Why Your Branded Content Shouldn’t Always Be About Your Brand

Creating branded content that doesn’t specifically showcase the brand through its products or services can be a tricky prospect for many businesses. A company may have spent years developing its brand image — and content to support it — yet agencies are increasingly advising clients to create content that barely mentions its own brand or products. Let’s explore some of the reasoning behind this.

Who is it for, and what are you trying to achieve?

The main problem with heavily brand-oriented content marketing lies in how you are defining your target audience.

By its nature, heavily brand-oriented content appeals to a relatively small number of followers who are already loyal to your brand. Chances are that they’ve bought your product or service and liked it, so they’re potential repeat customers. That’s great, and it’s good to keep them engaged, but content targeted toward existing customers is very different than content aimed at attracting new customers, who may not have your brand in their consideration set. This, ultimately, is where your business should focus its content efforts in order to increase its market share.

Don’t get content marketing confused with advertising

It’s an easy mistake to make, and we all think we know the difference. Advertising is a method of selling a specific product or service range, whereas content marketing consistently targets a relevant consumer audience with engaging, helpful, and/or entertaining content and encourages them to take action.

The lines are somewhat blurred because many organizations still struggle to produce content that doesn’t explicitly aim to sell their products. Content marketing shouldn’t do this, nor should it involve you preaching about your brand essence. If it does, chances are consumer interest in your content will suffer — and so will its chances of ever achieving its marketing purpose. That can be a fairly universal goal for any content marketing campaign. It’s a more subtle approach to improving your brand image, gaining vital inbound links and shares, and eventually increasing online conversions.

Just try reading a heavily product-focused blog:

Reading this product-focused branded content would likely make a consumer more skeptical about its value: We’ve all come across incredibly transparent articles that are trying to cross-sell items at every turn, a fusion of press-release hyperbole and call-to-action advertising with an underlining of self promotion.

This sort of branded content will also be considered too “self-serving” for readers to empathize with it. Blog posts similar to the one above generally receive very few social shares and links, as they do not engage or educate in any way. Some marketers might argue that these types of posts encourage conversions, but why would consumers actively read/share a post that is worded like an advert?

If the above example of a blog post had been based around what type of wine to drink with specific meals, then it may have had a chance of attracting more attention in the form of social shares and links.

Less product-oriented blog content is more likely to be perceived as educational or entertaining, thereby encouraging repeat visits. Ironically, in the end, which blog would do more for your brand?

What are your targeted personas interested in?

When you are creating a content marketing plan, it’s vital to consider at whom the content is actually aimed. Before you begin producing content, you should develop a list of personas, and then you can tailor each piece of content to a certain persona. Also develop a list of influencers that hold a large following of a targeted persona.

What are they sharing? What are they talking about? What type of content really gets a discussion going? Do your research to identify what content is doing well within your industry, as this will also help you define your personas.

The key here is not to approach content marketing like an advertiser looking for sales figures. Instead, think about what content will genuinely interest or help a certain persona or attract the attention of an influencer. Again when it comes down to heavily promotional branded content vs. an unbranded approach, the latter will gain more traction in the form of social shares and links.

If you’re operating in a niche that rarely elicits social discussions, then you may need to have a bit of fun with your content to even be able to receive a positive response. Perhaps the real interest lies in an area not directly related to your industry. For example, Charmin provided one of the best campaigns of recent years with its “Sit or Squat?” mobile app. This app was developed for the user to be able to find a nearby public restroom that was highly rated by other users on a series of performance indicators (such as cleanliness, convenience, etc.).

A toilet paper brand is hardly the most luxurious of niches, yet it managed to create a campaign that can actually help its consumers in an entertaining way. How much more useful is this type of campaign for improving brand perception compared to an old-fashioned “Charmin versus competitors” piece of content? 

If it’s branded, make it unique

Of course, you don’t need to forget about creating branded content altogether. However, if you’re going to do it, then you need to make sure it is innovative and worth sharing. Companies like Oreo are great at branded content marketing, and at one point the company was even posting out “real time” branded images based around global events happening on that day. Obviously, this is easiest with a popular and iconic product like an Oreo, so use your discretion.

Other brands need to take a page out of Oreo’s book and avoid self-appreciating content that nobody in their right mind would share. In other words, brands need to start thinking like regular people instead of old-school, call-to-action marketers. In other words, aim to connect with your buyer personas through their interests, as opposed to pushing your own products or services. This is the crux of the idea behind a less-branded approach to content marketing.

People or sites that share content are much less likely to do so if they feel like they are being roped into endorsing a brand. Huge brands, such as Coca-Cola or Nike, can generally be excluded from this theory because their brands are so entrenched in our culture that people don’t even feel as though they are promoting something when they share branded content from these companies.

Red Bull is another great example when it comes to content marketing. Its content campaigns encompass what its brand is all about, yet rarely use any calls to action.

Take the brand’s Supersonic Freefall stunt. Imagine if Felix Baumgartner did a sky dive from space, and once he touched down to earth, he drank a can of Red Bull straight to camera. It would ruin the whole concept and likability factor of the campaign. Shockingly, this is what many companies are doing with their content marketing — admittedly on a much smaller scale — by making it too self-serving and obvious.

Key takeaways

1. Don’t get content marketing confused with old fashioned call-to-action advertising: Call-to-action advertising (like the example below from Volvo) obviously does have its place in the marketing mix. However, when it comes to developing a content marketing strategy, you should ensure that your idea, tone, and layout stay away from this type of format and more toward the British Airways example.

2. Find out what your customers are sharing:

• Develop a list of personas. Consider consumer personas and personas likely to share/link.
• When planning content, discuss why you think personas will share, link, and eventually convert.
• Use tools such as Buzzsumo, Topsy, and Twitonomy to search for most socially shared key terms within your industry and gain more information on competitors/influencers.
• If you think your niche is “boring,” then try finding a niche that is tangentially related, or build on other successful content ideas you‘ve found.
• Identify key influencers within the industry (using a tool like Followerwonk) who hold a large social following of your target personas. Then look to build a relationship and social community with these influencers. This can be particularly helpful if you have a weak social following of your own.

3. If it’s branded, then make it innovative:

• Take a cue from British Airways and Red Bull: Consider how your targeted personas will benefit from your content. Is it educational, useful, or entertaining, or does it simply push product?
• Content doesn’t have to directly relate to your primary industry. Consider the interests and passions of your target personas.
• Consider what your brand essence entails. What messages do you want to give through your content?
• Use different media formats for your content, and don’t be afraid to mix them in the same campaign.

4: Ensure your content has an approachable tone:

• Limit your use of salesy, call-to-action language, such as “buy now” or “request a quote.”
• Avoid cross-selling items or services unless it’s done in a relevant, organic way.
• Talk like a human being. You can’t engage an audience with content that speaks in an overly corporate tone.
• Don’t insult people’s intelligence. They want interesting content and will sniff out self-serving promotion a mile away.

Looking for more killer content marketing ideas? Find them in the Ultimate eBook: 100 Content Marketing Examples.