Login
ISCOVER
One thing that’s gained a lot of momentum in the last six months, and I believe this is the future of where online advertising is going, is the rise of content amplification.
Content amplification is where you create an awesome piece of content; not like a brief blog post, but an authority piece on the subject. It should have photos, perhaps even a video, and then it’s really the authority-type piece.
To continue reading the rest of this article, please log in.
Looking for more benefits? Become a Premium Member.
Create free account to get unlimited news articles and more!
Looking for more benefits? Become a Premium Member.
Creating good-quality content is the first step, and then the next step is amplifying that content. To amplify, you want to drive paid media, such as Facebook ads or re-marketing ads, to your content (not to a sales page).
The content is what Google wants, it’s what Facebook wants, and it’s where the web is heading. If you do a good job on content amplification, you can have some really good success from it.
Here’s how it works
First, you create an engaging piece of content on your blog or website, and share it on your social media channel. You always start with something on your website first and then push it out.
From there, you buy paid media to promote the blog post or authority page. People engage with your content. Some of them will take action – every page you design on your website should have a primary course of action on it.
Turning your content into conversations
On every single page of your site, you really need to be thinking about what the primary course of action is. Ask yourself: “Have I designed it in such a way to do that?” And if not, then again you’re leaving money on the table. With a call to action available, prospects may take up your offer, or they may leave your site. And then if they leave your site, that’s still OK because you just re-market to them again to the next piece of content.
Know your search volume
There are certain businesses where there’s not a lot of search volume. If you know where there is low search volume, you can use content amplification to position yourself ahead of the curve by creating content on the search topic. One of the best ways to make money on the web is to know where things are going and then to position yourself ahead of the curve before it all catches up.
Getting started with content amplification
So if this is where the web’s going, why not start thinking about what the main messages are that your market really wants to know. And then ask yourself “How can I write an authority piece on each of those or a video and then start amplification?”
It doesn’t matter if people are not searching. If you can target them, you can start to position yourself as a thought leader – then start to cookie and re-market to them, and follow them around the web when the message is right. A certain percentage of people will put up their hand and say, “You know what? I’d love to talk to you guys more about what you do”, and other people won’t be interested. That’s just the way it works.
An example of content amplification
A case that really stuck with me was for a security firm in the US. They got permission from a bank to do what’s called an ‘ethical hack’. An example of this is: “It’s signed off by the CEO; our security firm’s going to break into your bank digitally and we’re going to do it within the next 30 days. We’re not going to damage anything but we are going to tell you we got in.” Banks want to know that stuff and they do that sort of thing all the time.
The company that did this then turned it into a content piece. They figured out who were the C-level executives in the bank and then they sent a USB mouse with a virus on the USB component. They packaged it back up into the mouse container, and then sent it off to this C-level executive within the bank. The C-level executive gets it in the post and plugs it straight in thinking: “Oh, wow, far out! This is awesome!” Within 24 hours, they were able to send it to the CEO. Basically what happened when it plugged in, they had set it so that it sent an email straight to the CEO saying: “You've been hacked. And this was the time frame,” and it had a counter of how fast it happened.
Then, by turning it into an authority piece and then amplifying that content out into the security community, (they didn't mention the name of the bank), they were able to position themselves as a thought leader and demonstrate their ability. As a result of that content amplification, they got a heap of other business.
Think about it in your business and what topics/subjects you can start to create good-quality content on. Have you seen any businesses that are doing excellent content amplification? Let me know any ideas for your market that you have and I can give some feedback.
Greg Cassar is an internet marketing strategist at The Collective.
