One of the most consistent blog topics I’ve been seeing the past 3-6 months has centered around content strategies. Most of these posts center on questions around things like content volume, distribution, channel selection and engagement metrics. Those questions served as an interesting backdrop for the PR News Google Boot Camp in San Francisco last week, where I got the chance to speak and share the day’s agenda with multiple internal Google experts and folks from companies like Cisco and Toshiba. The crowd was highly interactive, especially on social throughout the event, which you can track at #powerofpr. The four key takeaways for me were:
- PR is getting it re: measurement. The level and depth of questions from the crowd was impressive. Everything from how understand the value of earned and social media through specific metrics – not things like UVM and impressions, rather multi-channel flow and direct vs. indirect traffic – to how to maximize AdWords and SEO strategies, the audience is becoming much more aware of the importance of measurement.
- The power of visuals and mobile. Almost every presenter at one point in their talks mentioned the need for content to be mobile-friendly and that visuals (video, images, infographics) absolutely needed to be in your content development toolkit. Especially given mobile search is outpacing desktop and the buyer’s journey has moved to micro-moments, embracing this reality is key to getting content in front of your audience.
- YouTube is a key strategy for enterprises – and is a lost opportunity for others. Bandwidth, expertise, and budget were all concerns for many of the smaller companies in the audience. However, there are a variety of resources, between iPhones being used to shoot independent movies to cost-effective editing software that can empower any sized organization to produce quality video. Given the audience size and search power of YouTube, it’s vital to leverage the channel in your content plans just like you do Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.
- AdWords has evolved for legitimate mass appeal. Through the ability to set specific geo thresholds and keyword triggers, online advertising is within everyone’s reach and budget. And if you’re a niche business, understanding your SEO world and leveraging that via AdWords can be especially powerful based on PPC models.
The biggest takeaway for me overall is this – the fact that an event of this level and depth around measurement, analytics and SEO was fully dedicated and attended by PR practitioners from across the nation. PR as an industry is waking up to the larger universe of possibilities for and around earned and social media. Are you ready to join?
This article was syndicated from Business 2 Community: Content Strategies in 2015: Make it Visual, Make it Mobile
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