Publish or Perish

We in the agency world spend a helluva lot of time and money creating great content. Then we spend just as much, or more time and money getting people to view that content. So much of that effort is based on providing a bit of a teaser on a content seeding ad unit or social network and so that they click through to the site hosting the content.

But what if we could eliminate the click-through challenge? That’s right, imagine a world without CTR (I’m no John Lennon but it’s still a huge pain reliever for our industry.

My team and I have been working with interactive ad technology to do just that – create units that have the complete site experience – written/visual content, social buttons, forms etc – that can be easily embedded into blogs, paid editorial units and social networks (Twitter and Facebook…maybe another coming soon…).

Here’s an article just published today on a deal between Yashi and Viewbix that outlines the potential. Note that Viewbix is one of the companies we work with closely in this area: http://bit.ly/1xC9za4

I just got beta access to the so-called (self-proclaimed?) “Facebook-killer” Ello. It took approximately 30 seconds to figure out that it’s no Facebook-killer. If it’s going up against anything, it’s Tumblr. Here’s why:

Ello is focused on interests, not friends. The out-of-the-box social experience is more about following people who have, or who post, content of interest. This is more similar to Twitter and Tumblr that first have you find people with shared interests, than Facebook, that first focuses on you using it to connect to friends.

Ello is focused on visual, short form content but not personal content. While it’s focused on visuals and short form content, so is Tumblr. Most of what I see on Tumblr are quotes, photos with captions and other types of short posts. Long form blogging seems to be less popular on Tumblr.

Ello profiles are public by default. Yup, they may not sell your information to advertisers, but your information is not private by default. People are confusing the two. Like Tumblr, and unlike Facebook, it’s geared toward your feed being public. Privacy features are being planned but it’s not core to the Ello experience.

I participated in Connect via Hootsuite a few weeks ago (FleishmanHillard is one of their first partners in the Global Agency Partner program) where I discussed the importance of being able to centralize the different platforms we need to use to drive social and digital programs. For those looking for a little daytime business video, here’s the post-event interview.

A quick interview I did after speaking at the Connect via Hootsuite conference (starts at 1:21).

Here’s part 2 of Jay Baer interviewing me on FleishmanHillard’s content strategy. Full quotes are below and more great posts from Cision, which set this up and sponsored it, at their Blog

http://youtu.be/CjlW6x4OAhI

On earned media: “Our most important metric is still earned media. You still need to earn your way into their minds and hearts.”

On measuring content effectiveness: “The purpose is to simply put it in front of people where if they saw this story, at the right time in the right context, it’s something they want to know, and it’s something they want to discuss. And the measure is, did they discuss it?”

Here is part 1 of my interview with Jay Baer on our content strategy, courtesy of Cision. They pulled some quotes (pasted below) for the short version. Visit Cision’s excellent blot for more at http://www.cision.com/us/blog/.

(oh, and please excuse the shot below – not sure why it’s starting there…)

http://youtu.be/_06TkTSwyto

On getting a story to stick with audiences:

“Great stories are still the most important thing. The content could be the most beautiful, creative content in the world, and if it is, it may get attention for a day. But what we’re really in the business of is to get people to discuss something.”

On metrics for success:

“My favorite qualitative metric of success is, did people talk about it at the dinner table?”

On media relations:

I love Google’s instant surveys. If a question comes up about how people feel about something, we can just ask.

One question that does not seem to be going away is how the general public feels about Google+. Do they care about it? Do they really use it? Based on individual interviews and news media, it seems like it lags as compared to Facebook, Twitter and others. But from a mindshare perspective it seems to be on everyone’s mind. This is almost certainly due to the fact that via one service or another (or via direct registration), a good chunk of the public have registered on Google+.

SwitchPitch is an interesting concept. Similar to what we do in our offices but on a broader basis, companies pitch their challenges to an audience of developers and startups. They then pitch us on their solutions in a follow-up speed dating session. Here’s the video my pitch (FleishmanHillard challenges) to the startup and developer audience. Visit switchpitch.com for more information.

Things are off to a great start here at FleishmanHillard. Today we announced a major newsroom  offering powered by LinkedIn.  Sure, I could post about it. Instead, why not watch the sizzle reel (we launched with with a Summit with LinkedIn, Newscred and Freshwire) and read the AdAge article and news release below.

LinkedIn Summit from Ephraim Cohen on Vimeo.

The News Release:

http://fleishmanhillard.com/2014/04/news-and-opinions/fleishmanhillard-announces-native-newsroom-powered-linkedin/

The AdAge Article:

http://adage.com/article/btob/linkedin-fleishmanhillard-content-marketing-deal/292965/

The Holmes Report:

http://in2.holmesreport.com/2014/04/fleishmanhillard-rolls-out-native-newsroom-for-linkedin/

FierceCMO:

While we were all complaining about Twitter being down, Digiday reported an important piece of information – Twitter’s launch of a direct-to-call button. Sure, it can be used to drive sales. But I’m sure some great creative teams (hint: think FleishmanHillard) are thinking of ways it can be used for new types of fun consumer programs because, hey, when was the last time you got an actual phone call (I’m talking to you, teenage kids hanging around my house).

Here’s the breaking Tweet. I did see the story earlier but this just made me feel like it was not only an important story, but a bit too lonely to not blog about it.

Broke some actual news about @twitter (http://t.co/Ibg7TiZLKY) but no one noticed bc everyone else wrote stories about Twitter being down.

Just joined FleishmanHillard. Why? Great team, culture and a ton of cool stuff going on we just haven’t read about. Here’s what the new boss had to say about me (yup, we’ll check in a few months from now on this).

“We are excited to welcome Ephraim to the FleishmanHillard family,” said Robert Dowling, president of FleishmanHillard’s East region. “He brings a strong understanding of the relationship between brand and reputation, and deep understanding of communications, as well as the digital and social disciplines. The recent success of FleishmanHillard’s data intelligence platform at CES – as well as our award-winning integrated campaigns for clients – is a testament to the strength of our digital offerings. Ephraim’s unique combination of an intellectual approach with practical, hands-on experience will help accelerate our growth and success.”

And, for your reading displeasure, here is the full release: