strength when the cop, who killed Eric Garner by placing him in a chokehold, was also not indicted. The trend is still going strong into 2015.
#YesAllWomen. Another social issue hashtag is that of Yes All Women. The hashtag was in response to the Santa Barbara shootings and the manifesto left behind by the shooter. Women grouped together on Twitter and shared their stories of sexual harassment, abuse, and rape as well as other problems they have faced due to being female.
#RIPMayaAngelou. The world of literature lost a bright spot when Maya Angelou passed away. Amongst everyone mourning her loss, we were all treated to quotes from her poems, stories about her triumphs and reminders of the impact she left on the world. While it was a sad time for us all, the #RIPMayaAngelou was a great chance to celebrate the life of one of the greats.
#WorldCup. 2014 also saw the World Cup come back around, with people cheering for their teams. One of the first things everyone was quick to point out was that there weren’t any annoying noisemakers this time around! We got to watch as team after team won, and watched as Germany incredibly decimated opponents, including Argentina, which led to the team winning the 2014 World Cup.
#MH370. A popular news item from 2014 was the strange, and sad, disappearance of Malaysian flight MH370. No one knew what had happened, and even though there were many reports, it began to dawn on everyone that we might not ever find the plane or know what caused its disappearance. This led to questions, and, of course, several references to LOST.
#RIPRobinWilliams. We saw the too-soon death of Phillip Seymour Hoffman and felt the harsh sadness of Maya Angelou, but none of us expected to hear the news of Robin Williams. It still brings tears to many eyes. We lost a great treasure in 2014, yet with his death came the incredible moments of people sharing their stories of depression and seeking help for suicidal thoughts. Amongst the main tweets mourning his loss came tweets with numbers to call if a person is feeling suicidal and many offering to talk to those in need of an ear to hear them.
#HeforShe. While we saw a few emotional moments of social issues trending on Twitter, we also got to see our favorite Hogwarts student stand up for women’s rights and gender equality across the globe. Hermione Granger, or rather, Emma Watson, stood before the United Nations making a speech about her new initiative called He for She, and people began flooding social media with posts supporting her goal.
#MarsOrbiter. The Curiosity Rover is still on Mars, but it wasn’t alone for very long. Unfortunately, we didn’t see any Martians, but the Indian Mars Orbiter decided to swing by for a little visit and chat. People took to Twitter to congratulate the Indian space team, but also to instantly follow the new Twitter account for the Orbiter. Much like Curiosity, the Orbiter tweets about where it is, what it is doing, and people even get to see great photographs of the red planet.
#UmbrellaRevolution. Hong Kong saw strong protests when protestors began accusing China of reneging on their agreement for open voting in 2017. It was dubbed the Umbrella Revolution, and produced several stunning and moving images.
#RoyalTweets. Many members of Britain’s royal family tweeted throughout 2014, including the Queen herself. People were very excited about this, and many even crafted some of what they thought they royal family would actually tweet.
#MalalaYousafzai. There is no denying, Malala Yousafzai is an incredible force in the movement for women to receive education around the world. She came into the spotlight for defying orders to not return to school, getting shot in the head by the Taliban. She has since written a book. Malala is also now the youngest person ever to win the Nobel Peace Prize and is an incredible role model for many young people.
#WorldSeries. Football might be the sport many Americans pay attention to, but the real sport of America (depending on who you ask) is baseball. This year saw the World Series yet again, but with a possible twist. It may have been an I-70 game between Kansas City and St. Louis. That didn’t happen, but the World Series was still highly tweeted and talked about.
#Voted. In an attempt to get more young people to vote, Twitter and other social sites reached out, encouraging everyone to vote in the USA’s November elections. All across Twitter, you were greeted with many people saying they #voted, and it quickly became the trend many wanted it to be.
#ISS. NASA made sure that space still ranked high for many people by encouraging their astronauts, and other nations on the International Space Station to tweet. Followers of NASA and other astronauts were treated to gorgeous photos from space, and some funny stories as well.
#BerlinWall. Talk about an amazing anniversary – 2014 saw the 25th year since the Berlin Wall came down, uniting Germany. There were tweets galore from the wall, as well as many different history lessons for those who weren’t alive yet or too young to remember. What an incredible moment in time!
#CometLanding. Just when we think we’ve done all we can in Space, we get something new and exciting. In 2014, we landed a probe on a comet for the first time in history. We were able to hear it “singing” and received absolutely stunning images back here on Earth.
#Carnaval. This is an amazing festival that takes place in Brazil between Easter and Ash Wednesday. It is a celebration that has been adapted into Lent, and is something that everyone should experience.
#TweetLikeJadenSmith. Ah yes, the funny hashtags! One of these happened to be the trend to #TweetLikeJadenSmith. Jaden is the son of Will Smith, and he quite frequently posts some odd tweets that have been implemented by Buzzfeed into clever Garfield cartoons. However, in 2014, everyone who decided to tweet like him used this hashtag, and the results were hilarious.
#LeBroning. Sometimes, all a trend needs is a photo and before you know it, it is taking over the world. (If only the Brain realized that as he attempted to take over the world.) Mr. LeBron injured himself on the basketball court in 2014, and instantly people started duplicating his pose and tagging it #LeBroning.
#DragonAgeInquisition. Dragon Age: Inquisition took the gaming world over by storm, and no one could hold back from tweeting about it. People tweeted about the detail allowed for character creation, the stunning scenery and imagery throughout the game, and some of the funnier moments spread throughout.
#GameofThrones. Not much of a shocker, is it? This season of Game of Thrones saw several major deaths (as always), a lot of quotable moments from Cersei, and even a spoiler for book readers.
#AlexfromTarget. This is one of the stranger trends on Twitter and all circled around a teenage kid named Alex, who worked at Target. That’s really all there is to the sensation that was Alex from Target.
#EuroMaidan. Another wave of protests that 2014 saw happened to be what is dubbed the Euromaidan. Hundreds of Ukrainian protesters flooded Independence Square calling for a closer integration with Europe and many wanting the president to be fired.
#Frozen. While the film came out in 2013, Frozen dominated social media throughout all of 2014, including references to Let it Go, building snowmen, and everything else Frozen related. In fact, ABC’s Once Upon a Time got Frozen fever, as well.
As you can see, 2014 was an incredible year for social issues being voiced, as well as hilarious moments joining people together. No matter the trend, Twitter is proving to be a powerful source for everyone. Let’s see what 2015 has in store for trends and hashtag moments!
