Babalwa Nyembezi, Senior Digital Strategist, Wunderman Thompson SA, says having a robust multi-platform strategy requires understanding that every touchpoint is an opportunity to tell your story in a content-hungry and content-centric economy.
In what is now one of the most-watched Ted Talks on the internet, Chimamanda Adichie-Ngozi speaks about the danger of a single story, highlighting the importance of diversity in storytelling. When it comes to building brands – a story that resonates with your audience is essential, and another aspect that is paramount is having a single-minded positioning that lands equally well across platforms.
As technology advances, so has the way stories are told. This also leads to a shift in the balance of power as content consumers also become the creators. These people have mastered the ability to create content that captures the attention of audiences over time. We need only to look at the content shared on social media during the looting and rioting in some parts of the country. Video and audio content from people who were on the ground in places where even journalists didn’t know there were stories to be uncovered, were being generated and shared worldwide.
The role of content strategy is still vastly underappreciated. This has resulted in a content economy where more brands lean on influential content creators to stand out. In an age where everything you put out has the potential to be consumed as content, a strategy around how the pieces string together to tell your brand story is key. With trends shifting every day from choosing what formats to use, which platform your brand should be on or even which content creator to collaborate with – the need for a content strategy is undeniable.
While influencer marketing has an important role in the world of content marketing, it should be treated as part of the marketing mix and not the only piece. Ensuring that you have content that stands out and achieves the business objectives, requires an understanding that if your brand strategy is the foundation of a campaign, your content strategy is the framework that coherently strings together how that campaign comes to life.
The assumption that the creative agency will solve the big idea and the media agency will solve for the platforms is archaic. To ensure that there is a golden thread that ties ATL, BTL and digital together to tell a cohesive story requires someone who will own that work beyond platform selection. Each piece of content and every touchpoint plays a role in bringing the brand strategy to life.
There is no better example of this locally than Mr Price. The fashion retailer understands where its audience is and aggressively updates its content strategy to maintain relevance as a brand for young people. The brand’s ability to leverage content across platforms ensures that its audience is constantly engaged with them, from experimenting with vertical videos when IGTV launched in 2018 to building an impressive following on their TikTok page using user-generated content. The Mr Price content marketers understand that it is not just about using the opportunity to tell your brand story but also understanding how to get the most out of the platform.
The truth is that as brands, we are competing for a share of the attention with anyone who creates content – from news and sports updates to dance challenges and the world of viral content that exists on TikTok. While collaborating with influencers is one way of getting our content to stand out, implementing a consistent content strategy for the brand is a long-term investment in crafting stories that resonate consistently with audiences. Using the opportunity to leverage both creative and media agencies and experimenting with telling stories using new and old content formats will result in more wins and learnings.
WUNDERMAN THOMPSON
www.wundermanthompson.com
