“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. 

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. 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 since they’re more valu­able than sur­face browsers.

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

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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 impact short-term, ever­green con­tent instead 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. Without search volumes, the con­tent will likely be ‘ever’ without the ‘green’.
• 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.

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

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PR Resource: Inbound vs Outbound

Inbound vs Outbound

The inbound mind­set is a fun­da­ment­al shift in pub­lic relations.

Instead of focus­ing on try­ing to spawn non-exist­ing audi­ences, PR can do so much more with exist­ing online pub­lics. ¹See also The Publics in Public Relations (Doctor Spin).

If your inbound PR strategy is good enough, you might not even need an out­bound PR strategy.

Read also: The Inbound First PR Strategy: Beauty From Within

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