“For Content!”

Are you doing enough — for content?

“For con­tent: A state­ment used on the inter­net for some­thing that’s usu­ally unac­cept­able in nor­mal soci­ety, but is excused because it is for the pur­pose of a YouTube video.”
Source: Urban Dictionary

Lately, I’ve been fas­cin­ated by the world of chess.

The embod­i­ment of the game used to be the idea of two all-see­ing titans, with stern fore­heads frowned in deep thought, waging an intel­lec­tu­al war against each oth­er over the board — in silence.

Back then, ima­gine being giv­en the fol­low­ing PR brief: 

“Turn chess into a play­ful and fast-paced ven­ue for youth­ful expres­sion. Make it less dull and high­brow. Make it digit­al-first. Also, please make learn­ing about the game a dynam­ic and cre­at­ive grass­roots movement.”

Quite the PR chal­lenge, indeed.

Still, we know how it happened. In December 2019, the Covid-19 pan­dem­ic hit and forced many of us into quar­ant­ine for many months. And then, in October 2020, the Netflix min­iser­ies The Queen’s Gambit aired.

“Chess app down­loads on the App Store and Google Play Store rose by 63% after the show [The Queen’s Gambit] deb­uted. Chess​.com saw more than twice as many account regis­tra­tions in November as it had in pre­vi­ous months, and the num­ber of games played monthly on Lichess doubled as well. There was also a demo­graph­ic shift in play­ers, with female regis­tra­tion on Chess​.com shift­ing from 22% of new play­ers to 27% of new play­ers.”
Source: Wikipedia

The online chess space of today is spark­ling with activ­ity and engage­ment. And it’s not just about chess — the play­ers are becom­ing bon­afide online super­stars. And with online super­star­dom and lively com­munit­ies come drama and main­stream pub­li­city.

The oth­er day I watched a YouTube video with the Botez sis­ters, Alexandra and Andrea. They were fea­tured by anoth­er pop­u­lar chess stream­er, Anna Cramling, the daugh­ter of grand­mas­ters Pia Cramling and Juan Manuel Bellón López.

The three stream­ers had met up to enjoy a couple of fast games while soak­ing in the sun next to a swim­ming pool — and to cre­ate live chess con­tent.

Stakes were added to the games to make the con­tent more enga­ging. The loser had to jump into the pool with their clothes on while the two oth­ers would relay some of the excited reac­tions from their live chat channels.

On this day, Cramling lost — and into the pool, she went.

Adding stakes to make the con­tent more enga­ging is typ­ic­al for the Botez sis­ters. A young chess play­er chal­lenged Andrea Botez for her Snap (boomer cla­ri­fic­a­tion: that’s the equi­val­ent of get­ting someone’s phone num­ber). And I’ve seen the Botez sis­ters dare each oth­er to run laps in pub­lic while flap­ping like a chick­en.

Just your typ­ic­al inter­net stuff, right?

Well. Here’s my point: It’s not that chess is bor­ing. But if you can make your video con­tent a little bit more fun, a little bit more inter­est­ing, and a little bit more enga­ging — why wouldn’t you?

Read also: The Chess Project: 12 Months With the Most Beautiful Game

When it’s time for the loser to jump in the pool, share their Snap, or run laps while flap­ping like a chick­en, you often hear the mod­ern battle cry of the social media influ­en­cer:

“For con­tent!”

Going hyper­bole for bet­ter con­tent isn’t just an online chess phe­nomen­on. Social media influ­en­cers of all vari­et­ies under­stand that they must go the extra mile to keep their audi­ences engaged. Some, like the notori­ous YouTuber MrBeast (Jimmy Donaldson), take the concept of “For con­tent!” fur­ther than most, but still.

Is this silly? 

I’m con­sid­er­ing a fant­ast­ic scene in The West Wing fea­tur­ing US President Josiah Bartlett (Martin Sheen) and the stra­tegic cam­paign adviser Bruno Gianelli (Ron Silver).

Gianelli argues that it’s dif­fi­cult to coöper­ate with pro­fes­sion­als who don’t race sail­boats. When racing sail­boats, kelp some­times gets stuck to the hull. The kelp causes a slight drag. If you try to remove it using a stick, it will cause more drag than the kelp, so you must use a spe­cif­ic tech­nique to pre­serve every bit of momentum.

Gianelli’s point is that he jumps at even the slight­est oppor­tun­ity to main­tain or increase momentum.

Is Gianelli being silly?
To him, every advant­age matters.

As a read­er of this blog, you’re prob­ably a pro­fes­sion­al com­mu­nic­at­or. Am I telling you to spice up your next press release by jump­ing into a swim­ming pool … for content?

Well, I am say­ing pre­cisely that.

The media land­scape of today’s atten­tion eco­nomy is fierce. We would be wise to take the influ­en­cer battle cry “For con­tent!” seriously. 

“People want to be loved; fail­ing that admired; fail­ing that feared; fail­ing that hated and des­pised. They want to evoke some sort of sen­ti­ment. The soul shud­ders before obli­vi­on and seeks con­nec­tion at any price.”
— Hjalmar Söderberg (1869−1941), Swedish author

I’ve worked with cor­por­ate com­mu­nic­a­tions in vari­ous forms since 2005. It’s a fac­tu­al state­ment that all facets of cor­por­ate con­tent typ­ic­ally lack per­son­al­ity, style, emo­tion­al charge, char­ac­ter, atti­tude, fun, and eccentricity.

When you strip cor­por­ate con­tent of humanity’s beau­ti­ful quirk­i­ness, whatever you’ll be left with is … cringe-worthy. And cor­por­ate cringe is far worse than adding some odd fla­vour to your PR messaging.

You may not have to jump into a swim­ming pool to boost your con­tent strategy. But, for instance, have you ever con­sidered adding stakes to your com­mu­nic­a­tion? No? Huh.

Take a close look at your next piece of con­tent sched­uled for pub­lish­ing. Have you gone the extra mile? Are your con­tent cre­ation ideas worthy of atten­tion? Are you sure that there is no kelp stuck to your hull?

Ask your­self: What more can your brand do — for content?

PR Resource: Content Themes

Content Themes

Let’s use a fic­ti­tious example of an IT com­pany. First, they decide on a Promise Filter for their con­tent strategy:

Promise Filter: We make IT easy to understand.

Then, the IT com­pany breaks their core mes­sage down into four busi­ness-crit­ic­al Content Themes:

Q1 Content Theme: We make people under­stand the Internet of Things (IoT).

Q2 Content Theme: We make people under­stand busi­ness auto­ma­tion.

Q3 Content Theme: We make people under­stand cloud com­put­ing.

Q4 Content Theme: We make people under­stand man­aged services.

For each quarterly Content Theme, they pro­duce Content Packages (to build Content Skyscrapers). Each Content Package could con­tain the following:

• Infographics
• Blog Articles
• Whitepapers
• Social Media Updates
• Landing Pages
• Lead Magnets
• Swipe Files
• Template Files
• Content Upgrades
• Online Courses
• Podcast Episodes
• Livestreams
• Email Send-Outs
• Events
• Case Studies
• Webinars
• Video Tutorials
• Interactive Quizzes
• Press Releases
• E‑Books
• Testimonials
• Influencer Collaborations
• Mobile Apps
• Slide Presentations

Learn more: The Content Themes PR Strategy

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PR Resource: Deep Content

Deep Content

Above is an example of an online con­tent struc­ture that’s five levels deep.

In the example above, five lay­ers of ever­green con­tent are stacked:

• Level 1: Articles
• Level 2: Content Upgrade
• Level 3: Resource/​Lead Magnet
• Level 4: Ebook
• Level 5: Online Course

Deep Content is centred around provid­ing increas­ingly high­er qual­ity to Content Divers (click­ing ver­tic­ally) since they’re more valu­able than Content Surfers (click­ing horizontally).

As for the import­ance of struc­ture and depth, the logic is the same as for Iceberg Publishing and Content Themes.

Learn more: The Deep Content PR Strategy: Win By Going Deeper

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PR Resource: Evergreen Content

Evergreen Content

What’s Evergreen Content? For a piece of con­tent to be ever­green, it must sus­tain its value over time. Meaning: The con­tent must be rel­ev­ant today, tomor­row, and the fore­see­able future.

While news con­tent might have a more sig­ni­fic­ant short-term impact, Evergreen Content accu­mu­lates over time.

There are dif­fer­ent ways to lever­age ever­green con­tent. I recom­mend a few axioms for Evergreen Content:

• Two years. To be con­sidered ever­green con­tent, I think the con­tent must be rel­ev­ant and valu­able for at least two years. It’s an arbit­rary time frame, but if an organ­isa­tion can pro­duce con­tent last­ing for two years, it will typ­ic­ally last for much longer.
• Actual interest. To be con­sidered ever­green con­tent, there must be an exist­ing volume of search engine users look­ing for the inform­a­tion. The con­tent will nev­er be ‘ever’ without ‘green’ search volumes.
• Gentle garden­ing. Evergreen con­tent will only stay ever­green if you tend to it occa­sion­ally. To check if everything’s work­ing, add some­thing help­ful if needed, and per­haps clean out some unne­ces­sary stuff. It’s a bit like garden­ing, I find. 
• Personal touch. It’s dif­fi­cult to pub­lish some­thing unique. However, adding your brand’s ton­al­ity and flair to the con­tent is always pos­sible. The object­ive is to estab­lish trust and author­ity, so a touch of per­son­al­ity matters.

Evergreen Content is also help­ful in build­ing Content Themes, Content Packages, Deep Content, and Content Skyscrapers.

Learn more: The Evergreen Content PR Strategy: Forever Is a Long Time

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PR Resource: Inbound vs Outbound

Spin Academy | Online PR Courses

Inbound vs Outbound

The inbound mind­set is a fun­da­ment­al shift in the PR- and mar­ket­ing industry.

Historically, many PR- and mar­ket­ing depart­ments have argued:

“Why should we spend our PR- and mar­ket­ing budgets on ‘already acquired’ audiences?”

The truth is — it’s the oth­er way around.

Instead of “spam­ming” non-exist­ing audi­ences, pub­lic rela­tions and mar­ket­ing can do much more with exist­ing online pub­lics. ¹Silfwer, J. (2015, June 11). The Publics in Public Relations. Doctor Spin | The PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​p​u​b​l​i​c​s​-​i​n​-​p​u​b​l​i​c​-​r​e​l​a​t​i​o​ns/

If your Inbound Shift PR Strategy is good, you might not need to pri­or­it­ise out­bound PR strategies — because your inbound audi­ence will attract out­bound publics.

Drawing a line between those who know you and those who don’t know you is noth­ing new:

• Push Marketing
• Cold Leads
• Traditional Marketing
• External Comms
• Pull Marketing
• Hot Leads
• Permission Marketing
• Internal Comms

This inbound shift is just the online equivalent:

• Outbound Comms
• Inbound Comms

Learn more: The Inbound Shift PR Strategy: Beauty From Within

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PR Resource: The Anatomy of Attention

“There’s only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.”
— Oscar Wilde

Spin Academy | Online PR Courses

The Anatomy of Attention

Attention is an essen­tial com­pon­ent of pub­lic relations:

• An organ­isa­tion, starved of atten­tion, trust, and loy­alty, is com­pelled to wage a per­petu­al struggle for its con­tin­ued existence.

And it’s not just organ­isa­tions. We all seem to crave atten­tion in some form or another:

“People want to be loved; fail­ing that admired; fail­ing that feared; fail­ing that hated and des­pised. They want to evoke some sort of sen­ti­ment. The soul shud­ders before obli­vi­on and seeks con­nec­tion at any price.”
— Hjalmar Söderberg (1869−1941), Swedish author

It’s fear of social isol­a­tion— and atten­tion star­va­tion.

But what con­sti­tutes ‘atten­tion’?

“Attention is a com­plex, real neur­al archi­tec­ture (‘RNA’) mod­el that integ­rates vari­ous cog­nit­ive mod­els and brain cen­ters to per­form tasks like visu­al search.”
Source: Trends in cog­nit­ive sci­ences ²Shipp, S. (2004). The brain cir­cuitry of atten­tion. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 8, 223 – 230. https://​doi​.org/​1​0​.​1​0​1​6​/​j​.​t​i​c​s​.​2​0​0​4​.​0​3​.​004

Each of the below terms refers to a spe­cif­ic aspect or type of atten­tion (“men­tal band­width”), a com­plex cog­nit­ive pro­cess. ³Schweizer, K., Moosbrugger, H., & Goldhammer, F. (2005). The struc­ture of the rela­tion­ship between atten­tion and intel­li­gence. Intelligence, 33(6), 589 – 611. … Continue read­ing

Let’s explore dif­fer­ent types of attention:

• Alertness. This is the state of being watch­ful and ready to respond. It’s the most basic form of atten­tion, rep­res­ent­ing our read­i­ness to per­ceive and pro­cess inform­a­tion from the environment.
• Sustained atten­tion. This involves focus­ing on a spe­cif­ic task or stim­u­lus over a pro­longed peri­od. It’s cru­cial for tasks that require ongo­ing con­cen­tra­tion, like read­ing or driving.
• Focused atten­tion. This refers to the abil­ity to con­cen­trate on one par­tic­u­lar stim­u­lus or task while ignor­ing oth­ers. It’s the abil­ity to focus nar­rowly on a single thing.
• Attentional switch­ing. Also known as task switch­ing or cog­nit­ive flex­ib­il­ity, this involves shift­ing focus from one task to anoth­er. It’s crit­ic­al for mul­ti­task­ing and adapt­ing to chan­ging demands or priorities.
• Divided atten­tion. This is the abil­ity to pro­cess two or more responses or react to mul­tiple tasks sim­ul­tan­eously. It’s often tested by ask­ing people to per­form two tasks sim­ul­tan­eously, like listen­ing to a con­ver­sa­tion while writ­ing.
• Attention accord­ing to the super­vis­ory atten­tion­al sys­tem. This concept, derived from cog­nit­ive psy­cho­logy, refers to a high­er-level con­trol sys­tem that reg­u­lates the alloc­a­tion of atten­tion, par­tic­u­larly in situ­ations requir­ing plan­ning or decision-making.
• Attention as inhib­i­tion. This aspect of atten­tion involves sup­press­ing irrel­ev­ant or dis­tract­ing stim­uli. It’s a cru­cial com­pon­ent of focused atten­tion and self-regulation.
• Spatial atten­tion. This type of atten­tion focuses on a spe­cif­ic area with­in the visu­al field. It’s like a spot­light that enhances inform­a­tion pro­cessing in a par­tic­u­lar location.
• Attention as plan­ning. This per­spect­ive views atten­tion as a resource that needs to be alloc­ated effi­ciently, espe­cially in com­plex tasks requir­ing stra­tegic plan­ning and organization.
• Interference. In the con­text of atten­tion, inter­fer­ence refers to the pro­cess by which irrel­ev­ant inform­a­tion or dis­trac­tions impede the effi­ciency of cog­nit­ive processing.
• Attention as arous­al. This con­siders atten­tion in the con­text of the gen­er­al level of alert­ness or arous­al. It’s about the read­i­ness of the brain to engage with stim­uli or tasks.
• Attention accord­ing to the assess­ment tra­di­tion. This refers to meas­ur­ing and eval­u­at­ing atten­tion­al pro­cesses, often in clin­ic­al or edu­ca­tion­al set­tings, to identi­fy atten­tion defi­cits or disorders.

Each type of atten­tion plays a cru­cial role in how we inter­act with and pro­cess inform­a­tion from our envir­on­ment, and under­stand­ing these dif­fer­ent aspects is key in fields like psy­cho­logy, neur­os­cience, and education.

Learn more: The Anatomy of Attention

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