The One Thing You Must Do When Launching A New Content Marketing Campaign
There’s no silver bullet in business—no one perfect idea, campaign, blog post, product, or personality that can solve every problem.
To be a truly successful marketer, you’ve got to deploy a lot of small, well-intentioned (and well-executed) ideas that reach lots of people, spread goodwill, and generally promote your message in a positive light.
Unfortunately, running numerous campaigns means that sometimes, an idea that could have used just one more gut-check makes it out into the world to unexpectedly terrible results.
Content Does Not Exist in a Vacuum
In a recent roundup of content marketing campaigns that failed, Forbes highlighted the lessons that marketers should take away. Almost all of them shared one consistent theme: The company seemed to have created the campaign without thoroughly checking it against existing hashtags, cultural currents, news stories, or other ideas.
For example, last year, DiGiorno pizza attempted to get Twitter users to tell them stories using a specific hashtag that was trending at the time. However, DiGiorno didn’t bother checking to see why people were using the hashtag, or what the purpose of it was. From Forbes:
DiGiorno, like so many others, exhibited such ignorance [about Twitter hashtags] with its entrance into the “#WhyIStayed” hashtag world.
The problem? “#WhyIStayed” was a hashtag being used at the time to explore the nature of domestic violence, abuse, and why victims tend to stay with their abusers.
It was definitely not something to associate with pizza.
The lesson here is clear: Before beginning a content marketing campaign, you must absolutely review not only how the phrase, hashtag, or idea is being used, but also double-check to make sure it's something you want your brand to be associated with.
Often, marketers or companies will want to jump on literally anything that's trending, without looking into whether or not it's a space they actually belong. Exercising a little self-awareness about the context of your brand can save you from clomping into a conversation you don't understand, avoid fallout, and earn good web traffic.
How to Avoid a Massive Mistake
These stories are all too common. Whether it’s companies misusing “Netflix and chill” or trying to sound super-fresh with terms like “on fleek,” consumers can sense when a campaign is meant to be trendy but misses the mark.
Of course, you can't follow every single hashtag or keep track of every news story. But you can do your due diligence to make sure that you're not wading into or misusing something. It's as simple as running a Google search.
During the initial concept creation phase of a campaign, investigate the meaning of terms, the use of hashtags, and the subtleties or turns of phrase before deploying them. Click through to existing hashtags, test them out on teens you know, and ask around the office.
The best way to avoid making an embarrassing content marketing mistake is to do as much research as you can about it and ensure that it’s in good taste, it’s accurate, and it’s going to land well.
There are some ideas that are just so head-scratchingly bad that they can absolutely leave an irreparable mark on your brand. And while it’s easy to see these pitfalls in hindsight, when you’re in the moment, they can be much more difficult to spot. Before launching a new content marketing campaign, it’s always a good idea to run it by a few people—and a few search engines—just to make sure it passes all of the necessary tests.
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