As each year comes to a close, we like to sneak a peek into the SHIFT archives to see our content hits and misses. When devising a content strategy for a new year, it’s important to take note of what worked (and why) to plan what’s to come next year. Want to see how to do this for your blog? Here’s how.
Our top posts from the first quarter of 2014 focused on social media and content. Let’s take a look:
1. How much will you need to pay Facebook?
Facebook was busy in the first quarter of 2014, and when news of its updated news feed algorithm hit the airwaves, the media was buzzing. In late March, it was revealed that Facebook throttled the organic, non-paid reach of brand pages…again. When we heard the news, we wanted to find out for ourselves. We measured the Facebook page engagement of 313 Fortune 500 brands and found the results to be very poor.
With this news it became abundantly clear that Facebook was now pay-to-play when it came to brand page engagement and visibility with their audiences. We took this revelation a step further, creating a Facebook Page Cost Calculator, giving brands a way to see just how much they would likely need to pay Facebook to have posts seen by their existing audience of Likes. Close to 3,800 brands have used the calculator since its inception. Have you tried it out yet?
2. The Role of PR in the Coming Content Marketing Collapse
As the New Year came and went, content marketing strategies were ramped up by businesses and brands all over the place. Amidst this barrage of content, Mark Schaefer published a blog on Content Shock. This is the idea that we will soon (if we haven’t already) hit a point where the amount of content being produced will increase exponentially while our human and technological capacity to consume it will hit a limit.
If brands want consumers to view their content, they’ll have to pay…both in man-hours to produce it and to the various media channels to publicize it. We understood and agreed with Mr. Schaefer that content marketing strategies would have to change, but public relations will need to have a stronger role in the process. Read more about how in our second most popular blog post of the first quarter.
3. Top 50 Most Overused Words in Press Releases for 2013
Do you ever read a press release and immediately question what exactly it is that the release is saying? If fluffy jargon and corporate speak is not your forte, you’re not alone. We sampled almost 63,000 press releases from 2013 and found the most overused words. From ‘leading,’ ‘innovative,’ and ‘strategic’ to ‘top,’ ‘next,’ and ‘advanced,’ we pulled together the top 50 into a #creative infographic and shared it in a blog post. Keep your eyes peeled in the coming weeks for the 2014 edition!
Tomorrow, we’ll dive into the second quarter’s top blog posts featuring our thoughts into Google algorithm updates and how the next BIG social network doesn’t really exist.
Tori Sabourin
Marketing Analyst
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