Author – Gary Vaynerchuk

The Thank you Economy

The Characteristics of Great Content and Compelling Stories

Business is all about making the customer happy.

It took 38 years before 50 million people gained access to radio. It took TV 13 years to earn an audience that size. It took Instagram a year and a half.

Great marketing is all about telling your story in such a way that it compels people to buy what you are selling.

“How can I do better?”

You cannot win big in social media if you’re going to be afraid of emerging technology.

A boxer spends a lot of time analyzing his own technique, but spends an equal amount of time analyzing his competitor’s technique too.

A great marketing story is one that makes customers want to do what you ask them to do.

Your story has to inspire.

On social media, the only story that can achieve that goal is one told with native content.

Only you know what your story should actually say.

Perfect right hooks include:

1. They make the call to action simple and easy to understand.
2. They are perfectly crafted for mobile, as well as all digital devices.
3. They respect the nuances of the** social network** for which you are making the content.

Outstanding content adheres to 6 rules:

1. It’s native
2. It doesn’t interrupt
3. It doesn’t make demands, often
4. It leverages pop culture
5. It’s micro
6. It’s consistent and self-aware

Content is king, but context is God.

Great content needs to be made:

• simple
• memorable
• inviting to look at
• fun to read

The 3 most popular app categories:

• social networks
  people are interested in other people
• entertainment; including games and music.
  people want to escape
• utility; including maps, notepads, organizers
  people value service

You’re just sharing a moment together:

• Something funny, ridiculous, clever, dramatic, informative, or heartwarming.
• Maybe something featuring cats.
• Something, anything, except a sales pitch.

Skillful, native storytelling increases the likelihood that a person will share your content with a friend, thus increasing the likelihood of that friend remembering your brand the next time she decides she needs whatever it is you sell.

Create content that reveals your understanding of the issues and news that matter to them.

Stop thinking about your content as content. Rather, think about it as a micro-content-tiny, unique nuggets of information, humor, commentary, or inspiration that you reimagine every day, even every hour, as you respond to today’s culture, conversations, and current events in real time in a platform’s native language and format.

Micro-content + Community Management = Effective Social Media Marketing

“Who are we?”

When you’re self-aware, you know your message.
When you know your message, it’s easy to keep it consistent in every setting.

Story tell on Facebook

If you want to maximize your eyeballs, it’s not enough to get people to read your article or buy your product-you have to get them to engage with it so that it spreads.

On Facebook, the definition of great content is content that people most want to share with others.

Content that entertains sees engagement.

Sponsored story: Your micro-content has to be the ad.
This spending strategy is worth every penny.

Quit complaining and start creating micro-content worth the money it will take you to successfully reach the customers.

Questions to ask about your Facebook content:

• Is the text too long?
• Is it provocative, entertaining, or surprising?
• Is the photo striking and high-quality?
• Is the logo visible?
• Have we chosen the right format for the post?
• Is the call to action in the right place?
• Is this interesting in any way, to anyone? For real?
• Are we asking too much of the person consuming the content?

Listen Well on Twitter

A brand’s success on Twitter is rarely predicated on the actual content if produces. Rather, it correlates with how much valuable context you add to the content-your own, and that produced by others.

Twitter primarily rewards people who listen and give, not those who ask and take.

Information wrapped in a story is special.

Questions to ask about your Twitter Content:

• Is it to the point?
• Is the hashtag unique and memorable?
• Is the image attached high quality?
• Does the voice sound authentic? Will it resonate with the Twitter audience?

Glam It up on Pinterest

Questions to ask about your Pinterest content:

• Does my picture feed the consumer dream?
• Did I give my boards clever, creative titles?
• Have I included a price when appropriate?
• Does every photo include a hyperlink?
• Could this pin double as an ad or act as an accompanying photo to an article featured in a top-flight magazine?
• Is this image easily categorized, so people don’t have to think too hard about where to re-pin it on their boards?

Create Art on Instagram

A few tips to creating successful Instagram content:

1. Make it “Instagram”. People love Instagram because of the quality of the content that up until now been made available there. No one is going to Instagram to see advertisements and stock photos. Native Instagram content is artistic, not commercial. Use your content to express yourself authentically, not commercially.
2. Reach the Instagram generation: Learn to make Instagram work for you-it will be your gateway to the next generation of social users. The kids will be on Instagram; their parents will still be on Facebook. I believed back in 2011 that Facebook would buy Instagram. They did, in the spring of 2012, for a billion dollars in cash and stock. I justified the buy on Piers Morgan the next day, explaining that if you looked at the evolution of content from Flickr, to Myspace, to Facebook, Tumblr, and Pinterest, it was clear that pictures were gaining in importance and were going to rule the social media world. When Instagram started building massive momentum in 2011, there was no way that Facebook could ignore it. Despite everything Facebook had-News Feed, pages, ads-this service built on mobile and pictures posed a real threat to a company that wanted to be the best photo-sharing service around. In fact, it posed the only threat Facebook has ever faced. They had to buy it. I said that I thought Facebook paid was a steal, and I was ridiculed. But go figure-no one is laughing now.
3. Go crazy with your hashtags: hashtags matter here, maybe even more than they do on Twitter. On Twitter, the hashtag be sometimes the sprinkle-a dash of irony, a smattering of humor that you use once, maybe twice per day. On Instagram, hashtags are the whole darn cupcake. You can’t overuse them. Putting out 5, 6, or even 10 hashtags in a row per post isn’t a bad way to communicate. And if you don’t want hashtags to clutter your post copy, no problem. Put your hashtags in a comment on your photo and it accomplishes the same thing. One click on a hashtag brings a user to a whole page of other images with the same hashtag. There is no better way to earn more impressions and gain followers. Hashtags are the doorways through which people will discover your brand; without them, you’re doomed to invisibility.
4. Become Explore-worth: The most gorgeous, evocative content on Instagram gets streamed into something called the Explore page, which exposes your content to all of Instagram, not just users who have chosen to follow you. Instagram swears that the number of likes that content receives isn’t the only deciding factor as to what makes it into the Explore tab, but it’s surely an important one. Its a phenomenal way to build businesses, and even Fortune 500 brands will most likely never find themselves in this exclusive club, but any celebrities reading this book should take note of the huge opportunity.

Questions to ask about your Instagram content:

• Is my image artsy and indie enough for the Instagram crowd?
• Have I included enough descriptive hashtags?
• Are my stories appealing to the young generation?

Get Animated on Tumblr

Questions to ask about your Tumblr content:

• Did I customize my theme in a way that properly reflects my brand?
• Did I make a cool animated GIF?
• Did I make a cool animated GIF?
• Did I make a cool animated GIF?

Content is king, context is God, and then there's effort. Together, they are the holy trinity for winning on Facebook, Twitter, and any other platform, and even for winning in any business.