#G2Fireside Twitter chat took to discussing content and data this last week.
Our past chats have covered social media and technology and chatbots & AI. We asked our audience about the future of AI voice assistants, how teams can leverage chatbots, using social media to generate new leads and prospects, and more.
On August 15, 2019, we led a Twitter chat that focused on how companies create content, how data can fuel content, and even jumped in on brands that are using content in an inspiring way.
As a member of the content team regularly contributing content to our sites along with others, I hosted the chat and was joined by CloudApp’s Joe Martin, VP of Marketing & Strategy, and Maile Waite, Digital Marketing Manager, and Malte Landwehr, VP of Product at Searchmetrics.
Let’s dive into some of the responses that our participants gave us.
Q1: What is the most important thing to have in mind during the content creation process?
For the first question, we asked our community about what they have in mind when they are creating new content. Alice Corner jumped in with her thoughts about CTAs:
A1: I’m starting to learn to think backwards – what action do we want our audience to take from this piece? Frame your content around your CTA, rather than create content and add a CTA at the end #G2fireside
— al corner (@blerhgh) August 15, 2019
Our guest, Maile from Cloud App, gave her insight on the importance of having customers in mind:
A1. You can write a Nobel Prize-worthy piece of content, but if it’s not useful to your customers, it might as well not have been created in the first place. It’s so important to study and understand what your customers want or, even better, need. #G2Fireside
— Maile Waite (@mailewaite) August 15, 2019
Bentley University talked about the list of things they keep in mind when creating content:
A1.
The most important things
to consider when creating content?💪🏽Your audience
💪🏽Your purpose
💪🏽Your goal
💪🏽Your message
💪🏽Your voice
💪🏽Your medium
💪🏽Your strategy#G2Fireside— Bentley University (@bentleyu) August 15, 2019
G2’s Alexa Drake shared her process for keeping the target audience at top of mind:
When creating content, I will always start my draft writing out who the article is for at the top of the page. It keeps me focused while I start outlining and structuring. #G2Fireside
— Alexa Drake (@G2Alexa) August 15, 2019
Q2: Where do you seek inspiration from when creating new content?
Next, we sought to learn how people find inspiration for their new content. Our Head of Community, Levi Olmstead, chimed in with some of his favorite content teams including hotjar, Sprout Social, and FiveThirtyEight:
A2: I love what the teams at @FiveThirtyEight @ringer @pitchfork are doing from an editorial side, and what b2b brands like @hotjar @OberloApp @SproutSocial are creating #G2Fireside
— Levi Olmstead (@levi_olmstead) August 15, 2019
Another special guest from Cloud App, Joe Martin, laid out how his week involves blocking off time for finding new content:
A2b: Its also good to do some research around topics that you think might be trending. A little social and Google research can show you not just high level topics, but what long tail topics you can exploit without much competition. #G2Fireside
— Joe Martin (@joeDmarti) August 15, 2019
Jessica Figueroa spoke to her practice of using notes and hashtags to remember what stood out to her:
#G2Fireside A2.
I use my phone’s notepad everyday so when a good idea or piece of content strucks I write it down for when I need inspiration.Also, benchmark under the hashtags that are relevant to your niche and check why and how were they relevant & then go outside🙌
— Yés | Jessica Figueroa (@yescontilde) August 15, 2019
Christian Lowery talked about using his network to find inspiration:
#G2Fireside A2.
I use my phone’s notepad everyday so when a good idea or piece of content strucks I write it down for when I need inspiration.Also, benchmark under the hashtags that are relevant to your niche and check why and how were they relevant & then go outside🙌
— Yés | Jessica Figueroa (@yescontilde) August 15, 2019
Q3: What are the best examples of brands using content to further their brand image?
Question 3 asked for specific examples of brands that are taking advantage of content to help establish their brand image. Our third guest, Malte Landwehr, shared a few of his favorite brands on social media, including the infamous Wendy’s twitter:
A3: Dove. It all began with the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty by @Dove and @Ogilvy. An amazing, brand-defining campaign with a lot of great follow-ups over the years. Right now, the #ShowUs campaign projects the same brand values.
(2/4) #G2Fireside— ⓂⒶⓁⓉⒺ ⓁⒶⓃⒹⓌⒺⒽⓇ (@MalteLandwehr) August 15, 2019
A3: @Wendys. They are rude af on their social media channels – and people love it! And they attack their competitors in a very direct fashion.
▶️ Your opinion is trash: https://t.co/VitFI8nutb
▶️ Price of a Big Mac? Your dignity: https://t.co/gLQzHLsQsx
(4/4) #G2Fireside— ⓂⒶⓁⓉⒺ ⓁⒶⓃⒹⓌⒺⒽⓇ (@MalteLandwehr) August 15, 2019
Pair networks added some of their favorite B2B accounts crushing the content game:
A3. @SEMRush consistently produces useful high-quality content that shines a positive light on their brand.
The way @Libsyn demonstrates the power of podcasting using with their show and highlighting their clients’ content. @ReneMorozowich also does this well #G2Fireside— pair Networks (@pairnetworks) August 15, 2019
G2 Content Marketer, Lauren, spread her love for a few beauty brands:
A3: @glossier and @lushcosmetics have my favorite Instagram accounts of like all time. Their social images have a very specific point of view. #G2Fireside pic.twitter.com/ruo0YA74Xs
— Lauren @ G2.com (@G2Lauren) August 15, 2019
Finally, I gave a shout out to one of my personal favorite b2b brands, Hubspot, that goes above and beyond with their content from their blog posts to their social media:
A3) One brand that sticks out that does a great job in providing relevant content to their audience is @HubSpot. I find myself referencing their blog for different topics and always leaving with my questions answered.! #G2Fireside
— Anastasia Masters (@anastasia_mm0) August 15, 2019
Q4: What data points are most important to you when analyzing how your content is performing?
Moving on to data, OnePitch shared their most important metrics for analyzing content performance:
A4: We consistently check-in on shares, engagement rates, and link clicks. If people are clicking through to our content and are then taking the time to read it and/or share it, that is a win in our content book! #g2fireside
— OnePitch (@onepitchsaas) August 15, 2019
G2’s own Madison added her two cents about email subject lines:
A4: I love comparing open rates for different email subject lines! Really lets me take an analytical approach to outreach 😊 #G2fireside
— Maddy McDonnell (@maddy_G2) August 15, 2019
Maile added what point is most important to her team:
A4. The success of content is based on an increase in sales, so the main metric I care about is conversions. But to indirectly see how successful the content is, I check keyword rankings, traffic, engagement, social shares, time on page, etc. #G2Fireside
— Maile Waite (@mailewaite) August 15, 2019
Bentley University chimed in with the data points that could be relevant:
A4
It’s imp. to define your goals overall
+ your objectives for each pieceKPIs may vary by biz/campaign too
They can include:
-Engagement
-Reach + awareness
-Impressions
-Audience growth
-Bounce rates
-Traffic
-Time on page
-Brand sentiment (before/after)
-etc. #g2fireside— Bentley University (@bentleyu) August 15, 2019
Q5: How does data from your past content fuel the creation of new content?
It’s important to learn from what’s happened in the past and use that information to guide your future actions. Brafton discussed how they use past data to help influence their current strategy:
Turns out, infographics are a big winner, so we’re working to ramp those up! We want to always produce the content that interests our audience and meets them where they are. #G2Fireside
— Brafton (@Brafton) August 15, 2019
Christian popped in again to share his basic strategy for analyzing previous content:
A5 #G2Fireside
I keep it simple…
Content that performed well 👉🏼do more of that
Content that bombed 👉🏼do less of thatI look to my @Medium articles for data. If one post has 100 claps, and another post has only 2, then the first is going to dictate the next piece of content.
— Christian Lowery (@clowerycontent) August 15, 2019
Malte urged content creators to focus on updating content rather than relying on creating new content regularly:
For evergreen content – that is not just part of a news cycle – it makes a lot of sense to monitor performance (Google rankings, bounce rate, conversion rate, net new links) over time and update the content once performance starts to decline.
(2/4) #G2Fireside— ⓂⒶⓁⓉⒺ ⓁⒶⓃⒹⓌⒺⒽⓇ (@MalteLandwehr) August 15, 2019
The much smarter solution is to regularly evaluate the content you have. If it is no longer up to date, improve it or get rid of it.
(4/4) #G2Fireside— ⓂⒶⓁⓉⒺ ⓁⒶⓃⒹⓌⒺⒽⓇ (@MalteLandwehr) August 15, 2019
OnePitch highlighted the cycle that is creating and analyzing content to round out the question:
A5: It shows you what is working and what is not! Once you can figure this out, you can continue to build off of the content that is working and repeat the data cycle process. It is the foundation for all new content! #g2fireside
— OnePitch (@onepitchsaas) August 15, 2019
Q6: Do you incorporate data from other parts of your business operations into your content? How so?
Next, we asked content creators how they make use of data from other business operations when creating content. I started off by sharing how we use G2’s main offering, user ratings, in the content that we create:
A great way that G2’s team incorporates data into our content is by using G2 user reviews. We use the ratings fueled by reviews when referencing tools. Check out how this article uses G2 star ratings for a variety of tools! https://t.co/A8RFXCHvhV #G2Fireside
— Anastasia Masters (@anastasia_mm0) August 15, 2019
Jordan Barta jumped in with how other teams give him data:
#g2fireside Yes, HR Operations will provide data. But mostly, I’ll use data from the industry.
— Jordan Barta, MBA (@Barta57) August 15, 2019
Joe Martin described how he uses data from Adobe Experience Cloud:
A6b: Our latest is the 2019 video trends report that includes our own data as well as curated data from @Hubspot @webex @cisco @animoto and others. https://t.co/3fxF6Jzgq8 #G2Fireside
— Joe Martin (@joeDmarti) August 15, 2019
G2’s Mara added how she uses Google and G2 trends:
A6: I use the G2 software grid every chance I get! I also like to incorporate the @GoogleTrends graph when I’m writing about something that is newsworthy and “trendy”. #g2fireside
— Mara C. (@G2Mara_C) August 15, 2019
Q7: Do you think the data brands collect about consumers is being used to better tailor content to their audience?
Questioning whether data collection is used to better tailor content towards the audience, Andrew Stewart praised data collection:
A7 – Without data we’re all just making educated guesses and basically walking around in the dark. Data helps us work smarter! #G2Fireside
— Andrew Stewart (@andrewtstewart) August 15, 2019
Malte took the opportunity to highlight how there are still areas for improvement for using data:
A7: Yes. But data is not used nearly enough. The main challenges when trying to use data for content creation are:
▶️ Too many silos. Insights never reach Content Marketing team.
▶️ The lack of CIO/CDO in many orgs leads to a lot of unused and undocumented data.#G2Fireside— ⓂⒶⓁⓉⒺ ⓁⒶⓃⒹⓌⒺⒽⓇ (@MalteLandwehr) August 15, 2019
Bentley University reappeared to discuss how data can help you better tailor content to specific areas:
A7.
Absolutely.
Data helps you better
tailor your content to the
needs, interests, wants, paint points, behaviors, etc. of your audience! 🙂 #g2fireside— Bentley University (@bentleyu) August 15, 2019
Maile answered the question by focusing on how data helps us be more consumer-focused:
A7. Most definitely. We live in a very consumer driven world. Being able to have a data driven content strategy can lead to better engagement and better customer experience over all. #G2Fireside
— Maile Waite (@mailewaite) August 15, 2019
Q8: Have you used data in your content in an unconventional way?
For our last question, we challenged our contributors to share how they use data in a way that may be considered more unconventional. I jump started the conversation by showcasing a case study on G2’s Learning Hub:
A8) Not my piece, but I think this guest post on G2’s learning hub does a great job of incorporating real data points while providing actual advice on how to grow a Facebook page! https://t.co/uwLLf5CEIA #G2Fireside
— Anastasia Masters (@anastasia_mm0) August 15, 2019
Malte used the opportunity to highlight a side project he worked on:
A8: …calculated statistics about who are the most active participants, who gets voted team captain most often, which maps players prefer, etc. I turned all of that into an article.
(2/2) #G2Fireside— ⓂⒶⓁⓉⒺ ⓁⒶⓃⒹⓌⒺⒽⓇ (@MalteLandwehr) August 15, 2019
To wrap up our chat, Maile reminded us that not all tactics should be shared with the public:
A8. Data is a big piece of our content strategy. Its mostly conventional, with a few trade secrets 😉 #G2Fireside
— Maile Waite (@mailewaite) August 15, 2019
Join in on the conversation!
A giant thank you to all the experts and contributors that came out to share their insights during our Content + Data #G2Fireside Twitter Chat.
Don’t miss out on the next twitter chat! On August 29th, our very own Kevin Indig will take on the SEO Twitter Chat with a few guests. We’ll dive into some fun and interesting questions. Can’t wait to see you there!
Looking to chat with me more about content and data? I’m available on Twitter and LinkedIn!