The Anatomy of a Successful Digital Content Piece
Hawke Media
When his clients and peers began discussing the idea of taking their own startups public, Hawke Media CEO Erik Huberman wrote an article for Entrepreneur, "If, Like Many Others, You're Hesitating About Going Public, Scale This Way Instead."
Why It Works
In the piece, Huberman appeals to his audience’s interests and offers his own perspective on the issue from the standpoint of a CEO. The piece resonates because it’s written by someone who has faced the exact issue people are talking about. The topic was a perfect fit for Hawke Media’s audience, as well as the publication.
Key Content Creation Takeaways
Jumping on a current topic can be a good way to drive engagement and interest—but only if your brand has something meaningful to say. Think about what you can add to the conversation that’s valuable, different, and relevant.
Topic
Moz Whiteboard Fridays
Each Friday, SEO company Moz produces a Whiteboard Friday video focused on a key topic their marketing audience is interested in.
Why It Works
Starting with a topic they know their audience cares about, Moz is able to develop highly specific, useful videos
that drive engagement. It’s also a great meta-marketing play for their own Keyword Planner tool.
Key Content Creation Takeaways
Keywords, like many digital metrics, are just an
approximation for the real-live interests and
questions of humans. In your research, try to
dig below the surface to uncover what your
audience really cares about.
Keywords
Fast Company
In John Hall’s Fast Company article, "The Long-Term Memory Hack That Can Grow Your Network and Business", he conveys how the mind actually works in regards to memory and how it shifts from short-term to long-term.
Why It Works
Because Hall isn’t a scientist, he
incorporated outside research to
explain and substantiate his point.
Providing this kind of information
helped give power to his argument
and demonstrate the logic around
the point he made.
Key Content Creation Takeaways
Research doesn’t always have to come from within your own industry. Looking at a wide range of sources when researching a piece can often yield more interesting (and powerful) data to back up your thesis.
Research and Expertise
Larry Allen: From Compton to Canton
In conjunction with their Deep Blue documentary series,
The Dallas Cowboys created interactive microsites like
this one: Larry Allen: From Compton to Canton.
Why It Works
The piece uses extremely clear, flexible information
architecture to allow the audience to consume the piece.
Arrows allow viewers to consume the piece linearly; a
timeline tracks progress along the bottom. You can also
use the hamburger nav to jump between sections.
Key Content Creation Takeaways
For each content piece, consider what you want the audience to take away from it and how you can help them reach that goal most efficiently. The format and structure of your piece should add to the experience, not detract from it.
Format and Architecture
Buffer Blog
Buffer’s blog is one of the best out there for
insights, updates, trends, news, how-to guides,
and analysis of all things social media marketing.
Why It Works
The team at Buffer focuses on crafting content
that’s as enjoyable to read as it is valuable and
educational. They’ve invested serious time and
effort in copywriting.
Key Content Creation Takeaways
It pays to hire good writers—and editors. Make
sure to set your team up for success by giving
them ample time to write and proofread each
other’s work.
Copywriting
USA Tomorrow
The design for the USA Tomorrow microsite, created
in conjunction with the launch of Megadeth’s album "Dystopia", cleverly showcases the band’s work while telling a compelling story.
Why It Works
A fake news site design allows Megadeth to tease different songs, videos, and merchandise. The graphic style and site theme bring to life the dystopian lyrics
from the album.
Key Content Creation Takeaways
Before starting a visual design, consider the mood, tone, and narrative arc of the piece. It also helps to start thinking about design as you’re writing so that visuals, media, and design elements help you convey parts
of the story.
Design
Medium
Beyond publishing what people want to read, you’ve got to make it easy to share, too. Take a look at the variety of plug-ins available, from “click to tweet” buttons to widgets that make it easy to share highlighted text for ideas to make your content easily shareable. One of Medium’s features allows readers to highlight a quote from an article and share it immediately, making it easy for people to share their favorite ideas from an author’s content.
Why It Works
Content marketing doesn't end at publication. More than ever, people are looking to their personal networks and influencers on social media to discover new content. Creating content that’s easily shareable will increase the ROI of your efforts and make your content more visible.
Key Content Creation Takeaways
Optimize your website for social sharing, and get the most of every piece of content you create by leveraging all the paid, earned, and owned channels at your disposal to increase your contents' visibility.
Shareability
Choose a topic that appeals to your audience, tells a story, and presents a unique perspective. For inspiration, search for trending topics, talk to members of your audience and current clients, and read other industry content.
Topic
Click for Example
Use a keyword planner tool to identify topics and consider which options make sense given your audience. You can then optimize your content around keywords with the greatest search volume and lowest competition.
Keywords
Click for Example
Present yourself and your brand as experts in your field by using relevant, reliable research to supplement your personal insights and experiences. Back up your ideas and support your claims with research, talk to other experts, seek out industry data, and pull stats from reports within and outside your space to enhance your content.
Research and Expertise
Click for Example
What format would help you convey your story best? Is an infographic the right choice? Would your readers prefer a series of blog posts or an interactive guide? Think through how you can organize your content in a way that makes it easy and enjoyable for your audience to consume.
Format and Architecture
Click for Example
Writing quality content is about more than avoiding spelling mistakes and bad grammar. Your content has to be compelling to your audience. It should be written in a way that engages your readers, provides value to them, and reflects your brand’s voice.
Copywriting
Click for Example
Create a visual framework for your piece by using graphics, videos, interactive media, branching narratives, gamified content, and more. The design should help you tell your story and engage your audience.
Design
Click for Example
Make it easy for your readers (and your team) to share the content. Prepopulate social posts and create teaser versions of your piece to prepare for social media
and email promotion.
Shareability
Click for Example
most content pieces aren’t successful.
In fact, studies have shown that up
to 70 percent of content created by marketing teams goes unused.
The majority of brands
are creating content, but
Explore the infographic to learn about the anatomy of a successful piece of digital content.
What separates a successful piece of content — one that your team can truly use and your audience can fully engage with — from all the underwhelming ones?
70%
Learn More
Learn More
Influence & Co. is a content marketing agency that combines a world-class team of content marketing experts with over a thousand publication relationships and innovative software to help companies strategize, create, and publish content that meets their unique goals.
Bring Your Content Design to Life
Ceros’ interactive design platform can help you turn static content into dynamic, engaging web experiences.
Topic
Keywords
Research
Architecture
Copywriting
Design
Use a keyword planner tool to identify topics, and consider which options make sense given your audience. You can then optimize your content around keywords with the greatest search volume and lowest competition.
Keywords
Shareability
Hover over the icons below to explore each content component, and click to view a related example.