We’ve all watched in awe as Felix Baumgartner has demanded a new definition of ‘extreme’ and, in our industry, we should have been equally hypnotised by the benchmark set by his sponsors, Red Bull, in connected communications. By way of a couple of minor diversions into pre-social web sharing principles and the death of SEO as we know it, we’d like to argue that now is the time to have your damascene conversion to the currently buzz art of ‘content marketing’.
Exhibit one. Take this
fascinating and passionately argued piece asking us to consider the existence of a 'social web' pre-web 2.0 and the ongoing relevance of pre-web 2.0 social sharing activity (you know, forwarding emails, posting to forums and the like). Because a great swathe of reporting in web analytics fails to account in detail where a referral has come from, this often gets wrongly identified as 'direct' traffic. The author argues that this is often the pre-web 2.0 traffic that you may recall from a time when we shared links via instant messenger, email and so on.
He calls this 'dark social', presuambly due to its 'off-the-radar' nature. The theory is that, even now, these sources are often responsible for 2.5x the referral impact of
Facebook; in some cases up to 69 percent of social traffic may be coming from these kinds of sources.
Exhibit two. At a recent panel session on key digital trends for 2013 we were treated to an unusually candid assessment of the future of SEO by a couple of figures that have enjoyed a prosperous decade practicing that occasionally dark art. Namely, that optimising rubbish content for search will no longer cut it. This, mark you, is the SEO industry admitting that they can no longer get away with peddling search-optimised crap.
The reason?
Google Penguin and
Panda. Penguin is an algorithm (no come back… we promise this will be worth it) that penalises the search ranking of sites which practice the darker arts of SEO and Panda is effectively an algorithm that prioritises quality content in search results. On that latter one, you'll just have to trust us - we can't tackle the subjective notion of 'quality' in this post.
So, not only is the 'social web' a simple evolution of sharing behaviours that were well rooted in a pre-
Zuckerberg web (the difference now simply being that some of us choose to publish and archive the things we share via
Twitter, Facebook et al) but Google, the principle content delivery tool of the web, is working hard to purify any barriers that its technology has placed between audiences and the makers of good content.
The conclusion we're left to draw? Your content and social media strategy are supporting players that can have a huge impact on successful communications. But their role is to help people find great content and share it. Daily we see examples of great content that surges through our Twitter and Facebook feeds without much in the way of a content or social strategy.
Now, let’s bring Felix back to wake them up at the back. Red Bull Stratos brings truly inspirational content and effective strategy together in an event that’s brilliantly promoted and then handed over to the community (with careful management) to bring to life by virtue of their genuine excitement about the proposition. In this case: 'man attempts act that defies nature'.
Perhaps because of Red Bull's mastery of social channels the 'dark social' impact of this campaign registers less than the averages discussed earlier but you can be sure that as word of Felix Baumgartner's appointment with nature spread from sons to fathers, to mothers and their friends, even Red Bull lost full control of the channels.
This serves both as a reminder of the impact that digital can have now on how we experience content in a connected environment and of the flesh and blood impact of the 'real' on what constitutes a great communication. In a future where great content is the most powerful currency for brand communications these ingredients are inseparable. But undoubtedly, the first question you should ask yourself is ‘where’s the Felix moment going to come from’?
