We’ve looked at brandscaping – the process of partnering with a non-competitor to your business, but one that you can form a professional bond with; you both pool your resources, financial and otherwise, and head up a joint marketing campaign. You scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours.
And then we came across this new phrase – adaptive content. You’ll either love it or think it’s a cop out, so let’s take a meander through the concept…
The idea of behind adaptive content
At this early stage, Copyblogger thinks that adaptive content doesn’t have definition as such, more of a rolling spectrum of what it can be. However, that is pretty useless for you (and us) and so here is Locally’s definition of adaptive content…
You create a piece of content, such as a blog but, instead of just leaving it where you put it, on your website, you publish it everywhere, by adapting it so its fits all these other places.
Great, you think, we do that… yes but, we bet you write a new blog every time. Right?
With this concept you create a blog, publish it everywhere, pulling in readership from across social media and anywhere else where you can grab eye ball time.
But, instead of then writing a fresh one, you reduce, reuse and recycle current content and keep spreading this marvellous content.
Think about the amount of time you spend in a given working day creating content; from updating webpages to writing new blogs. For some people, words trip off the typewriter and yet, for many of us, they are laboured over; changed and edited a hundred times before we press the publish button. Why waste all this effort?
For example, the recent blog we created on how to counteract negative online reviews would look quite good sitting in an infographic… and then, we may look at some of the information, chop some of it, add to some of it, give more detail and authorities links and then create a presentation posting it on Slideshare… and, each and every time, ‘selling’ each piece across every online platform that we choose to frequent.
It’s about getting more for your dollar, more from your posts by hitting the eyeballs of a wider audience with the same content that looks and feels different because not all of your audience will find your website; they need to help to discover it. To do that, you need to tell as many people as possible, in different places that your content exists.
Simple, then?!
Mmmm yes sort of, but things never are that simple are they because it isn’t just about rewriting an old blog and giving it a new title.
Analytics – what worked?
And this is where analytics comes in; you know – the stuff that creates data that we all love and understand.
Which blogs did you readers and consumers like? Which tweet pulled them to your blog or website? What kind if statuses grabbed eyeball time?
There is no point rehashing the same thing in a different format if it wasn’t the blog or article topic that grabbed attention.
We’ve also said that as consumers, we are an impatient lot and technology has done marvellous things for us. One thing it has done is heightened our expectations. We expect to able to do everything from out PC, mobile and tablet. Including buying the things we want, when we want and how we want.
Being more adaptive
This type of adaptive content goes places; just lobbing a blog post at your website and hoping for the best won’t work. It is a drop in the ocean but, before you all shrink from the challenge you need to know one thing: this is not because the quality is bad.
In fact, really brilliant content can sink without a trace; it is the fact that it is not used enough across all the platforms that are available to it. Some brands are starting to realise the impact of adaptive content and there are 5 elements that need to be included to make the best use of content:
Reusable – content is used across a range of platforms and in different formats
Structured – small bite-sized content works well across different devices
Simple – the format should be sophisticated and simple, not overly difficult to read or use
Metadata – the secret, techy bit that describes what the content is about and it needs to be accurate
A content management system (CMS) – that allows you to do all of the above!
Hence, we end back at the reduce, reuse and recycle system of adapting your content to fit across all the platforms you use with your business
Adaptive content is about re-using the content you have, but adding a spark of something extra to it.
Thus adaptive content is a two pronged attack –
- Not reinventing the wheel every time but reusing, recycling and recycling or recharging content
- Linking content which the behaviour of your clients or customers (they came via Facebook, so why can’t they create an account with your via Facebook?)
Where does a small, online and local business start with this adaptive content process?
Take a look over your content and, if your have the data, identify what people liked or commented on and, using a different approach, re-use this material. And then publish it again across all your platforms and see what happens…
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