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Content marketing: Social media B2B content is more research- focused When there was a power blackout at the 2013 SuperBowl in consider or buy the target product or the US, the service (content utility). social media In addition to having humorous or team for Oreos biscuits emotional content, a good way to create fighted a viral message is to make sure the this Twitter message will have practical value – for advertisement only four instance, educating customers about minutes after the brand, or giving them a new tip that the blackout is useful to them in their everyday lives. began As an example, consider the 8-million views achieved by a simple YouTube To motivate customers to create companies – such as Intel – require at video posted in 2011 that describes an content, brands can opt to design least 60% of any campaign budget to easy way to shuck (get rid of the outer social rewards to help customers be dedicated to distribution. covering of) corn. build new relationships, or enrich To promote the distribution of In an ever-changing social media existing relationships with others. content, organisations must leverage environment, content strategies are Often however, executives can look infuencers (e.g bloggers or celebrities here to stay. Overall, best practices into a company’s own processes to fnd who can spread the word by re-tweeting entail thinking about content creation, content that could be used. or reposting a message), match the as well as about its dissemination. Consider Blendtec, a small uS- environment (e.g producing content Only companies that can successfully based producer of blenders for coffee, related to romance or dating during allocate resources to both these tasks smoothies, cocktails, etc. noticing that valentine’s day) and balance both the will make their foray into the social the company engineers would regularly message’s social utility and content media jungle a successful one. blend blocks of woods to test the utility. That is, think both about product’s robustness, the marketing increasing the reasons why someone team had the idea to produce a series might share the message (social utility) of videos featuring the CeO blending and giving reasons to the viewer to like, objects as diverse as golf balls, light bulbs, nike shoes or even a mini Justin Bieber. This initiated a durable buzz, What exactly is David Dubois is assistant professor with the initial videos scoring 6-million content marketing? of marketing at INSEAD Business views in the frst week. School, based in France. He holds a According to the US-based PhD in Marketing from Northwestern Springboards for content Content Marketing Institute, University’s Kellogg School of while having great content is a key “Content marketing is a marketing Management in the US. Thomas step in the design of a good content technique of creating and Crampton is global managing director strategy, perhaps more important is distributing valuable, relevant and of Social@Ogilvy, named by the Holmes to ensure that this content is shared consistent content to attract and Report as the ‘Best Digital Consultancy and distributed. This depends both acquire a clearly defned audience in the World’ for 2013. This article is on the resources available and the – with the objective of driving adapted and republished courtesy of use of different viral forces. To ensure proftable customer action.” INSEAD Knowledge (http://knowledge. enough resources are available, some insead.edu). Copyright INSEAD 2014. 14 strategicmarketing August–September 2014