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3 Hot Takes: The (Always-On) Show Business of Content

Just when you think you’ve got content marketing all figured out, you start to notice little shifts in the game. We’re bringing you three hot takes this week to get you up to speed: an episodic content tutorial, insights into a hashtag strategy at one of the biggest social media players around, and the emergence of ‘always-on’ content.

Wistia teaches how to put on a video (or audio) show

In just 132 minutes, you can learn to create a new video or audio series for your business.

Show Business from Wistia Studios is a series of videos that teaches the skills you need in our stages: development, pre-production, production, and promotion. Each stage includes five episodes, ranging from two to 12 minutes. Episodes in the development stage, for example, cover everything from idea development to getting buy-in from executives. Lessons in the production stage go into detail on scripting, casting, and branding.

Each video includes expert resources from agencies, brands, and Wistia, which is a video hosting platform for B2B brands.

How to create a brand show | Show Business by Wistia Studios

Each video includes resources such as worksheets, tutorials, and deleted scenes. Wistia also provides a transcript for those who prefer a non-audio version. If you take and pass their test, you get your own Show Business certificate. (The price of admission is your email address.)

HOT TAKE: Wistia planned its Show Business course wisely – even busy content marketers can fit a segment or two into their schedule every day. Though it’s not easy to create a video or podcast series, the Show Business formula is easy to understand and follow.

Show Business also is a great example of content marketing itself. Wistia uses experts both inside and outside its brand to teach the audience, boosting the series’ credibility. And it’s wonderfully meta – an episodic video show about how to create episodic video (and audio) shows.

.@Wistia created a wonderfully meta #video series about how to create video (and audio) series – teaching content marketers – and showing them ‘That’s how it’s done’ via @CMIContent. Click To Tweet

Instagram says to think beyond hashtags

Instagram head Adam Mosseri launched a series this summer to help users learn more about how the Instagram algorithm works. He started in June with Shedding More Light on How Instagram Works and recently published Breaking Down How Instagram Works.

One of the insights he shared is that the Instagram formula isn’t all about the hashtag. Hashtags are important, he said, but so are relevant keywords. Among Adam’s recommendations to help your accounts and content get found through Instagram search:

  • Create handle and profile names that relate to the content of your posts. If your audience has a nickname or another name for your brand, include that in the profile and/or handle too.
  • Add keywords in your bio. Include locations if your business is geographic-specific.
  • Put relevant keywords and hashtags in your captions, not the comments. If you do the latter, the search algorithm will never see them.

HOT TAKE: The more transparent a social media platform is about its process, the more helpful it is for content marketers looking to improve their strategy. In this case, we were surprised to learn how old-school SEO (i.e., keywords) works for Instagram search, too. Though you need to think about the keywords your potential Instagram audience might use, they probably don’t differ dramatically from your standard SEO research.

.@Mosseri wants you to know how the @Instagram formula really works. One thing to know –it’s not all about the hashtag via @CMIContent. Click To Tweet

Always-on, not just always available, content marketing

Is your content marketing always on?

And no, we don’t mean always available. They’re not the same, according to Chelsea Waite, director of communications at inPowered. As she recently explained in a piece in Forbes:

Think of it this way – your company’s website runs nonstop. Your content is available whenever consumers want to engage with it … ‘(A)lways-on’ involves an additional tactic or component that’s continuously optimizing your content marketing, like artificial intelligence.

Dave Chaffey of Smart Insights shares this definition:

Always-on marketing means a planned approach to scheduling and optimizing continuous marketing activities which support customer acquisition and retention throughout the customer lifecycle.

An always-on strategy requires you to adopt a long view of your content marketing instead of a campaign mentality. Leveraging data allows you to learn how your audience behaves and adjust your content marketing activities accordingly. You can better deliver what they need in the right format on the right channel at the right time.

Chelsea says the three things are essential to an always-on strategy: 1. Proprietary data-based strategies to increase personalization and engagement with individual content pieces. 2. Standardized must-measure metrics to evaluate how well the strategy is achieving your goals. 3. AI and large pools of customer data to scale and optimize the strategy’s impact.

Do you know the difference between ‘always-on’ and ‘always-available’ #ContentMarketing? A recent @Forbes piece argues they’re not the same. Read @CMIContent’s take. Click To Tweet

HOT TAKE: Delivering the content your ideal customers want when and where they want it is the holy grail of content marketing. Adopting an always-on content marketing strategy – and using AI tools and available data to make it happen – brings you closer to achieving that goal. The key is to recognize that an always-on digital content marketing strategy requires a flexible mindset – your team and your brand must stand ready to adapt to better meet your audience’s needs.

An ‘always-on’ digital #ContentMarketing strategy requires a flexible mindset via @CMIContent. Click To Tweet
Intrigued, puzzled, or surprised by an example, news, or something else in content marketing? Share it with us by completing this form. Your submission may be featured in an upcoming Weekly Wrap.

Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute