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P&G Always is empowering young women with confidence in these powerful and viral videos. With over 90 million views worldwide Always has managed to change the perception of the phrase 'like a girl'".  

  What does it mean to do something “Like a Girl”? - Watch to see for yourself!

Background

In 2014 P&G Always launched a video campaign on YouTube with the title “#LikeAGirl”. In the video  they asked young women, young men, little girls, and a little boy what it means to do something “Like a Girl. The purpose of this is to show the different perspectives of the phrase “Like a Girl” between the two different age groups. Always also used paid Facebook posts and Twitter posts to influence the reach of the video. To drive engagement from users on social media, Always leveraged the hashtag #LikeAGirl as a call to action and asked women to tweet the amazing things they do “#LikeAGirl’.  In the first three months, the hashtag #LikeAGirl received over 177,000 tweets including many celebrities.

“  We want all girls to live life to its fullest potential and we’re right here to back all of you. “ - Always  

Why #LikeAGirl?

Before the campaign #LikeAGirl started Always had very little engagement with people on social media. They were mostly only producing demos of their products and were having a very difficult time getting people to share their content. If you really think about it nobody wants to share content associated with females monthly period. Speaking as female myself, I don’t even want to spend a second thinking about it. 

At this point, Always knew it had to think outside the box. Competitors like Playtex were already engaging with their customers at more emotional level and were well established on social media. Always whose target market age group is between 16 to 24 years old were not being engaged properly on social media. 

“We believe women are incredible. They have unlimited potential. They’re strong with a splash of fabulous and a dash of wonderful and can do anything they put their minds to. And Always is their biggest cheerleader!” - Always 

CONFIDENCE!

Girls self-esteem drops twice as much than boys during puberty, as seen in the graph above. Some women never regain their pre-puberty level of self-esteem and the goal of Always is to understand why this is happening. If they can reduce the drop of self-esteem even a bit, they would make a significant change in the lives of many young women.

Confidence is at the core of the Always brand equity. Every time a woman purchases an Always product, Always wants to assure them, that they’re purchasing a product that will protect them, and make them feel more confident about themselves. so in hindsight Always is selling confidence to their customers.

Research shows, women tend  to stay loyal to a brand once they find a brand they like. The next goal for Always to increase customer loyalty in their target market. To do this they would need to connect with their target age group in the way that gets their attention.

In the past Always has communicated with their customers in a more functional type of way. They would demonstrate videos of their products assuring their customers that their products will provide protection for them. Always then hopes, this would to lead to women feeling more confident about themselves.

Results

90m+ views; number two viral video globally1 .

1100+ earned-media placements and 4.4bn+ media impressions in the first three months.

Always Twitter followers tripled in the first three months; Always YouTube Channel subscribers grew 4339%

177,000 #LikeAGirl tweets in the first three months, including many celebrities.

Higher-than-average lift in brand preference; claimed purchase intent grew more than 50% among our target.

In a study conducted in December 2014, almost 70% of women and 60% of men claimed that "The video changed my perception of the phrase 'like a girl'".

What next for the #LikeAGirl Campaign?

Always #LikeAGirl - Girl Emojis

The video was released on YouTube March 2, 2016 and it already has 3.9 million views 

“Live Proud #LikeAGirl

Creating original content is not easy. It requires brands to put forth extra time and effort just to make sure the message will get across to their target audience. However, what if brands can curate user-generated content instead? What better way to develop content than to use user-generated content?

Why Is User-Generated Content Important?

In this day and age, everyone on social media is a content creator. We have the opportunity to share our thoughts, creativity and ideas through the means of text, photos, or videos. It’s where we devote our lives for social currency. Undoubtedly, social currency turns into word-of-mouth which ultimately leads to sales conversion. Brands know that user-generated content is important because it can make an impact on their sales and reputation. According to CMI report, 78% of B2C companies are starting to use more user-generated content (UGC) in their marketing strategies (2015).  Why? Because consumers trust user-generated content more than any type of media form. It is like trusting your friend’s advice. You’re more convinced to buy something if you know your friend had a positive firsthand experience. Then you’re more likely to trust the brand.

So, how can brands leverage user-generated content? According to Corey Walnwright, here are some ways brands can get started.

1. Make reviews easy on brand’s website.

Reviews are user-generated. This is where users write their own content about what they like or don’t like about the brand, product, or service. As previously noted, consumers care about customers opinions. However, the problem is many brands do not foster this. Businesses should format reviews as conveniently as possible. It should be accessible and easy by a click of button including comment functions, star rating system, photo uploads, group forms, etc. This permits consumers to gain more insight and create discussions. Having a mix of positive and negative reviews is normal because everyone has different tastes or experiences. Though, it would be immoral and deceitful for brands to delete negative reviews and keep positive reviews only. The purpose of user-generated content is to show brands’ authenticity and credibility. 

2. Take control over your online reputation.

Whether if a business has positive or negative reviews, other people will write content about the brand on their blog, social media channel, or online review site. Although brands do not have control over these sites, what they could do is actively participate in positive conversation. Of course, no one wants bad reviews because it can harm their reputation but positive reviews are always welcomed. It will help boost SEO rankings and increase backlinks.

3. Ask reviews from your best customers.

Not everyone is going to take the time to write a review. Brands need to reach out to customers and ask them if they can take the moment to fill out one. This is how user-generated content will be created. Preferably, brands want satisfied customers to write a review. Commonly, brands use email marketing message to request customers to write a review.

4. Create case studies.

Aside from reviews, another type of user-generated content is case studies. The difference is that businesses have more control over how the information is presented. Case studies are meant to highlight positive customer’s opinions or successful examples. Although brands are the ones who publish the content, it is based on user-generated content. Case studies can be presented in multiple formats such as video, PDF, slideshow, and blog posts. More importantly, make sure it is shareable.

5. Encourage social discussion.

Last but not least, user-generated content is highly influential on social media platforms. Consumers will often visit a brand’s social media network to evaluate their likeability and trustworthiness. As a result, they will decide if they want to make a purchase from the brand. This is why brands should use their social media presence to encourage discussion from their fans and followers. This will not only build more content but it will increase social posts discoverability in search results.

Conclusion

When discussing Berger’s STEPPS, the 6 principles of contagiousness, it is important to realize that the order in which they are discussed is not meant to infer importance on certain principles over others. They are referred to as STEPPS for better memorability, part of what we will talk about more in this blog.

Climbing the STEPPS

The T in STEPPS stands for triggers, which (for those of you who follow my blog will know already) refers to the “top of head, tip of tongue” ideal where a company wants you to think of them even when they are not necessarily present in your environment. Furthermore, the E in STEPPS stands for emotion, or the emotional aspect of marketing. As marketers we want consumers to feel a certain way, because “when people care, they share.”

Sciencey Stuff

I like to talk about these 2 principles together particularly because of how the brain works. Mind you I’m no neuroscientist, but my understanding basic neurological pathways and the way in which a person recollects things really brings triggers and emotions together.  Basically when someone remembers something via a trigger their neurological pathways replay the signals it received from that stimulus, almost as if it the experience was happening again. The more you actually expose yourself to the stimuli the better you will remember it, sort of like developing a muscle memory, but for your nervous system.

You may be thinking that this all sounds fairly sciencey, what happened to heart and emotion, well I’m coming to that point. Contrary to olden time beliefs, we do not feel emotions with our heart, emotion also comes from the brain. Guess what, (kudos to people that mentally respond what) the nervous system remembers how things make you feel as well, so If chocolate makes you happy, the areas of the brain associated with happiness light up. The more you feel and the more you do, the more your neurological pathways will remember.

Marketing Uses

Now that we got the heavy stuff out the way we can focus on the fun application side of things. In the blog covering a brief intro to Berger’s STEPPS I asked readers to think of the first word that comes to mind when I say the word Peanut Butter. Like I said then most people, even I would probably say jelly (though I would never eat them together), but would that be true the other way around. One reason for this could be the fact that we are exposed more to the idea that PB&J is a good lunch item and that when referred to the Peanut Butter is always mentioned first. Another reason is that jelly can be used for other things a topping for toast, inside of a donut, blasting jelly (non-food explosive).

When out shopping where would one find the Jelly? Well next to the Peanut Butter of course. Well I have a problem, because I will only eat Peanut Butter with one other food . . . and that is celery. Most people find it weird, but I find it comforting, because it was a snack my Dad’s Mom made for me when I would spend time at my Grandparents house and she died when I was little so it reminds me of her. I don’t eat Celery and Peanut Butter a lot and the reason is that there are hardly any triggers for me to do so. If Peanut Butter were having a hard time selling stock a cool promotion to do would be have a social media contest showing people eating Peanut Butter in all different ways and get consumers thinking beyond the PB&J.

Getting into the Consumers head

The fact that the intended audience received and understands the right trigger at the appropriate time is the most important things for a marketer. The easiest way to do this is to have the message set to blast. Like the Peanut Butter and Jelly example. I don’t eat Peanut Butter so I would not buy Jelly after being exposed to the Peanut Butter, the intended audience would though and that is what counts in marketing that the message is heard and action is taken.

Another example of this is the otaku culture. Having been exposed to what outsiders would call excessive anime or manga watching/reading the first thing that would pop into their heads, would be entirely anime related. Like when we were covering a chapter on personas in Pulizzi’s book I kept thinking about the series Persona 4.

Take away points:

People all have different experiences and finding the right message to set off a trigger can be difficult, but looking at the audience personas can help with that.

Triggers: Top of mind = tip of tongue. The goal is to be top of mind as often as possible

By: Jennifer Steenken (Marketing Expert)

We live in a digital world that is full of content and marketers are struggling every day to capture the attention of their niche audience. That’s why it is important to have an integrated content marketing strategy.

 According to the Content Marketing Institute and Marketing Profs “80% of B2B marketers have some sort of content marketing strategy in place”, which is a great.

 So it is important to recognize if you as a marketer are using the right tools to capture and engage your audience. Are you using digital advertising, or updating you social posts often and changing up your marketing strategies to attract you audience? Well here are some stats to consider that were taken from the short article 3 Ways Digital Advertising Gives Tactical Support to Your Content Marketing Mission:

In the next three years social media advertising is going to increase exponentially   because it is an easy way for businesses to attract a new audience by using already shared information between users.         

Users who have been re-targeted have a 70% chance of converting.

A bakery saw a 35% gain in conversations and a 330% gain in their impressions when they were on Google’s Display Network. ·

Wordstream says when it comes to re-marketing the more the user sees the ad the more likely they are to talk about it.

It is important to look at these stats and take in to consideration what would be the right type of tools to use when capturing and engaging your audience. Digital advertising for instance can be a great tool to use in your content marketing strategy. The tips below will make sure that you’re getting the most bang out of your buck when it comes to making a successful content marketing stage.

Make a connection with people you already know.

 Marketers always have an idea of the type of audience they want to attract which is called the known audience.

Typically your know audience is more likely to react and interact with your content no matter what topic or idea you bring up. This known audience usually consists of people in your social following like your past and current customers, industry influencers and your brand advocates.

 A prime example of this would be if a Marketing client wanted to launch their new product within their SAS (Statistical Analysis Software). The client already has an idea of their audience but just needed help getting their product notice. This is where I would recommend the re-marketing program.

What this program does is take different pieces of your content and re-market it to different parts of your known audience. Ultimately driving up demo’s of the new software, which was according to the short article 3 Ways Digital Advertising Gives Tactical Support to Your Content Marketing Mission, “a 26% increase from their original advertisement tactics”.

By getting the most out of re-marketing you should spread your message and target your know audience across different channels. Your audience is everywhere so by showing your ad on different platforms you have a better chance of being notice.

Target your unknown Audience

Digital advertising helps brands attract a niche audience by using keywords, interests, topics, titles, companies, demographics and much more.

The advantage to this is that it allows brands to deliver topics and relevant content to an audience you didn’t know existed, opening up new opportunities for your brand/ company. The question is: When is it a good time to use this in your content marketing strategy? A great time to use in your marketing strategy is when you want to drive up sales and create more brand awareness.

A good example of this would be if a healthcare technology client had a major change in their industry and they created a lot of new stuff to adjustments to that change. This type of information would be important to a large audience and it is a great opportunity to attract your consumers with paid promotions. By doing this it creates clients to be better thought leaders and it helps them stay more focused on their goals.

By using these types of targeting methods it will help improve the level of engagement especially when it comes to your unknown audience. This is shown below with the engagements numbers dramatically surpassing the old/ historical method.

“Amazon Fashion.” Yep, you heard it. When I thought of Amazon as a wearable brand, the first thing that came to mind was this:

But not exactly, Amazon is actually developing a fashion branch under several different label brands that can offer fashionable apparel at a more affordable price. Products include men’s dress shoes and suits, women’s business wear, and casual children apparel. Although none of the brands carry the Amazon name, Amazon has started selling clothes under the following trademarked names: 

Franklin & Freeman 

Franklin Tailored James & Erin

Lark & Ro

North Eleven 

Scout + Ro

Society New York. 

Weird? Not so much if you really think about it. The company has a reputation for trying out so many different things in different directions. Amazon offers a wide array of everyday items, offering hundreds of thousands of name brands, including their own generic product line AmazonBasics. Their generic label aims to offer high quality alternative products for a much lower price than their premium name brand counterparts. We’ve seen the venture into online streaming with their AmazonPrime streaming application. 

But is it really a good idea?

With a 20% increase in sales revenue from 2014-2015, Amazon is in good enough shape to expand into different industries. Although it is still in the early process of trial-and-error, it makes sense as to why getting into the fashion industry is a good idea. They have experience in fashion, and tons of information collected over the years, watching their customers purchase clothes. This makes the idea of them selling their own fashion products sensible. 

As Wired’s Davey Alba points out, Amazon has actually been selling clothes for a while, not forgetting the acquisitions of Shopbop in 2006, Zappos in 2009, and its launch of flash-sales site MyHabit in 2011. Through all these efforts though, Amazon hasn’t exactly made a name for itself in the fashion industry. It’s association to batteries, kitchen products, and technology may be the reason why they didn’t associate the company name with any of the products and brands. Jason Goldberg, vice president of commerce and content at digital agency Razorfish gets it spot on when he states, “Amazon is generally thought of as a very good brand for fulfillment of needs, but not so much for aspiration.” 

Strategy

There’s no doubt that Amazon is serious in its commitment to be a successful fashion retailer and according to Goldberg, the company is “well beyond the testing phase.” Last year the company was a sponsor of the New York Men’s Fashion Week and have been recruiting for its Amazon Fashion Private Label Unit, snagging big names in the fashion industry, like Vogue editor Caroline Palmer. The company even has a 40,000-square-foot studio in Brooklyn that is used for fashion photography for its website. 

Amazon also intends to increase the quantity of clothes available on its site. In the past year, Amazon’s apparel and accessories climbed up 91 percent to 20 million items by the end of 2015. Because Amazon has collected tons of data by watching how consumers shop when purchasing from partnering companies, the company is able to determine what types of clothes to sell. Amazon has come to the realization that if a company doesn’t want to partner with them, the demand for a particular item still exists. Amazon can just go around them and create the clothes itself.

Advantages and disadvantages

The margins in apparel sales tend to be significantly higher than electronics, which can explain Amazon’s venture in creating its own fashion products. Margins aren’t everything though since brick-and-mortar retail stores still have an advantage, where customers can try on clothes before they purchase. Amazon looks to break through that disadvantage by making their delivery and returns process more seamless than ever. Amazon is also in a good position to minimize the extra cost of those returns. With the experience, capacity, capital, and drive behind the integration, it is a perfectly valid move for Amazon to start selling its own clothes in order to keep the ball rolling.. err rather box rolling.

THE KEY TO “SHAREABLE CONTENT” 

When great content fails to attract the audience intended , what’s the problem? People who are in to content marketing say, “I want my post to go viral.” or, “we want to share this content everywhere with everyone ” It’s a great realistic goal, but even the best marketers in the business don’t go viral every time they publish content. 

There is no guaranteed way to expect your content to be shared so much it goes viral. Though, with a few simple tips, you can boost the chances of your website content being shared and optimize your posts for easy sharing and boost the odds of your posts receiving the deserved attention from social media users.

First Things First Your “Headline”

I can’t stress enough about how important a catchy headline is. If your headline is boring and dull no one is going to want to click on your post or even bother looking at what you have to offer. Take it from me if I scroll through content articles and post I will pass about 50 post before I decide to finally read one only because the headline was funny or interesting, I read headlines and subject lines and if it does not catch my attention I skip.  

A headline can be extremely effective at getting people to share it. If it sounds exciting or has a strong call to action in the headline, people are more likely to share it. It must always be related to your content and be relevant to what you are talking about. It should stand out and make people want to read it. Don’t mislead and trick your audience, but keep it new and engaging. 

Focus on making it a catchy headline and even accompany your content with an interesting image that compliments the content and draws people in. Being visual is key.

Dons Skimp Out On Visuals!

“Tweets with images are 94 percent more likely to be shared, and photos on Facebook get 53 percent more likes.” There is no doubting that visual information is shared more often. Use photos or images wherever you can, pictures are a very important element for increasing social shares. The visual elements are vital to getting attention for your post in social media, to communicating the key message! Try to make your images:

Simple. Don’t over complicate them.

Powerful. Use wow/awe factor

Emotive. Use images to start emotion in your followers.  

Funny. If it makes them laugh out loud, they will share it.

Make them want to hit the Re-tweet, Re-pin or like button.  Take advantage of images and get creative.

Get Involved With Current Events or Memes

Linking topics that your readers care about with current events is a great way to create a relevant and attractive post. People love to share a new point of view on a current topic with a creative new Meme. To connect with current topics and Memes in your content, you have to move fast or plan ahead!

1. Know your target audience

Who are you trying to appeal to with the social meme or current event?

2. Stay creative

Memes are meant to engage your target market through human connection, humor, awe, call-to-action, or inspiration. Creativity is key when you’re trying to grab people’s attention quickly.

3. Stay Current

Using older meme images or events can be effective, but the most viral content will result from the latest event or image of the day. For Memes, search for popular ones on Imgur or Instagram or better yet create one. It could possibly be the next biggest Meme.

Last but Not Least 

Don’t Be Afraid to Ask!

The Autry Museum of the American West is dedicated to enhancing the experience of all visitors.  The name of this organization was changed from Autry National Center of the American West to Autry Museum of the American West.  Whether you want to get a feel of how life was back when the Americans moved west, or how the Native American lived in the West before the whites moved West, The Autry Museum of The American West is a great choice.  The Autry Museum offers different types of exhibitions to meet everyone’s expectations.  The Autry Museum of the American West is especially a great place for visitors who come to California from abroad.  They will have the opportunity to get a detailed insight on how the American westerners lived back in the day. 

The Autry Museum also offers different programs such as theater, film, lectures, festivals, music, family events, research, and so on.  The Autry Museum own more than 500,000 pieces of art and artifacts.  The Autry Museum is a one of a kind museum that offers a combination of many Native American perspectives with Western history.  As stated in the mission statement of the establishment, The Autry Museum of the American West brings together the stories of all peoples of the American West, connecting the pas with the present to inspire our shared future.  

There are very many different content marketing tools, some expensive, some cheap/free, but they are all effective for different applications. When you want to create your content professional, you need tools. There are different types, which can help you to find ideas, create content, theme recherché, finding keywords, track your strategy, get inspiration or doing research/competitor analysis.

 Finding ideas and keywords

Pinterest

Pinterest is a visual platform that offers a user experience the other platforms like Facebook or Twitter don’t. Combined with your other efforts, Pinterest could provide the content you’re looking for and you can get ideas for images. So Pinterest isn’t only there to present yourself, you can also get more inspiration through Pinterest!

Keywordtool.io

If you are searching for a interesting theme about one keyword this is the right tool for you and a good alternative to Google’s Keyword Tool. To get to know which specific keywords are the most common on Google, Youtube, Bing or the AppStore you just type a search term and the most common keywords are presented. You can see the search volume (how often people search for this specific keyword per month), the average cost per click and how competitive the keyword is. All in all a very helpful tool, to pick the right keywords for your content.

  Quora

This is a portal for different questions and answers. User can ask a question and others (experts) answer them. This free portal is usable for recherché, but also to generate traffic when you answer to questions and link to your content.

 Google Trends

This Google tool shows you information about how often and which keywords were searched through the search engine Google. You can see how popular different keywords are and analyze them. That shows you trends in the community. It is possible to see to what specific time which trend was common. So you are able to see if there exists seasonality for specific themes.

Track your strategy

Editorial Calendar

For example “wordpress.org” are offering these calendars as a download. It is an easy way to track all your activities and plan your content for the future. You only have to plan different activities for specific dates in the future and it gives you a good overview and you will never miss or forget what you will post. By the way, you can create easily your own editorial calendar with excel! That’s a little bit more work, but has the same impact.

Research/Competitor Analysis

Buzzsumo

This is a very interesting tool. You can do influencer research, marketing, theme recherché, can choose the format, doing benchmarks and competitor analysis and you can report and monitor your campaign. The prices are from $99 (pro version for blogger) up to $999 (Enterprise version for brands and publisher) per month. For example Yahoo, IBM or Expedia use this tool. It is a little bit like an all-rounder.

Ahrefs

This tool can help you track your backlinks, keywords, brand mentions and it can show you what your competitors are doing. Prices are from $99 (Lite version up to $399 (Advanced version).

  Impactana

This is a really nice tool. It is a content marketing, video marketing and influencer analysis tool in one. With the content marketing part you can search ideas for content. The most interesting part is the influencer analysis. You can analyze the most successful influencer in your branch. Also you can study influential videos and improve your video strategy.

  Create content

Piktochart

This tool (online) allows you to create interesting infographics. There are plenty of designs available and nearly infinite adaptabilities. It is very easy to create compelling graphics and a must have. It is free, but if you want to use the whole range of designs etc. it is $15 for the lite version and $29 for the pro version.