The social media storm that is Movember

Movembers a lot of fun for most of us. This week we analyse what you can learn from Movember to make you’re social media more effective.

A quick look at social media will tell you we’re staring down the face of Movember (already!) and the question of whether to ‘tache or not to ‘tache raises its head. Yes, that’s right, it’s nearly Movember and men (and women) the world over are considering ways that they can support this very worthwhile charity. As a full service digital agency we want to look deeper, analysing why initiatives like November are so good at engaging large audiences and how you can apply the same thinking to your campaigns.

Every year, in November, Movember turns moustaches into a symbol of support for its cause. But what was once a very simple premise with an equally simple fundraising journey has become somewhat of a behemoth. Ask most people what they think Movember means and what the movement supports and they’ll say, “growing a moustache in November, get some sponsorship and raise money for testicular cancer”.

But Movember has become so, so much more than that. Let’s explore.Continue reading

Clickbait: Can brands and publishers learn from it?

Clickbait is taking over the world, and it’s not good news for media organisations. While respected news publications are still working out how to make profits online, social media sites are awash with clickbait, luring streams of traffic to their websites by piquing people’s curiosity, and making huge profits through advertising revenue.Continue reading

Why branded films are the next step for video content

Warning: Contains extremely engaging and very distracting video

Have you heard? Hollywood heavyweights Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert Di Niro and Brad Pitt are to star in a new film. If that’s not impressive enough, Martin Scorsese is directing, and the whole thing was written by The Wolf of Wall Street’s Terrence Winter. But there is a catch. It’s not a feature length film, rather a short, branded picture – albeit costing $70 million. And the brand behind it? Studio City, a new casino in Macau.Continue reading

A winning formula for company blogs

They have the potential to be powerful marketing weapons – retaining customers, acquiring new ones, increasing brand recognition and providing strong material for PR campaigns. So why do so many company blogs struggle to deliver?

While there’s no definitive answer, we at DVO have a pretty good idea of what’s going wrong. At the heart of the problem is a fundamental misconception of what a blog is for. As a journalist, I know the importance of writing for an audience. If you don’t produce stories they want to read, they’ll go elsewhere. And if their interest and tastes change, you have to adapt to cater for them.Continue reading

Content marketing objectives, strategies and tactics.

There seems to be confusion, as ever in marketing! This week we discuss content marketing objectives, strategies and tactics and how they interrelate with each other in a framework that makes sense.

Content marketing seems to be an endless source of confusion, but I think we’ve finally cracked it! Our junior planner, Emilia, did a great training session recently about developing aims, content marketing objectives, strategies and tactics – and it struck me that this is where most of the confusion lies. So for the record, this is what we think, and this is what most trained marketers would recognise – and the hierarchy is really importantContinue reading

Our mission to remove confusion from content marketing (or how to sober up an astronaut)

What is content marketing? You can read 20 different blogs and get 20 different interpretations, so in this weeks post we thought we’d lay out our definition.

Recently we’ve discussed at some length the confusion that exists around content marketing and the question we hear a lot, what is content marketing and what does it mean. We certainly know what it means to us. I’ve blogged about this before, just as I’ve also blogged about the many companies out there peddling other content marketing solutions and given some advice on how to pick one, which I hope has been useful.Continue reading

The importance of building content infrastructure

Much of content marketing focuses on brand and audience building. But when you’re building an audience you need a content infrastructure around which it can gather. Here at DVO, we have an in-house development team who work with our clients to create the best platform for the content their audience is going to engage with.

WimbledonScreenshot
Above is a perfect example of a content infrastructure we’re very proud of. The website we built for Wimbledon Studios allows visitors to see all aspects of its business: the sets, the catering, its capacity for events and more. The blog also gives Wimbledon the opportunity to engage with potential location managers, event organisers, and other professionals who want to know what Wimbledon Studios offers that other facilities don’t. Without this platform, the content we create for Wimbledon would struggle to be seen.

Most of the content created off-site directs traffic back toward the website and that’s why building a solid infrastructure is so key. Writing excellent copy for Wimbledon Studios’ website and for other sites wouldn’t work effectively if there wasn’t a central hub for the audience to come to.

BooksAboutTownScreenshot
We’ve written before about DVO’s work with Books About Town, the partnership between the National Literacy Trust and Wild In Art designed to encourage reading for enjoyment. Their BookBenches celebrating stories linked to London are soon to be unveiled for the summer. To mark this launch we’ve created a platform that encourages exploration and sends readers on their own BookBench finding adventure.

Books About Town has truly great content to share. The process of painting and placing new BookBenches provides important opportunities for pictures, tweets, and lively discussion. Below you’ll see our own contribution to this collection of excitingly decorated street furniture.

There are lively interactions on Twitter between us, the artist Mandii Pope, Books about Town, the National Literacy Trust and others in the location where our BookBench will be placed. All of this is directed back to the content infrastructure of the Books About Town website. Without that infrastructure the readers interested in this story have no place to go.

If you need an infrastructure for your audience to live in from this content marketing agency, we can help. Call us on 020 3771 2461, drop us a line at [email protected] or tweet us. We’re @DVOagency.

Why artificially building links is a tired and risky strategy

In my latest post I’m looking at link building and why building links artificially is a risky and short sighted strategy.

I’ve written a number of posts hoping to demystify content marketing and hopefully highlight what brands should look for in a content marketing agency, writes Ben Dickens, content marketing agency DVO’s managing director. But I thought it would be valuable to take a good hard look at the notion of link building and why both brands and agencies seem to equate content marketing with link building.Continue reading

Between a rock and hard place: What to look for in a content marketing agency.

With so much choice and confusion in the marketing we though we’d discuss what to look out for in a content marketing agency, and what makes DVO a bit different.

There’s a huge amount of confusion at the moment. Why? Because the content marketing agency is suddenly everywhere – and they often offer widely differing services.

Broadly, however, these offerings fall into three distinct camps. What follows will help you better evaluate the skills each camp possesses and how, as a content marketing agency, they might remedy the problem you want to solve.
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