Engagement & Engaging Content with Andrew & Pete – Episode 7

Enough small talk . . . let’s talk “Engagement & Engaging Content”

Engaging Content Interview with Andrew & Pete and Ben M Roberts

Ben:    Hi, Andrew and Pete. Welcome to the podcast.

Andrew:    Hey, we are ready for a fight to defend our buzz word with all about might,

Ben:    I love it. I am so excited to talk about this because this is a buzzword I think is so overused potentially. And I want to hear sort of your thoughts on maybe where we square off a little bit and where we agree on some of these bits going forward. So today, what are you guys going to be talking to me about?

Andrew:    OK, then. So we are talking about engaging content.

Ben:    OK, what is the point in engaging content? Because I’m here to tell you creating, engaging content is pointing. What is the pointing engaging content because really engaging content doesn’t actually give you a business model. So what is the points in there? You said you were ready for a fight. So you know, well I thought I  was going to go nice and easy you in.

Andrew:    We’re creating content to get ourselves notice, right? So if a lot content isn’t engaging, then it’s not going to get us noticed. So if we spent all of our time, all of money, all of our effort integrated blasé blonde vanilla content. That’s just exactly the same as everyone else is in our industry. There’s really no point in content marketing. And I think this comes from when blogging was new. And everyone was kind of into this web, oh we can all create these blogs and we create these videos. And it’s awesome because it’s novel. Where news flash. We’re in 2018 now. And it’s not novel anymore to have a blog blogging about your services or products. So if you’re not engaging an audience with your content, then there’s really kind of no point.

Pete:    On the top of that as well if you think about other recent algorithm changes. What platforms are doing on social media is saying if you’re not creating social media content that is engaging with basically not going to show it to as many people.

Andrew:    Literally Facebook has just said that.

Pete:    So like there’s no biggest sign, that you do need to create engaging content. Because the fastest way to grow, we find if if feel content gets so much engagement and so that people want to share out. If it’s like engaged into the point where it’s shareable thing, you’re going to grow so quickly, it’s the cheapest way to grow, right. Because you don’t even have to pay for that. But the thing is like sharing doesn’t mean people actually hitting the share button anymore. It also means like hacking the algorithm, right? Like if it’s engaging, if it’s getting content and if it’s getting comments and likes, then the algorithm will also share it to more and more people. We have posts that have been seen by thousands and thousands of people that don’t even like our page. And it’s like how have they seen it? Right? Nobody’s actually shared that post, but people have been commenting and liking and engaging and that’s the whole point. If we make engaging content, we grow quicker and we grow up brand quicker, we grow our relationships and that makes it easier to make sales and so forth.

Andrew:    But isn’t it, isn’t a business model, so it’s not a business model and say if you are an accountant or you’ve got a product and service already. And you want to create you want to go, do you want to get known for your content. So yeah, you do need to kind of plug, some kind of business model onto that. So whatever you do and you’re not just kind of hopelessly just throw in cool content out there for the sake of it. But there’s a lot of people are creating businesses content first, just from their content.

Pete:    Exactly, so talk about famous Instagram users or Youtube users. Are just people that like Shonduras, for example, he started on Snapchat. His snap are getting a million people watching them and then all of a sudden he gets all these brand deals. And people are paying him to just talk about their products and now he’s gone on to Youtube. He’s making a ton of money from that.

Ben:    So if you say the point of engaging content is getting noticed then. And it’s about, you said when you said creating about relationships, so what’s the difference then between actually engaging content and say clickbait. Because clickbait will get engagement. So, for example, you’ve got these chatbots, like many chat and you can say, oh, get someone to comment on there and then you’ll get like a free prize. I know there’s people like yourselves and now is that, is that actually true engagement and is that just pure algorithm hacking. And where does the line draw between that being engagement and that being potentially clickbait?

Andrew:    So click bait is flashing the pan. If you get someone to click something or you get someone to do something. And then you don’t follow through on delivering that value or you disappoint them in some kind of way, that’s great. You’ve got them to do something once but they’re going to block you. Or they’re not gonna come back and they’re definitely not going to click a second time. But if we can create, we always say create content, but either make people feel happier or smarter. That’s what you want to be aiming for. So yeah, we can use some kind of click baits tactics here and there, but the actual content has to be good or it has to deliver on its promises. It needs to make people feel, “wow I have invested my time in this and I am thankful for it”.

Ben:    Yeah, I think that’s the exact difference. I think that’s a really key point. And you’ve been engaged on really. It was actually, it’s content actually resonates with people and keeps them coming back for more. And that’s maybe the difference between engaging content and just pure content.

Pete:    On that point as well. Again, going back to the Facebook algorithm changed recently. Their exact words were we want to see more content that, not exactly words but still, they want meaningful conversations. That’s what they’re putting the emphasis on. So at the moment things like, “comment to win this prize” or “comment to subscribe to my pot” that’s working for like getting quick engagement. And hey look at this “smash that like button” and all that kind of works. But like Andrew said, it’s a flashing the pen. If that’s all you’re doing, it’s not really meaningful. People aren’t going to keep on coming back because they were coming back for that post not for you.

Ben:    Is it worth actually though, but bringing that flash in the pan stuff though to be able to create a mix of engagement and reach a wider audience? To reach different segments who engage with posts on a different level. And some people would prefer to have conversations. And people would prefer just a smash that like button. Is it worth then to create engaging content is engaging content then not just one thing but a whole collection of different types of content. So videos, blog posts, like competitions. Are they all engaging content or is would you say then they actually you can create engaging content through just one medium?

Andrew:    Yeah, so this is, where we quite like the term, engaging content because it’s very much kind of a collective term. I think a lot of buzzwords out there, they don’t really make things clearer to understand. Or they wouldn’t necessarily complicate stuff where engaging content is basically to buzzwords put together. So we’ve got content, unless it’s just a collective term for the stuff, we create on the internet, via podcasts, via videos, via social media posts, via blog posts, via infographics, via instagram stories, all of that. It’s kind of content and rather than having to say all of those things. Every time a marketer wants to talk about them, we just going to call it content because that’s where it is. And I feel like that’s pretty clear. Engaging is getting reactions, basically getting someone to actually do something once they have consumed about bit of content. So we just put it together. We are creating content that gets someone to do something. Yeah, does that answer the question?

Ben:    Can you then create good, great, amazing content, whatever you want to call it. Can you create content that is incredible for a customer but not engaging? Is it worth it? Then because I could write a post that could be really detailed and provide loads of things. And just because it doesn’t get engagement, I wanted engagement. Does that make that post not worthwhile anymore? What does that mean?  Does that make sense?

Pete:    It depends on what you class as engagement. OK, so even things like Twitter and Facebook and Instagram, they actually class the amount of time that you spend reading the tweets or posts as engagement as an engagement metric. So if you were to check out all of our posts on a Twitter or Facebook right. And you are to stay on them for a really long time and read everything but never, never, ever comment or like or share. The algorithm will still be more likely to show you those posts in the future because you’ve spent so long reading them. So it has engaged you to the point, where you’ve read it all avidly and you want more of that.

Andrew:    It’s not as good though. It’s not as good like probably at all.

Pete:    But there are some liquors and there are lurkers that will maybe engage by reading a content forever. And then one day, they might finally click that and can buy from you.

Andrew:    I think that’s an incredible point to make actually. The engagement is, again, it depends on how you define it. And again, some people would define it purely, as shares or likes. Some people with it’s views, time spent on page, reduce bounce rates in your analytics. There are all sorts of things to actually engaging. Content is almost dependent upon, I guess, you as a content creator would want it to be. So it actually becomes even more of a loose term that actually, there is no set definition, in terms of, what is engaging content. It is whatever you wanted the outcome of it to be, I guess.

Andrew:    Yeah. I feel like we were QI, just saying.

Pete:    Are we going into this light or necessarily way too much?

Ben:    It was exactly what I wanted to do with the buzzword. It’s trying to actually sort of drilled down and try and understand actually what is the point in in these words and phrases. That people can band about really easily, but actually there are some really sort of once you scratch off that. But it’s like an  onion, just peeling off the layers of this onion. I’m crying more and more as I’m going through this podcast.

Pete:    I hope we are not making anyone else cry soon.

Ben:    We will soon see soon, please comment on the show notes. Let us know if you’re crying by the end of this is engaging content something then the we’d say was driven towards new or existing customers or is engaging content and used differently if you were trying to attract customers versus trying to retain or increase the lifetime value of a customer that. Does that make sense? As a question?

Andrew:    Kind of all of the above. We can create engaging content around sale-sy content as well. There’s a company that does that really well called Chubbies, I don’t know if you came across them, so have you come across them?

Ben:    Yeah.

Andrew:    They’re awesome right especially because they created all this super engaging content around their product. Which is shorts, right. And that content is all around how to have the most amazing, ridiculous weekends. That’s what they’re creating content around super engaged. In lot likes, a lot of shares, a lot of comments, so that’s great for kind of getting people in. But it’s also great for making current customers feel part of this tribe. They’re part of this community.

Pete:    More brand advocates so that it doesn’t necessarily matter where you are in that buying cycle. You might have only just had them. You might have been a customer for a long time. This content is still great here. On the flip side, it could also do it the other way, like creating content just for people that have already bought your interest for your members are just just for people, new people. I could also take it that way and then buying cycle, depending on your products, whatever you do. So I think it’s kind of different for every business.

Pete:    Yeah. I’d love to sort the stuff that you guys do yourselves as well. And so creating a load of different content from the videos, the podcasts that just the comments and sort of the little polls and everything that you’re doing. That’s where I want to get you guys on to talk about the engagement. Not so I could slam you and say you guys are wrong because I actually really liked the stuff. That you’re doing and that’s why I thought it was brilliant to get in.

Andrew:    Thanks.

Ben:    I’ve just slammed with all these insults. I’ll chuck in some of those positive sandwiches. So in terms of them, actually really trying to create this content and as I said, this is the thing that I think you guys are doing really well. So what are some of the techniques that people would use in order to be able to create this really engaging content? Because I could say, you know what, I can create really engaging content by being completely controversial. I could just slip something really left field or right field and I’ve created engagement. Now what would be the point if that engagement, if it’s not part of my brand. But yeah, it will create engagement, but it wouldn’t have a benefit. So what techniques should companies use in order to keep that engagement, realistic and appropriate for their business?

Pete:    Yeah, that’s a great, great question. And I think this is why, although we love this word, we also hate to in some respects. Because people use it as like a get out clause, right? So they’ll say, I’ll move on to answering your question fully, but it does winds me up a lot. I love content marketers is all digital marketers, whatever experts. They’ll say “all you have to do is create great content that engages your avatar”. And then what you want to do is, do this and then this. It’s what’s never ever explained is well hang on. How do I create great content again? How to create engaging content? It’s almost like it’s never actually drill it down and analysed and that’s the one thing that we made it a personal mission to do. So we’ve researched a lot of stuff like what makes people share. What makes good content that actually will get people to fall in love with your brand and trust you and take action whenever. When you asked for it, we studied the algorithms and we studied a lot of stuff.  What we’ve come up with is, it’s a term that we like to use is called your content stump. OK. You’re content stump. So it’s like how do you make your mark with your content? If you could swap out your logo and your content and it could be anyones. As that it isn’t unique enough that content. OK, and it’s probably not going to be that engaging in the right way so the your contents some. And basically there’s four elements of this. The heart of it, it’s all about your brand. OK? Because if it’s not building your brand, if it’s not reflecting what you stand for, there’s really no point, right. There’s really no point in creating that content because it’s not building that trust and relationship with you. It’s only flaky concert. It’s like you’re building trust with some random piece of content, not you or your business or your product.  OK. And it could be interchange very easily and people wouldn’t care. So it really need to build your brand, ok. So within that, you need to know what your brand values. I need to know your mission as you know, needs to know, who your audience is and what their problems. Often you need to know who your arch enemy is, ok. This is one of the best things I love about apple. They like everything, Microsoft isn’t. This is why we love Apple and hate Microsoft. And they’ve been pretty much open about that the whole way and it creates really good brand advocates, right. So this all incorporates into your brand. You want voice characteristics. Characteristics is the last thing. So that’s the first column. If you can fill it out, like this is how we see it as like a column. So filling like these four columns. And at the end, you’ll have a ton of ideas,

Andrew:    We will have a ton of things are going to spark new ideas

Pete:    Also acts as a framework to kind of honing your ideas, if you aren’t too creative. So like does this tick four columns and if it doesn’t then it’s probably off topic. Or not going to do well for you.

Ben:    Yeah, I think that’s really important point to me is, actually keeping it on brand. Because it’s so easy it is. For some people, it’s really difficult to come up with ideas. Other people you can come up with an incredible number of ideas in your life. You could probably write A4 page after A4 page. But it’s actually going, well wait where does this actually come. This is actually going to be useful content as well. And I’m coming back to that great content we’ve discussed a few weeks ago on the podcast. Is actually where it is great content. And where it is engaging content where you actually prioritise it. In your content creation mix, whatever you want to call it.

Pete:    Yeah, exactly.

Andrew:    So should we go the other kind of three columns then maybe a bit more quickly. The second one is all about your aspirational message. So why are you in business to do? Because sometimes, it’s really hard to create content. Or create an engaged audience, if they know you’re just in it to make money. So this is easy if some businesses than others. But we really tried to get like deep with them sometimes when you actually trying to allow people to do

Pete:    It’s almost about thinking about about what your product or service allows people to do. So if we go back to the Chubbies example, they make shorts, right. But they make short so that people can go out and do stuff in those shots and have a great weekend. Shorts allow you to to do is, have a bit more freedom as opposed to pants. Which are basically what they call leg prisons. Nobody wants leg prisons. So you want to get a your shorts on and just go out and have fun. Have a bit of freedom, right. You wouldn’t go swimming in a pair of swimming pants. You would go in swimming short, so swimming trunks. And it’s the same, you know, if you go out with your friends. If you’re going on a hike and if you’re going on an adventure and going out in the sun, you can go out in shorts. So shorts allow people to have more fun and that’s also what their content is about.

Andrew:    And the third column is delivery. So how are you actually delivering your content? So this kind of goes back to what we were talking to earlier. Is it going to be a video? Is going to be a podcast? Is going to be a blog? Is going to be an instagram feed. And where a lot of businesses go wrong here, is that they’ll often think what can I do quickest and easiest to get as most out of that as possible. While we always say, flip that on its head, don’t necessarily be selfish about this. Think about how do your customers take their content.

Pete:    Really great example of this is with copywriters, right. So every copywriter is a writer and thus their content is always written. But if you think about it that, that’s just adding to the noise and the competition is very high. How many copywriters do video or podcast? Not very many, right? So it’s about not what it’s easiest for you and how your customers take their content and people have lots of different learning styles. So think about that so that’s the third column, the fourth column is sharability. So think about why people share your content because if you can get people to share and engage. Then it’s gonna work so much, better for you as we’ve already mentioned. So there’s lots of different factors in that. But I won’t, I won’t go into that necessarily. But we could talk all day about that. But think about how you can make your content a little bit more shareable. OK. Does it evoke some kind of emotion? Is it tied to some kind of belief or passion? Is it really, really, really valuable. Or is it making other people look good?

Andrew:    I was going to say, I think that’s probably the most important thing when it comes to sharable content. And then people often forget to ask, well, what does this person look like for sharing this content? Yeah. Does it make them look good? Does it make them look like the fun one? Or does it make them look in the no.

Pete:    So this the four columns, you’ve got brand aspirational message delivery, shareability. And if you can kind of write some ideas down and all of those columns at the end of it. You’ll have like so many ideas and a framework to think about those creative ideas that will create highly engaging content.

Andrew:    So we’ve done this with hundreds of businesses and a never ever fails. There’s never anyone who is stumped for an idea. Once we’ve run through this.

Ben:    There you’ve laid down a challenge right? Then I need to find a business now that you’d be absolutely stumped for an idea.

Pete:    We have been challenged on this. An awful example of I think it was just like a corrugated iron engaging content. I can’t remember what we said now, but we did have an idea. Yeah, the point is no matter what your business is. There’s always ways to make engaging content.

Ben:    And I absolutely love that. And that sort of sums up exactly. What I want to do is actually engaging content is there. Then actually it’s like there is a point to it in terms of the creating the relationships in terms of being able to go to attract customers and retain customers almost in the same vein. Where some marketing messages and channels can be highly targeted to either new or existing customers and engagement actually can cross boundaries. And actually seeing that there is, it’s not just about a click bait. It’s not just about getting loads of likes and shares, it can actually be a number of different metrics along there.

Pete:    So you don’t have to necessarily tie yourself down to a single metric per individual post. Actually, you can actually look, we may have had slightly less shares. But we actually decreased the bounce rate. We’d increased time on page so actually that was engaging but in a different way.

Andrew:    Yeah.

Pete:    Yeah. That’s cool.

Ben:    And then before we wrap this up, I think one of the things that I really want to get you to talk about and to promote a little bit is. Obviously both your books out there. So can you also sort of talk a little about your books. And actually the content that you talk about and then how you actually looked at those books. And actually as a content engaging bit of content themselves and actually how they can help other people create engaging content.

Andrew:    Yeah. So we’ve wrote two books each. I’ll go first which is called the “Hippocampus”. So that was all about how to create a standout brand. So we really got people questioning what made them different or what made them better as a business. And we kind of made the case for you can be, either to stand out, you can be different or you can be better. And it’s really hard to be better, especially if people have got like a ton of years on you in your industry. And you’re just kind of starting out. So how do you be different and not just kind of follow the crowd. So that was what the “Hippocampus” was all about,

Pete:    And the hippocampus, by the way, is the part of the brain responsible for memory. So that’s why it’s called the “Hippocampus”.

Ben:    Genius, I love that.

Andrew:    He just wanted people to be confused by that.

Ben:    But it’s also memorable as well. Exactly.

Pete:    It’s got almost nothing to do with hippos. And so that’s the first book. The second book is called  “Content Mavericks”, that seven step process to create engaging content. Come up with a promotional strategy and actually get some sales from that. So it’s basically a step by step handbook. So we want people to go through this kind of process of coming up with engaging content. Then actually making it work for the business because it’s not just about fun blog posts. It’s not just about creating in sales copy and it’s how they fit together. And it’s not only that but in what order do you create that in. Because I think a lot of people are overwhelmed when it comes to digital marketing. The one that define the brand, but then at the same time you also want to grow the Facebook pitch. And then at the same time we want to work on the SEO strategy. And then at the same time he went to create these leaf binder and it’s like, what do I do first?  Where do I start? And it’s completely overwhelming and what people end up doing is going from one thing to another. Not really finishing one of the each one as the go, so rather than mailing one thing and then moving on. Which is the efficient way to do it, is what the book goes through. What people end up doing is a little bit of a lead magnet getting stuck then going and working on some SEO and reading up on that. Then getting a bit overwhelmed. Then they’ll go off and research Facebook ads. And then by the end of the few months has gone by and they’ve actually done nothing. So we want to actually help people get quicker results by doing things in an efficient order.

Andrew:    And we actually go into a lot more detail will actually come up with your contents implies kind of like one big section of like one of the seven chapters.

Pete:    So yeah. So I’m just going to say that about it that’s available on Amazon and so forth. So yes.

Ben:    That’s exactly. Sort of what I want to say. Actually it’s almost trying to get my words already. It is usually not a good thing for an audio podcast and that you’re just still being stuck for words and just sat there going.

Pete:    You can edit that out.

Ben:    So it’s so easy for people to jump around from thing to thing from trend to trend. But actually not really nailing what they’re good at their core competencies, being able to focus on something that’s sort of long enough and spend enough time to actually become truly good at it. It’s becoming like that. But Jack of all trades but master of none. But there are so many damn trades. It’s not like where you a jack of all trades. You’re a handyman where there are a certain number of things to fix or certain number of tools to use in social media. Even in marketing in general. I mean the list of tools is absolutely endless. To be even a jack of all trades, I mean is almost impossible. So that I think sort of sums everything I really want to talk to you about in engagement, engaging content. I thank you so  much for coming on guys, because you think you provide some real insight into what actually is the point in it. What it really means, what it stands for and actually how people can use it in terms of, the whole content creation mix as a whole actually. Where the engagement really is important and why actually companies should look at creating engaging content with my inverted commas. That never worked quite as well on an audio.

Andrew:    Thanks, man this has been one of the funnest podcasts.

Pete:    It’s been really fun. We may have been grilled but I felt like we maybe came out on top here.

Ben:    That drop of sweat from your brow. I can see, I can see it without even looking at you.

Pete:    It’s probably just after the first question.

Ben:    Good. Before I let you go though, I can’t let you go yet without finding out of the buzzwords that you’re absolutely loving. Absolutely hating right now. So hit me with some buzz words that are absolutely loving or hating

Andrew:    can we have like love to hate.

Ben:    You can love to hate you if you want this part of the show is all yours. You go wild.

Andrew:    The top of my list is storyscaping. Just because it sounds like something painful that you can get some like high fashion boutique that includes like waxing strips or something like that.

Pete:    It’s almost like what does it mean? Like it could mean like a thousand things.

Andrew:    I actually had it the wrong end of the stick for so long because I thought it was all about like Snapchat stories and Instagram stories. But it’s not it’s about creating worlds for your users. Like Harry Potter has this whole “Pottermore” world. That’s what it’s all about.

Pete:    Cool concept and yet fantastic. But the word is absolute garbage.

Ben:    Just garbage.

Pete:    Some of our favorite ones, low hanging fruit. I love that one. Just because it sounds rude, we did a little survey of some regular people. Or non marketing people is what I meant to say.

Ben:    These people don’t exist outside of the marketing sphere. Who are they?

Pete:    Non-marketing people.

Ben:    Muggles, call them muggles.

Pete:    We ask them for some kind of buzzwords and they were like, so confused at this stuff. And when we say “Low hanging fruit”, the audience burst into laughter and said rude things.

Andrew:    Probably my favourite one  when we said a “Big data” to them, to this couple. And they just both burst out laughing and said, “um, what was the response?”. What does that mean? Someone that’s a bit desperate. That’s dating a bit too much. They though it was big dat-er.

Ben:    Got to many dating apps on their phone. But, there’s a lot of data you’ve given away in there. So actually you know what? They’re probably both not wrong.

Pete:    Then native advertising. Responses we got was like 10 seconds of confusement. Then very timidly, “adverting bananas in the jungle”. We were in tears laughing.

Andrew:    I like snackable content.

Pete:    That’s good.

Andrew:    Quite like it sounds tasty.

Ben:    Throughout this podcast, I have my lovely little box Thornton’s chocolate in front of me, having all my snackable stuff. Thank you so much for coming on today. It’s be an absolute blast and I think actually there’s so many points to take away from this as well and got real, real fun. Sort of trying to break this down. Actually come up with some nice little quotes actually from you guys. And sort of actually creating engaging content myself that will actually sort of talk about engaging content. Which it’s like inception here. I’m creating engaging content. These spinning tops now and it’s just never going to stop longer. Completely delirious where I am.

Pete:    Come across you one day in a mental health service.  “I just wanted to launch a podcast.”.

Ben:    That’s brilliant. Thank you so much for coming on guys.

Pete:    Thanks for having us.

Andrew:    Thanks guys, hope you’ve enjoyed that.