This week, we’re sharing examples to help you avoid the cringe, promote your events on LinkedIn, and imagine creating a whole new world.
Cision helps marketers avoid cringe-inducing copy
“User-friendly content at a world-class organization transformed into unprecedented ROI.” If that sounds like most of the marketing copy you read (and some of what you write), think about what emotion it prompts. For journalists, Cision says, the reaction is a cringe, an eye roll, or a shudder.
Cision’s 2021 Global State of the Media Report lists these 20 words as the most overused according to the journalists it surveyed: best of breed, world-class, unprecedented, unique, cutting-edge, thrilled, exciting, leading, disruptive/disruption, award-winning, innovative, ROI, dynamic, transform, leverage, seamless, largest, user-friendly, easy-to-use, and extensive.
WHY IT MATTERS: Word choice matters. Journalists are tired of seeing these words. Your audience may or may not be. But are any of these terms helpful to them?
Overuse of words like these happens for one of several reasons:
- Rushed (or lazy) writing
- Brand-centric or boastful writing
- A desire to sound smarter or more sophisticated
But none of those reasons attracts or helps your audience. If you find yourself tempted to use one, take a step back and think about what your audience needs to know, what matters to them, and the language they use.
.@Cision revealed the 20 words most likely to make journalists cringe. Here’s our hot take – your audience loathes them, too. So cut them from your #content. @CMIContent #WeeklyWrap Click To TweetLinkedIn introduces new event promotion features
B2B marketers have a new tool for promoting events – whether they’re in-person, hybrid, or online. LinkedIn introduced event ads that let you list event-specific details such as date, time, how to register, and so on.
LinkedIn’s event ads let members know if a mutual connection has expressed interest in attending. They also come with helpful aggregated analytics so you can better understand the reach, engagement, and firmographic makeup of event attendees.
With the new ads, you can create an event on LinkedIn, then create an event marketing campaign to support it. LinkedIn says beta customers saw cost per registration drop 40% when using event ads vs. similar sponsored content single-image event campaigns.
WHY IT MATTERS: Events still matter in B2B content marketing. Forty-eight percent of marketers in CMI’s most recent B2B research said they plan to invest in in-person, hybrid, and virtual events this year – that’s the third most popular tactic (behind content creation and website enhancements).
We particularly like the feature that lets you see which LinkedIn connections also have expressed interest in attending. You can’t buy that kind of social proof.
Doesn’t matter if your events are in-person, online, or hybrid. You still need #marketing to support them. We take a look at the new event ads from @LinkedIn. @CMIContent #WeeklyWrap Click To TweetSK-II shows the marketing potential of creating whole new worlds
P&G-owned skincare brand SK-II built a realistic virtual city that customers can explore, according to Vogue Business.
“Inspired by the city-building video game SimCity, SK-II City is based around iconic sites in Japan …,” the Vogue story explains. “Users can visit destinations, like a movie theatre to watch films created by SK-II Studios, or a backstage tour area to see behind-the-scenes footage from campaigns.”
Visitors can make “purchases” or interact in the city to earn “miracle drops” that the brand matches with donations to one of its charities. SK-II plans to add a virtual store where visitors really can buy its products.
Launched in Japan, SK-II City is expected to make its global debut within the year.
WHY IT MATTERS: Does this content marketing tactic offer a glimpse of the future? Cathy Hackl of Future Metaverse Labs tells Vogue Business: “A brand’s social media and website is where customers are currently meeting them, but as we move towards web 3.0, these virtual brand worlds are the calling cards of the future.”
But creating a city or other virtual world is a big investment. Julie Ask of Forrester doesn’t see that happening in the short term. As she explains to Vogue Business: “[Branded VR experiences] are a fun and interesting idea but it’s probably five or 10 years ahead of its time. I don’t imagine there’s going to be positive ROI.”
While we can’t predict how quickly the virtual world will evolve, we do know that content marketers must be ready to think differently to keep up with consumer interests and expectations.
Is hyper-realistic #VR @SKII_US City a sign of #ContentMarketing trends to come or expensive experiment? Either way, it’s a reminder to think differently to keep up with audience interests via @hijinxmarketing @CMIContent. #WeeklyWrap Click To Tweet(H/T to Andi Robinson, whose tweet about SK-II City caught our eye.)
Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute
