I've been thinking about curation and culture for my debut post at PM Digital blog this week. The first of a three-part series on the multiple applications of content within cultural context, in support of a bigger conversation, the Games, and meaningful alignment with brands sponsorship.
The topic: How Brands are Competing for Olympic Gold.
The goal: Outlining examples of integrated strategic planning and marketing execution when it comes to content related to sponsorship of the Winter Games. It also starts to answer the question I raised a few years back: Do social networks see organizations as customers? And it's not what you may be thinking.
To put some more definition around content curation, a prominent aspect of content marketing strategy put forth by brands these games: Whether you're educating, entertaining, or elevating topics, you could find your advantage in curating content even in a crowded industry because:
- Becoming a useful filter makes you a destination -- helping customers make sense of industry information, a particular topic, converging and organizing disparate source into a coherent narrative are all areas of opportunity for brands.
- Commenting and intelligent framing of conversation are still in scarce supply -- while many individuals have developed a voice and corresponding reputation for doing this, particularly when it comes to brands providing service (or the ever elusive "thought leadership") this is still by and large white space
- Showing trends and patterns from compiling information is powerful -- many organizations do this, especially in advisory services; the execution could still use some help. Here media companies are starting to be more experiential.
- Providing content in a way that makes it usable gains you a loyal following -- brands like P&G have been building online communities for some time and are becoming strong contenders to digital magazines.
- Seeing what's out there helps you find gaps in demand -- it is much esier to build on existing ideas, plus we do it naturally, than to start from a blank screen. This is not the same as trying to find where is Waldo, it goes a step further in looking at what is possible.
- Curating allows you to set the tone for where the focus should be -- it's the famous pont of view, content is the online expression of voice. And each expression contibutes to create a whole impression.
- Seeing your role as that of ultimate decision maker on what's in and what's out -- what we thinki about and focus on are important components of directing attention. There is only so much time in a day, spend or invest with purpose.
Who takes the gold in your view so far?
[The Sochi gold medal weighs 531 grams with a thickness of 10 mm, and a diameter of 100 mm, making it one of the largest gold medals in the history of the games (the 2006 Turin Olympics medals were 107mm in diameter and weighed 469 grams).]
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Valeria is an experienced listener. She designs service and product experiences to help businesses rediscover the value of promises and its effects on relationships and culture. She is also frequent speaker at conferences and companies on a variety of topics. Book her to speak here.