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Coosto is active in a constantly changing world. Various stakeholders (customers, interest groups, social media partners, governments etc.), with often conflicting interests, play an important role in this. As Coosto, we pursue a policy based on ethical considerations, against a background of greatly increased attention to privacy.

Despite all the measures we have taken – and will continue to implement - as part of our policy, we have apparently failed to convey our position on this issue sufficiently. We find this regrettable.  We want to state clearly and transparently what Coosto stands for, and show that we do take privacy seriously.

For instance, the article of Bits of Freedom states that Coosto would allow social media surveillance. This information is outdated, and goes back to the time when social media data was a relatively unexplored territory. At the time, the market was mainly exploring the possibilities and limits of social media, and privacy was not given enough attention.

However, Coosto is constantly evolving, as is the world of social media. We have prohibited any form of surveillance through Coosto, which our contracts and general conditions state as well. Coosto is a tool for marketing and communication, and can only be used for goals such as customer satisfaction and brand awareness. We enforce this with the help of technical and legal measures.

Along with these measures, we have parted ways with several governmental customers that were unwilling to accept our changed vision and conditions, against our commercial interests. The article mentions how the police and NCTV would use Coosto. However, these organizations have not been a customer of Coosto for a long time now, partly because of above developments.

We do not make these decisions just because it is what can be expected from us, but because we value privacy. We constantly evaluate our services for their possible impact on social interests, including privacy. When necessary, we draw lines and change our product. Even when that means we leave commercial potential unused. This is part of who we are, what we stand for and what we are our proud of as a company.     

Bits of Freedom does very important work for our society, but it is a shame that in this case they do not have a clear overview of the current state of affairs. Nonetheless, this nomination has encouraged us in our commitment to communicate better about the balance between privacy and technical developments from our point of view.

Storytelling has been a hot item in marketing and communication for at least a decade. Compared to standard posts, lists, or even blog posts like this one, stories are more entertaining, easier to remember, and stimulate deeper emotions.

The problem is that few marketers and communication consultants really understand the technique of telling a good story, which is why it’s a good idea to see how the professionals in the entertainment industry do it. Netflix is home to hundreds of documentaries that move us, make us laugh, or grasp our attention in some other way, and have little in common with monotonous videos crammed with information. Netflix teaches us that it’s often the story behind the news that attracts our attention, not the dry facts.

It’s a trick that lots of media companies have already copied. The greatest example of storytelling I ever came across was an article in Dutch newspaper Het Parool about a mysterious Japanese who wrote letters to a hotel in Volendam over a period of 40 years. The story was incredibly long: no less than 5,971 words, but apparently that’s not an obstacle if the content’s good enough. It was shared more than 500 times on Twitter.

It’s now time for social media marketers to follow in the footsteps of Hollywood and get their storytelling skills out there. So copy Netflix, and steal the show on social media by telling gripping stories.

The 80/20 Rule

Why has everyone, or almost everyone, heard of Netflix series such as Breaking Bad, La Casa de Papel and Narcos, but are much less aware of films such as Luka Chuppi, Les Goûts et Les Couleurs and Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Larga?

For every successful series on Netflix that goes viral, there are at least 4 much less popular ones. Your media content probably follows the same pattern, with 20% of your posts scoring around 80% of your views. However, as Netflix shows, this doesn't have to be a problem, and in fact the broad array of content with the occasional viral success is one of the reasons Netflix appeals to a wide audience and has been so successful. It’s something you should consider when analyzing your content. Posts with fewer likes, clicks or comments may not be irrelevant after all, but useful for the more discerning.

A Blend of Your Own and Curated Content

What hits you when you open the Netflix app is the pride with which the company presents its own work: the Netflix Originals. Netflix is not just a streaming service for series and films, it has also been operating as a production company in its own right for a number of years. Although Netflix exploits its own unique productions to distinguish itself from other providers of video content,

the brand could never have achieved so much success by being solely dependent on its own shows. A large part of its content is therefore curated, shared content, sourced from other production companies.

The strength of Netflix is a result of this blend of in-house and curated content, and you could also use it as a success formula for your own social media content. Sometimes marketers are simply too reluctant to borrow content from others, or create links to this content. However, the very fact that you’re willing to share the good work of others, even if they are competitors, teaches people that you’re the person to follow for high-quality content in your domain, regardless of who creates it.

Formulas and Categories

It would be very impractical if you had to scroll randomly through every movie and series on Netflix to find something that interests you. Fortunately, the categories (such as movies with good reviews, comedy, thrillers) mean you can quickly find what you’re looking for, and if you like one episode of a series, you immediately binge watch the whole season.

A lot of marketing content is less well organized. Have a look (we did, and know there is plenty of room for improvement): are you already using content categories, formats or series? Can customers or prospects rely on you posting content at fixed times on fixed days? Is there an easy way for your target group to only follow your content? If you organize all these aspects properly, your content will match the personal wishes of your followers.

Sit Back and Relax

Do you know how to make better content? By letting go from time to time. Creative minds benefit from some downtime, and there’s nothing like doing nothing to get the creative juices flowing. So, if you suffer a bout of writer's block, chill on the sofa with some soda and snacks, and lose yourself in Netflix. Even though your employer is unlikely to approve your evenings in front of the TV as working hours, you’ll still be an unstoppable content engine the next day. Enjoy it!

1.Know What You Want (And What You Don’t Want)

First of all, you have to make some decisions. What do you want to achieve and who do you want to reach with your content? First decide the big picture, then zoom in on the details. Where do you want to be in a year, for example, and what do you need to get there? Then define the marketing objectives of your content strategy. Are you trying to generate more leads, or increase the number of visitors to your website or blog? Are you aiming to improve customer satisfaction ratings? Whatever your objective, the first step is to make decisions when defining your strategy. These decisions will keep you focused. Prioritizing one aspect will automatically make another less relevant. If you find yourself spending a lot of time on the less important things, cut them out.

2. Decide What to Use in Your Content

What information does your target group need? Decide the kind of content your target group needs in each phase of the buyer's journey. Create an overview of your target group’s preferred content, and make decisions on aspects such as Evergeen or Ephemeral content. You also have to think ahead
about annual events, special days and special moments. For inspiration, take a look at a social media engagement calendar and select the relevant moments to engage that benefit your organization or brand. You’ll be surprised how much you can figure out in advance.

3. Be Consistent

Select those topics and themes you want to focus on with your brand, and convert them into recurring headings. For example, you could start the Monday with news, or end the week with a summary. If you’ve got a large group of followers who post ideas about your product, you could highlight these once a week.

Habits and recurring items appeal to people, because we like things to be predictable and structured. For example, every morning and afternoon I receive a news update from an online news channel, which I use to find out about the previous night’s news while I’m having breakfast. Come up with a content format, and think about how often you publish your posts.

4. Plan Your Content Ahead

It might sound dull, but make sure you plan ahead. Schedule editorial meetings, and think about what you want to say in the coming week, fortnight or month. Does it reflect your strategy? Think about what you want to say, and on which day. How do you make sure you interact enough with your target group? When are you going to publish your posts? You’ll actually find it a load off your mind if you think ahead and make sure there’s enough content. It will leave you with time and mental space for fun, creative and ad hoc ideas.

You can also use a content planner to help plan ahead. All kinds of hardcopy planners are available online that will help you get a clear overview of your posts. The advantage of digital planners and content calendars is that they can be linked to your social media accounts and automatically publish your posts, saving you a lot of manual work. Handy! Another advantage of an online content calendar is that you can measure the effect of your social media posts. This brings us to tip number 5.
 

5. Measure Your Results

Make sure you understand the results of all your efforts. The only surefire way to know if your content is effective is to measure it. Do you remember your objectives? Use UTM Tracking Codes in Google Analytics to identify the content that led your target group to your website, and how they behave on it. This can reveal which posts are most likely to lead to clicks and conversions, for example.

If you also use a publishing tool, you can measure the reach of your posts, how often a post has been clicked, what approach works best, and what posts have the highest interaction rate. Make sure you understand what you’re doing, and use the data you obtain to improve next time around by adjusting your objectives and strategy. If content is successful, continue with it, and if it’s not, try something different. This is the way to get an overview, clear your mind and achieve your objectives without wasting time.

Hopefully these tips will put you on course to take back control of your online communications. If you have some more ideas, please share them!

If you’d like to experience the benefits of using a content calendar, try out Coosto Publish for free.

Tell us a little more about your work as head of influencer marketing & brand advocacy strategy

"The title alone says a lot. Brand advocacy is a term we have been using in correlation with influence since day one. We aim to utilise and harness the power of influence across the entire spectrum. This means that we advise brands to part with the idea of controlling the entire narrative (this can be quite scary sometimes!) and provide influential people with a chance to tell their story as authentically as possible. Most of what I do revolves around developing and implementing long-term influencer marketing programmes.

Here at Come Round, we’ve worked with household brands across the UK since 2009. I've been here since 2013 and it’s been an interesting journey to say the least. From having to explain to everyone what influencer marketing is, what bloggers are - to the point where now even my parents understand what I do.

Back in the summer of 2016, we teamed up with Mazda and engaged influencers around their sponsorship activation of Tomorrowland, the immensely popular electronic dance music festival in Belgium. We utilised engaged-audience identification tools to make sure that each influencer had a relevant audience – and that their brand affinities and interests were aligned with the Mazda brand. We sent 15 influencers across Europe to Belgium and made sure they got VIP (or VII) treatment.

A lot of my time is also spent on less glamorous tasks, such as research, data analysis and campaign reporting. However these aspects are becoming increasingly important within a market that is under increased scrutiny."

Influencer Marketing has picked up in popularity in the last two years - do you have an explanation as to why this is?

“Allow me to to provide you with a little backstory and explain to you firstly what I consider to be influencer advertising: utilising content creators with a lot of reach on social media to broadcast a (branded/sponsored) message. To most - this is the very essence of influencer marketing.

Influencer advertising has been going through the roof over the past few years. I personally believe this is due to a shift in media consumption – we are experiencing a significant shift from traditional TV & Radio to digital / social.

Social media are different from more traditional forms of media, where nowadays, we opt to tune in to people and the content they produce, whereas fifteen years ago, we didn’t really have any other option than to watch Big Brother on a Friday night. This is where influencer advertising has filled a void. A YouTuber with a reach of a million people being paid to create #sponsored content around a new make-up brush is rapidly turning into the modern day equivalent of an old-school TV ad. Both come with big budgets and the potential for a lot of eyeballs, and often do well well in terms of brand awareness."

So what's the benefit of using influencers to advertise your product when you can just purchase social media ads on Facebook and Instagram?

“Social media ads absolutely have their advantages over traditional TV-ads. I was visiting family in the Netherlands over the Christmas period and I noticed ads for a specific supermarket chain being shown daily on TV – however the nearest store is over 50 miles away from where my parents live This means that the ad was highly irrelevant to the 20,000 people that live in their town. Social media ads offer obvious advantages, specifically in the form of geo-targeting

But however specific your ad is, it doesn’t automatically mean it meets attention and relevancy criteria – and when done right, that is the big difference between social and influencer advertising.

People actively tune in to watch content created by internet celebrity X or Y – if your favourite celebrity uploads a new video, you’re much more likely to watch it, even when it's #sponsored.

An additional advantage of influencer advertising is the myriad of options that are available to brands. Back in the day, there were only a few TV-shows that would serve up enough eyeballs and offer relevancy to your brand. Influencers have much more to offer. If you’re trying to sell ski gear, you used to be limited to the handful of popular travel shows, nowadays you can identify and engage hundreds of popular snowboarders that create awesome content and have a direct relationship with their audience.

So what's the difference between Influencer Advertising and Influencer Marketing?

“I tend to differentiate between the two to emphasise the fact influencer adveritising is only a part of the influencer marketing package. Yes it plays a part – but it’s not the only way to utilise the power of influence. Influencer advertising is often a smash-and-grab approach, where brands nor agency even think about engaging content creators for more than a year, nor think about taking the relationship further than just content creation. In order for influencer marketing to develop, the industry needs more long-term strategic and integrated approaches to show that there's more to it than just content creation.

Real influencer marketing goes beyond a one-off payment with the goal to generate views & traffic. For me, it’s all about harnessing multiple layers of influence. Starting with that friend you have that loves to cook who always talks highly about the local butcher because he thinks the meat there is much better than what you always buy at the local supermarket. Or what about that colleague you have that keeps telling you to switch mobile phone provider because of the excellent customer service he's been experiencing. This type of influencer marketing requires a grassroots, integrated strategy that starts at customer service level.

But think about it, this is actually something that a brand can actually impact themselves (without having to pay to use influencers!). If we put the customer first and start making it a priority to to make sure that people fall in love with your brand. You don’t always have to pay people to say good things about your brand. Service with a smile and a free croissant to the guy that comes in for coffee every morning could be the catalyst to the entire office flocking to your coffee place, as well as UGC.

Influencer marketing is about more than just paid-for-content. Your customers have friends, family members & colleagues that talk about brands on a daily basis. Social media provides us with a platform to find and identify these people, to get them to create content and take a positive offline experience online (and vice versa!).

This is why technology plays such an important part within your long-term influencer marketing strategy. Tools such as Coosto are not just designed to identify trends, they also offer you the opportunity to identify existing and potential customers – and what’s even better, you can engage these people and apply community management to increase brand advocacy levels.

When it comes to influencer marketing, some B2B businesses are ahead of the game, some have been actively working with ambassadors, fans and experts since the 90s, running these programmes with the knowledge that social proof works ‘My friend John uses this software, and he loves it – so it must be good.’ Perhaps, those types of companies being ahead of the game has to do with the fact that they’ve always had to look beyond traditional advertising – it’s harder to flog a piece of software during Big Brother."

How do you feel about the explosive growth that Influencer Marketing has experienced since 2016?

“Honestly, I have mixed feelings about it. From a business perspective, it’s amazing that this is a hot topic. It has definitely created more business opportunities. But at the same time, influencer marketing is still in its infancy phase. There are a lot of bandwagon 'experts' out there - and there is a lot of misinformation out there. The flipside is that it is making brands lose confidence in how important influencer marketing can be for them. Which is why education is becoming increasingly important going into 2018.

In addition, many agencies still use reach as a benchmark of success, a lot of people have a tendency to use advertising and PR measurements and apply it to influencer marketing. Are we reaching the right people, is the audience legitimate? These are questions that most in the industry actively avoid.

The result is that many think that reach equals influence. Which is not per definition true. A book critic with 100,000 highly engaged followers can be much more relevant than a more generic lifestyle YouTuber with 500,000 followers who are less niche when it comes to interests in specific products. To me; reach is not the holy grail of influencer marketing."

So let's talk about goals and KPI's

I always try to find a balance between reach and engagement. Our focus is always on engaged audience data. We think it’s more important to analyse engaged data than historical data, but more importantly, it’s vital to dig deep and find out as much as possible about the audience. We want to avoid classic examples of being ''too influencer focused''. The brands that are being advised to work with models to sell bikini’s and make up products, without realising that the majority of their audience is actually male, and therefore irrelevant.

We focus primarily on data, finding out the actual reach (i.e. engagement rate based on reach, not on follower count) and looking at audience data to determine relevancy. We also focus on softer metrics such as sentiment, consumer insight and social media monitoring to provide our clients with data that will allow them to combine influencer marketing with their day-to-day marketing activities.

Using newly available data, we have realised that even some of the content creators we have worked with in the past are too expensive based on their audience and deliverables. The industry has been too happy to throw money at influencers based on hype - and content creators have gotten away with accepting work without showing any real value. There is a real shake up taking place, and content creators who are unable to prove audience relevancy will be in for a real shock. There is no doubt that content creators require payment, but too often brands are paying too much for content that isn’t reaching a relevant audience.

So can brands enjoy Influencer Marketing on a shoe-string budget?

“Absolutely! You don’t need to spend a lot of money in order to set up an effective influencer marketing programme. Even for start-ups, I would suggest looking at all the entire spectrum of influence. Let’s take as an example a new local bakery.

Firstly, you could identify and engage a local celeb take a picture (IGC) inside / in front of your bakery and share it on social media (against payment, of course). In addition, make sure to give those who come in on a daily basis a little something extra, in order to encourage recommendations. And then you need consumers to start creating UGC, give people that have purchased something from your bakery an incentive to share pictures of your bakery online.

This is a mini-version of a more complete, all-round influencer campaign. Imagine you’re prepping for a winter-break full of ski-action; you’re looking at your friends’ social pages to see how they’re prepping. You spot that one of them received a free pair of gloves from a big brand - and then a little while later, you see one of the big snow-boarders that you follow wearing the exact same ones. And to top it off, one of your other friends talks about the brand because they bought gloves from the same brand last year, and when they ripped, the brand was friendly enough to provide him with new ones, no questions asked.

There are few to no brands / agencies currently utilising this level of in-depth influencer marketing strategies. The interest is there (for some) but the knowledge is lacking. As an industry, we are still too focused on big numbers and big talent. If we want influencer marketing to mature, and become more effective, we should be focusing on powerful, long-term programmes that cover the entire spectrum of influence - online and offline."