Value added is king

The concept of value added came to the world of media and marketing from the world of business. Companies have always tried to understand what incentives they can give customers to deter them from buying competing products. In the information overload era, any article or other content becomes a product of sorts. But it doesn’t compete with a handful of companies, it competes with hundreds or thousands of other articles.

This is why an article published by a blog or media outlet should contain something that will make a user pick it from hundreds of others. An example is how media works with news.

The upcoming deal between Uber China and Didi Chuxing, China’s biggest taxi service, has been extensively covered by the media. Bloomberg was the first to report it.

Competing media outlets faced a choice: simply rewrite the news piece or try to develop it. Venturebeat chose the first option, adding nothing more than a screenshot of the then CEO Travis Kalanick’s blog entry with confirmation of the deal. However, TechCrunch published an article on possible outcomes of the deal. Moreover, Wired offered its readers a detailed analysis explaining why this step showcases Uber’s failure on the Chinese market.     

In a similar manner, those creating corporate posts should realize what constitutes the value added that their competitors lack. It could be statistics, a valuable expert comment (it’s crucial to root out unimportant information) or foreign-language content that hasn’t been published or properly explained yet.

More content, better results

This statement is not obvious, but true. Editors preparing content for publication on blogs or expert columns have to get a feel for their job. Also, frequent publications increase reach.

Publication timing affects success

Marketing experts around the world analyze how the time of a publication affects its success. For instance, social media expert Dan Zarella together with KISSmetrics, HubSpot and Search Engine Land conducted research on the optimal timing for posting blog entries.

According to the results, Monday is the best day for posting content for US companies. Articles released after 11 a.m. had the biggest reach. Entries posted on Saturday after 9 a.m. showed the biggest number of comments. Finally, articles released on Monday or Thursday after 7 a.m. had the most external links.

In turn, marketing expert Noah Kagan analyzed the data on 100 million articles collected by BuzzSumo. He found out that articles posted on Tuesday get the most shares on social media and, as a result, the most views. On the contrary, users of LinkedIn and Pinterest prefer to share links to blog articles on Monday.

Our friends from Smile Bright Media Inc. content agency also analyzed statistics on blog and social media articles released by companies in the b2b and b2c segment. We reviewed hundreds of articles posted in IT communities, blogging platforms and other resources.

It resulted in some interesting facts. B2B companies prefer to post their articles on Tuesday and Thursday, but the number of views on Tuesday is quite low, users are only less active on Friday. The best numbers came on Saturday.

As for b2c companies, they tend to release new content on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, which is not the best choice. The numbers of views are not great on Thursday and Friday – they are much bigger on Saturday.

Obviously, a well-written and interesting article will have readers on any day of the week, but it’s possible to improve results with correct timing. Thus, analyzing the timing of competitors makes it possible to either pick a different time or to lure readers away. It depends on specific tactics and you have to test different options.
Likewise, realizing that nobody posts anything on weekends and people simply don’t have anything to read, allows a company to dominate the media realm during this quiet period.

Bells and whistles distract from what really matters

Marketing technologies constantly evolve as more and more interesting tools emerge. For example, HARO makes it possible to get comments on popular media.

However, the fact that technologies make the work of marketing experts and editors easier does not mean you have to use them.

It’s really that simple: the best content in history was written with a pen or a typewriter. Keyboards are the only tool needed to write a fascinating article. All the fancy technological features just distract from the important stuff (and earn money for their inventors).

Summing Up

• An article should have added value: why should the reader choose this piece among hundreds of others?
• The more articles, the better the results: practice makes perfect and allows you to experiment with various formats and increase the reach.
• Timing affects success: studies show that companies post more content on certain days but it doesn’t mean that they get more views.
• Technological features distract readers from the essence: new tools are not a prerequisite, as one can achieve great results without them.

This is merely a quick guide to getting priorities right when creating content. Writing high quality business articles is a broad topic that cannot be explained in a nutshell. This is why we help marketing specialists and managers deal with important issues and avoid typical mistakes in our corporate courses.

The post How to Attract First Readers: 4 Rules to Follow appeared first on Linguix Blog.

Our math

We looked into 500 articles published by the following resources:

• • TechCrunch — high-profile tech blog on technology and start-ups;

• • VentureBeat — one of the most noticeable English-speaking resources on start-ups;

• • The Next Web — a well-known European media-holding which team works on a web resource dedicated to a wide range of topics, including IT and technology;

• • ZDNet — a forum which publishes some serious news on IT industry from journalists and independent bloggers, and who also publish overviews and analytics within the industry;
  • Tech in Asia — an IT-related project focused on the Asian regions.

We analyzed 100 articles per resource – these were not just news updates, but editorials or dedicated entries of independent representatives of different companies.

Famous publications have almost stopped the practice of using open view counters. This is why the popularity of the material was determined via data of social media likes and “shares” (here included Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+). The number of resources represented by “social” buttons of specific resources can differ, but the four above mentioned services always remain.

Important footnote: some research shows that it is common thing to share articles within social networks without actually reading them. Most well-known entry upon this topic – a text by Slate published back in 2013. Media analytics resource Upworthy also has data proving that users who have read 25% of the word count, are more likely to “share” the piece, than those who did not read the text. Or, those who stayed on the web page for a longer period of time, and then that indicator goes up again.

Therefore, social network “shares” cannot represent a universal way of measuring readers’ engagement, but they allow us to compose a particular opinion on the involvement of the audience regarding the content.

Furthermore, given the the resources in question do not represent other instruments to measure popularity, we used what was at our disposal.

Stats: readers’ preferences

We broke down our analysis into several lines – technology and startups topics, more specialized “analytical” materials and a topic connected to reading English-speaking materials by users from Asia.

TECH AND STARTUPS: TECHCRUNCH, VENTUREBEAT, THE NEXT WEB

Readers’ preferences can vary within the topic of tech and startups.

For instance, TechCrunch visitors prefer medium-length articles of 5 000 to 10 000 words. That said, longer articles attract some interest as well: if we put together data from “10k to 15k word count” and “15k symbols and above”, the result would be roughly the same as the popularity of short articles (up to 5k symbols):

Different length articles popularity on TechCrunch

Speaking of Social Networks, the situation is different from publication to publication. TechCrunch readers prefer Facebook, then comes Twitter. Although LinkedIn is used quite actively – this social network has a little less than third of reposts:

TechCrunch articles partition by social networks

VentureBeat readers in turn love “minor forms” and actively read short pieces of up to 5k symbols. Mid-length texts and Long-reads are less favored here:

The popularity of different length articles on VentureBeat

Readers tend to repost more frequently on Facebook, followed by Twitter. LinkedIn, even though it gets a third place, yields seriously:

VentureBeat articles allocation within social networks

The Next Web readers also prefer short articles which are up to 5k symbols, though their attention still may be attracted by medium length article. Long-reads, however, are quite unpopular:

Different length articles popularity on The Next Web

Social networks preferences in here do differ from other resources related to startup and tech topics: the public reading the The Next Web strongly prefers Twitter. Facebook merely gets a second place in popularity:

The Next Web articles repost allocation by social networks

ANALYTICS, REVIEWS AND “SERIOUS” TECHNOLOGY: ZDNET

ZDnet.com has all the reputation of a serious outlet publishing only specialized material. This audience is formed not only by tech fans, but also by C-level IT managers.

Taking that into account, we were expecting to see favor towards long-reads, however it appears that readers’ preferences do not differ much from what startup fans like: short texts win with a huge advantage:

Pieces of different length performance on ZDNet

In terms of choosing a social network for sharing the content, the preferences are divided almost in half between Twitter and Facebook with a slight lead of the former:

The ZDNet articles repost allocation by social networks

ENGLISH-LANGUAGE PUBLICATIONS IN ASIA: TECH IN ASIA

Those readers, who consume English-written content while staying in Asia, have got predilections which make them differ from the West. According to Similarweb, the majority of readers visit the Tech In Asia web page from Indonesia, India, and Singapore. These readers tend to fancy mid-length texts:  

The popularity of different length articles on Tech In Asia

What is in it for marketers

Here are several recommendations for content marketers based on our stats:

• • Readers do not like long reads on tech and startups — you should be brief enough not to loose reader’s attention.

• • Asia-based English readers prefer medium-length pieces to short ones. People from those regions do not pay much attention to long reads, however, super short pieces are not their choice either. While dealing with this audience it is better to prepare interesting and well composed pieces of medium length.

• • There is no need to artificially make the text shorter. Our survey shows that almost every article which fits the mid-length category finds its reader, though such pieces may give way to short texts in terms of readership.
  • One should not underestimate LinkedIn. Our social media analysis shows that this network is a great source of traffic as readers of different media tend to share there content they like.

The post How Long Should Your Content Be appeared first on Linguix Blog.