3 Strategies to Brand Publish in 2015

As brands move away from traditional advertising and marketing strategies to embrace the power of content marketing, the rise in brand publishing is accelerating.

What does this mean for you in 2015? Brand publishing is the commitment an enterprise makes to producing creative and engaging customer-centric content across multiple platforms to build brand awareness, social media ambassadors and new leads. Brand publishers are social media winners. Brand publishers are thought leaders. Brand publishers are building social communities and driving new leads and opportunities to their operations by leveraging effectual inbound content strategies.

Are you a brand publisher? If not, here’s what you can do to be a brand publisher in 2015:

1. Create Great Content: A brand publisher nurtures and builds a content matrix designed to convey a brand’s expertise, services, philosophy and mission. The content includes everything from blogs and social media updates to white papers, webinars, podcasts, visual content, newsletters and brand-driven website content. If you want to be a brand publisher in 2015, organize a content strategy and commit to a content schedule across multiple platforms, including social media. Who’s brand publishing? Check out Dell’s Tech Page One, Intuit’s The Fast Track, North Face, GoPro and even Coca-Cola to view different creative approaches to producing original, great content—across multiple platforms.
2. Tune Your Social Media Content To Your Target Audience: It’s not enough to update social media platforms with timely content. You need to ensure you are updating with content that your target audience—your customers and potential customers—want to see. Who is your target audience? What do you know about your target audience’s behavior patterns, buying habits, job titles, work challenges, hobbies and more? As a brand publisher in 2015, you not only need to share content about your expertise, services, market trends and activities, but also address the problems, challenges, interests and goals of your target audience. What brands are doing social media right as brand publishers? See the social media platforms of Starbucks, General Electric and Bobby’s Burger Palace and note the way the content they share is perfectly targeted to their customers—and prospects.
3. Think Mobile: Clearly, mobile is dominating everything from the way people interact to the way they shop. Smartphones and tablets are everywhere. Take a look at predictions for the mobile workforce alone! By 2015, the world’s mobile worker population will reach 1.3 billion—roughly 37.2 percent of the total workforce. According to a report in GeekWire, Americans spend an average of 162 minutes on their mobile devices each day—and that trend is growing fast. The Content Marketing Institute shares views on ways to publish content on mobile platforms to grow brand awareness. What’s effective ways to mobile publish? Make sure your content—especially your website—is easily viewable on mobile devices. If your website is not optimized for today’s mobile world, bring it into modern times with a responsive design that allows your website to be viewed on all mobile devices. While you are at it, consider updating your website to be more reflective of the user experience today’s mobile viewers seek—quick content bursts, strong visuals and even video content. If you want to brand publish smart in 2015, deliver content in a mobile-friendly format that speaks to your customers—recruiting new leads and brand fans in the process!