@hannah_bo_banna

@hannah_bo_bannaharder, better, faster, strongerour work is never over

@hannah_bo_banna

@hannah_bo_banna

harder

@hannah_bo_banna

seo is harder than it used to be

@hannah_bo_banna

2011 - crackdown on ‘thin’ content

@hannah_bo_banna

2012 - crackdown on ‘low quality’ links

@hannah_bo_banna

2013 - moving from indexing to understanding

@hannah_bo_banna

fast forward to today: search queries which shouldn’t work,

do work

@hannah_bo_banna

@hannah_bo_banna

this could be bad news if you’re a publisher

@hannah_bo_banna

@hannah_bo_banna

as google get smarter, publishers are getting an increasingly raw deal

@hannah_bo_banna

@hannah_bo_banna

but we’re not just seeing this for informational queries

@hannah_bo_banna

we’re also seeing Google’s proprietary products for generic transactional queries

@hannah_bo_banna

SkyScanner rank 1st

this is the fold

@hannah_bo_banna

it’s getting to the point that in order to survive you need to be a brand

@hannah_bo_banna

@hannah_bo_banna

but in some instances even that might not be enough

@hannah_bo_banna

MoneySuperMarket’s organic listing is

above the fold - but Google are being very

aggressive

@hannah_bo_banna

nevertheless organic search is still an important channel & brands still want to rank

@hannah_bo_banna

they also want to decrease their reliance on search and gain traffic from other sources

@hannah_bo_banna

to help them rank we need to get them links

@hannah_bo_banna

if they’re great links, they’ll also send traffic

@hannah_bo_banna

plus, if we create things which people want to share we’ll also get traffic from social sites

@hannah_bo_banna

so all we need to do is create some content

sounds pretty easy, right?

@hannah_bo_banna

it really isn’t easy

@hannah_bo_banna

it’s tough & it’s getting tougher

@hannah_bo_banna

Feb 2012: 400 LRDs 1194 facebook ‘likes’ 1943 tweets

@hannah_bo_banna

you may see your efforts becoming less effective over time

@hannah_bo_banna

Oct 2013: 93 LRDs 187 facebook ‘likes’ 619 tweets

@hannah_bo_banna

getting content to work for you is hard today& it’s likely to get even harder in the future

@hannah_bo_banna

challenge accepted

@hannah_bo_banna

so, we’ve covered off ‘harder’

@hannah_bo_banna

better

@hannah_bo_banna

publishing is changing

@hannah_bo_banna

today we have publishers that curate, rather than create

@hannah_bo_banna

@hannah_bo_banna

then this happened

@hannah_bo_banna

this corporate blog stopped letting their awkward CEO post lame stuff

& skipped straight to awesome

this probably isn’t true, but writing headlines like this is kind of fun

@hannah_bo_banna

@hannah_bo_banna

by replicating the upworthy model this pet food retailer blog

attracted 20m unique visitors in June 2014

http://dis.tl/PetFlow-WSJ

@hannah_bo_banna

what happened next will blow your mind

yeah, so that’s hyperbolic in the extreme, I’ll stop now

@hannah_bo_banna

today this is a stand-alone media business selling banners & content recommendation ads

http://dis.tl/PetFlow-WSJ

@hannah_bo_banna

@hannah_bo_banna

in a similar fashion we have publishers creating sub-brands(which are pretty divorced from the parent brand)

@hannah_bo_banna

this british newspaper established in 1903...

@hannah_bo_banna

@hannah_bo_banna

has created a ‘buzzfeed’ style sub-brand to reach new audiences

@hannah_bo_banna

@hannah_bo_banna

whilst this is interesting, this isn’t a great solution for many brands

@hannah_bo_banna

the vast majority of clients ask for this:

@hannah_bo_banna

get us links!

@hannah_bo_banna

or more accurately

@hannah_bo_banna

get us press coverage& exposure on sites our target audience read

(oh & social shares would be nice too)

@hannah_bo_banna

if you want coverage on other sites, you need to create things those sites will want to cover

@hannah_bo_banna

not curate stuff with clickbait headlines

@hannah_bo_banna

& those quizzes don’t always get as many links as you’d hope

@hannah_bo_banna

945k facebook ‘likes’ 4.3k tweets 75 LRDs

@hannah_bo_banna

that’s still reasonably impressive & I don’t imagine they’re shooting for links

but

if you are shooting for links then this might not be the way to go

@hannah_bo_banna

50k facebook ‘likes’ 1.6k tweets 54 LRDs

@hannah_bo_banna

it did generate 365k visits to the site& the client was happy

@hannah_bo_banna

this also happened

@hannah_bo_banna

@hannah_bo_banna

but how do we do things better?

@hannah_bo_banna

reactive real-time

@hannah_bo_banna

@hannah_bo_banna

@hannah_bo_banna

the takeaway here is not:‘you need a bit of luck’

@hannah_bo_banna

the takeaway here is:‘be ready, willing & able to take advantage of opportunities

as & when they arise’

@hannah_bo_banna

if @Arbys hadn’t tweeted thatsomeone else probably would have

& they wouldn’t have benefitted

@hannah_bo_banna

whilst you should put processes in place to allow you to do this,

it’s probably not enough by itself

@hannah_bo_banna

what’s better?

@hannah_bo_banna

planned real-time

@hannah_bo_banna

when oreo turned 100, they created100 pieces of content

over 100 days

@hannah_bo_banna

@hannah_bo_banna

the campaign got over 1m facebook ‘likes’& thousands of pieces of press coverage

@hannah_bo_banna

this highly topical content put thecookie the centre of people’s conversations

without being self-serving

@hannah_bo_banna

what if you’re not a well known brand?

@hannah_bo_banna

ads that don’t feel like ads

@hannah_bo_bannahttp://dis.tl/wren-kiss

@hannah_bo_banna

my desire was to create something that was interesting to people beyond a fashion angle...

Melissa Coker - Wren

@hannah_bo_banna

[it’s] an interesting film that exists on its own, rather than something that feels like a commercial...

Melissa Coker - Wren

@hannah_bo_banna

92m YouTube views& coverage from over 1300 sites

@hannah_bo_banna

but that’s all content someone else has created… what about content we’ve created?

@hannah_bo_banna

content which breaks news

@hannah_bo_banna

961 LRDs 102k facebook ‘likes’ 4.4k tweets

@hannah_bo_banna

we made this to appeal to music fans& music journalists

@hannah_bo_banna

we think publishers covered it because it was a great story

@hannah_bo_banna

wait, what?

@hannah_bo_banna

we think that people shared it because it allowed them to express their opinions

@hannah_bo_banna

content which supports existing editorial

@hannah_bo_banna

@hannah_bo_banna

308 LRDs 2.2k facebook ‘likes’ 1.3k tweets

@hannah_bo_banna

we made this to appeal to the startup community (& tech journalists)

@hannah_bo_banna

we think publishers covered it because it supported the WhatsApp acquisition story

@hannah_bo_banna

content people ‘look good’ sharing

@hannah_bo_banna

354 LRDs 19,4k facebook ‘likes’ 6.5k tweets

@hannah_bo_banna

we made this to appeal to people working in the creative industry

@hannah_bo_banna

we think publishers covered it because creativity is a hot topic

and

the piece has impact because the people featured have devoted fans

@hannah_bo_banna

we think people shared this because it:

made them look smartand/or

made them look interested & interestingand/or

made them look literary

@hannah_bo_banna

so we’ve covered off‘harder’ & ‘better’

@hannah_bo_banna

faster

@hannah_bo_banna

I’m not necessarily saying we need to create content fasteror

find ways to ‘scale’

@hannah_bo_banna

an obsession with scaling is where we went wrong before

@hannah_bo_banna

@hannah_bo_banna

@hannah_bo_banna

but we are playing catch up in some areas& we need to get better, faster

@hannah_bo_banna

the new normal

@hannah_bo_banna

if you’re *still* ignoring mobileyou will be screwed

@hannah_bo_banna

there will be more mobile search queries than desktop search queries

this year

@hannah_bo_banna

here’s google’s response

@hannah_bo_banna

towards the end of last year we launched some pretty big design improvements for search on

mobile and tablet devices...

John Wiley, Google

http://dis.tl/john-wiley

@hannah_bo_banna

today we've carried over several of those changes to the desktop experience

John Wiley, Google

http://dis.tl/john-wiley

@hannah_bo_banna

google are going mobile first

@hannah_bo_banna

and there’s this

@hannah_bo_banna

@hannah_bo_banna

@hannah_bo_banna

but it’s not just search;social is mobile

@hannah_bo_banna

77% of users access facebook via their mobile

http://dis.tl/fb-mobile-users

@hannah_bo_banna

80% of users access twitter via their mobile

http://dis.tl/twitter-mobile-users

@hannah_bo_banna

if you’re creating content that’s designed to be shared

@hannah_bo_banna

you need to design it mobile first

@hannah_bo_banna

understanding the power of ideas,as opposed to thinking in formats

@hannah_bo_banna

an idea is a novel combination of previously unconnected elements

in a way which adds value

@hannah_bo_banna

this is tricky to parse so let’s shoot straight to an example

@hannah_bo_bannahttp://dis.tl/axis-chords

@hannah_bo_banna

ever wondered why all pop songs sound the same?

@hannah_bo_banna

they all use the same four chords

@hannah_bo_banna

they could have just created a list of all the songs that use the same 4 chords

@hannah_bo_banna

meh

@hannah_bo_banna

but it’s not until you hear itthat you really get it

@hannah_bo_banna

why do pop songs sound the same?

they use the same 4 chords

bring it to life with a mash up

combining previously

unconnected elements

execute in a way that adds value

@hannah_bo_banna

an video is not an ideait’s a format

@hannah_bo_banna

an infographic is not an ideait’s a format

@hannah_bo_banna

you need a great idea

@hannah_bo_banna

then you need to communicate the idea by using an appropriate format

@hannah_bo_banna

but focus on the idea first

@hannah_bo_banna

further reading:

how to produce content people will sharehttp://dis.tl/MJ-share

how to produce better content ideashttp://dis.tl/MJ-idea

lessons in virality from axl rosehttp://dis.tl/HS-axl

@hannah_bo_banna

pitching for bigger budgets

@hannah_bo_banna

@hannah_bo_banna

the worst thing we ever did was claim organic search traffic was ‘free’

@hannah_bo_banna

we then made similarly foolhardy claims about social traffic

@hannah_bo_banna

we need to stop positioning what we do as ‘free’ or ‘cheap’

@hannah_bo_banna

cheap is rarely synonymous with great

@hannah_bo_banna

& in order to gain traction the content you’ll need to create

will require bigger budgets

@hannah_bo_banna

so don’t sell yourself short

@hannah_bo_banna

so we’ve covered off‘harder’, ‘better’ & ‘faster’

@hannah_bo_banna

stronger

@hannah_bo_banna

how has this affected how we work at distilled today?

@hannah_bo_banna

we’re trying to create things that

break newsand/or

support existing editorialand/or

people ‘look good’ sharing

@hannah_bo_banna

we’re seeing success with that approach

@hannah_bo_banna

& it’s opening doors for us

@hannah_bo_banna

we’re getting access to people higher up in the organisations which we work with

@hannah_bo_banna

& we’re able to do better work as a result

@hannah_bo_banna

I believe that those in the search industry today are in a great position for the future

@hannah_bo_banna

those currently chasing our tails have not evolved much in the past 70 years

@hannah_bo_banna

whereas we’ve evolved to the extent that we’re barely recognisable

@hannah_bo_banna

& we’ll continue to evolve

@hannah_bo_banna

our work is never over

@hannah_bo_banna

good luck out there x

@hannah_bo_banna

thank you ☺

@hannah_bo_banna

Hannah SmithContent Strategist, Distilled

caffeine addict; book worm; would really like a unicorn...

send cat pictures or questions to:

hannah.smith@distilled.net

credits

Images:daft punk - http://www.gq.com/images/style/2013/05/daft-punk/daft-punk-630.jpgpanda - http://radiofreethinker.com/2013/04/19/pandagate-panda-primer/penguin - http://www.aktifmag.com/wacky-waddlers-10-penguin-facts-things/hummingbird - http://ibc.lynxeds.com/photo/anna039s-hummingbird-calypte-anna/male-annas-hummingbird-hoveringhydrant - http://giveupinternet.com/2009/01/14/mitchell-kapor-getting-information-off-the-internet-is-like-taking-a-drink-from-a-fire-hydrant-pic/filter bubble - http://www.popuppoems.com/2011/05/19/whos-afraid-of-the-big-bad-algorithm/daily mirror - https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B2Rj9mQCEAEc8WC.jpgpharrell - http://www.ibtimes.com/arbys-blasts-pharrells-grammys-hat-twitter-can-we-have-our-hat-back-1548140

future of marketing - https://plus.google.com/112310499813770104747/posts/JBesS2cnAGodanbo - https://www.flickr.com/photos/nomadic_lass/6889892777/in/set-72157629144987013unicorn - http://queenofheartsonthesleeve.tumblr.com/post/58736423727/ok-not-much-but-here-it-is-3