Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ll already know that Instagram recently started removing the ‘likes’ count from its in-app experience, coming as a shock to Insta-lovers and influencers alike.

Now Facebook, Instagram’s parent company, is following suit by also testing the removal of the likes count, starting this month in Australia. Much like the Instagram change, soon Facebook users won’t be able to see the total number of likes on posts other than their own. This change is aimed at making the platform ‘feel less like a competition’ – demanding a re-focus on Facebook’s purpose of personal content-sharing, rather than posting content for the sake of driving popularity.

The decision to trial the removal of the like count on the Facebook platform comes from “a positive overall trend across both of the platforms” and to “help people focus less on likes and more on telling their story” says Mia Garlick, director of policy at Facebook ANZ. “We want to see whether removing the visibility of the likes and reaction count increases the value that people find when they’re connecting and sharing on Facebook. So do people find that this helps them focus on the quality of the interactions, rather than getting distracted by the quality of likes and reactions?”

Since the emergence of social media in the mid-2000’s, ‘likes’ have quantified our popularity across social platforms almost as much as a brands’ follower count or subscriber list. The linking of the two - popularity and likes - has become a visual representation of an influencer or brand’s validity and trustworthiness – the higher the number of ‘likes’ on a post, the more ‘social credibility’ the user has won. Data derived from ‘like’ and engagement metrics may indeed mean that content is great or highly engaging, but this isn’t always the case. Time and time again we’re noticing content out there that isn’t great but has a lot of likes. Why? Well, it’s no secret that services that enable buying likes and followers exist – in fact, so many people and businesses seem to be doing it, that ‘like’ metrics have largely become unreliable measures of a post’s true traction. This is no doubt one of the reasons at the forefront of Facebook and Instagram’s decision to remove the metric altogether. 

But what does the removal of the likes count mean for content creators? The hope held by Instagram and Facebook is that by removing the emphasis on likes, users will be encouraged to post more “authentic” content, without worrying about how many likes it gets. For content creators, the removal of the like count may mean an increased frequency in posting and activity on social media platforms due to less “posting pressure” to only post content that’s likely to garner likes. Where we once lived in a world that only rewarded truly engaging content with a double-tap or a thumbs-up, we can now throw all caution (and care) to the wind and post content that we truly want to post – regardless of whether we think it will prove to be popular with the likers. Does this mean brands should start posting five times a day, no matter how valuable the content? Absolutely not. 

Successful content creators know that when it comes to sharing content, quality will always trump quantity. Just because your audience can no longer keep an eye on how many likes your posts are accumulating certainly doesn’t mean you should post every BTS photo your business can produce. If anything, the removal of the likes count should come as a signal for brands to focus on posting quality content with purpose that is really going to resonate with the audience they’re trying to reach. With ‘likes’ becoming such a casual vanity metric (think of how many times you’ve ‘liked’ a post without looking at it for longer than 3 seconds), it’s no surprise that Instagram and Facebook are nudging content creators to consider moving beyond the ‘like’ metric in the hopes that they’ll strive to achieve results with meaning. Moving forward, considering the engaged audience’s demographics and rate of click-throughs will become powerful indicators of a content campaign’s success. 

At the end of the day, content creators need to remember that behind that ‘like’ button sits a human being who is physically engaging with their content. Beyond the ‘like’, businesses need to be considering what value their content adds to the lives of their audience. We can hope that as a result, we start to see a reduction in the amount of ‘engagement-bait’ posts – “double-tap if you agree!” – and an increase in content that actually makes social media a good place to be. 

Do you believe in life after likes?

All across socials last night were images and tributes to Robert J. Hawke.  

Why?

Because Bob had purpose.

Bob was plugged in to cultural context and had great insight.

Bob had a distinct personality and tone of voice.

Bob was a person of action and courage.

Like a good content strategy, he and what his team set out to achieve was to tell a story and create positive change in the world.

Unfortunately, I’m not sure if the main contenders for this election, will have the same impact and unfortunately the parties behind them are surrounded by very un-purposeful tacticians, that have got trapped into a lobbyist way of thinking.

In a nutshell their model is:

What do we stand for?  A good start.

What will they say about it and us. (= fear)

What will we say about them (=The lowest hanging fruit for campaigning)

Unfortunately, the “leaders” are letting the highly paid and insight-less tacticians run their race - including social tactics using micro influencers with negative, foundless smear content.

In an age where brands, leaders and political parties have so many fantastic personalised resources available to them – they treat their audiences with a lack of respect and resort to the most basic of messaging and lack of imagination in telling their story.

All we can hope is that the memory of Bob inspires new potential leaders to step up and have a go, with a focus on what our culture and community needs. Hopefully having a clearly defined purpose to create positive action in our country.

If you can find them on Saturday, I think you may have to look outside the brat pack.

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The views of the author are the views of 3rdspace.com.au

It often feels as though in many categories, brands tend to serve up the same content as their competitors and then wonder why the content doesn’t cut through.

When we set out to define a content mission for our clients we spend time looking at the competitive set and sometimes even ask the client to name the brands behind the content….it’s rare that they will pick them correctly.

 

To cut through, content needs to have the consumer at the heart and be built around strong insights and brand truths, but also there are always opportunities to disrupt what the pack is doing and cut through with hero content campaigns that don’t look like or take the same narrative as your competitors.

It also seems that the higher the price point the less risk adverse brands are:

Jewellery – great looking model or celebrity with a piece from the brand.

 

Cars – highlight the car in aspirational location or escaping with the family, beautiful exterior shots, internal shots showing the instrumentation and cut to the driver and or family enjoying the experience.

 That’s why we love this new piece of work from The Wieden+Kennedy team in Tokyo, who decided to leave the car clichés in the bin with their latest campaign for Audi Japan. Instead of they opted for an approach that tunes into emotion and headspace – leaving shots of the A7 Sportback and A8 till the final seconds of the two spots.

 

And of course, travel:

Panoramic destination shot, authentic experiences and people slightly more aspirational than me enjoying the experience.

Even when it is a must from the client to have some of these attributes, we relish the opportunity to make the content more relatable and not same same.

Recently with Avalon Cruises in a campaign that included TV and a range of content we flipped the thinking to tell the story n the insight that kids don’t believe that their parents could ever be up for having a good time…

We extended the story with personalised film and content to travel agents, asking the agents to help the kids with their homework, and even sent them lunch boxes to make the kids lunch.

 The result was Avalon got noticed above and beyond the pack, travel agents engaged in there hundreds through the microsite and a closed Facebook page and sales went up by over 25% year on year.

 Yes, we got the obligatory experiences in there, but by looking for a strong insight and telling the story from a fresh perspective, cost effectively gave the brand higher impact.

I’m not saying marketing in Australia is backward, but sometimes I wish brands would think about content differently.

It’s getting better, but when we first started 3rdspace, content was the poor toothless cousin kept in the back shed until the strategy had been dressed up and brought out on display and the ad campaign with its 80% multiple in media had enjoyed all the attention.

A good content strategy aligns very tightly to the brand architecture/DNA from purpose to attributes, values and tone of voice,

A good content strategy has a 1-3 year mission to engage and involve consumers to interact with the brand and take action, including sharing their details with it and purchasing.

A good content strategy aligns to the brand purpose and takes into account all the brand is doing from the inside out, through to partnerships, sponsorships and promotions.

A good content strategy is a 3 year view that has evolving story arcs that should evolve with the market place, how consumers see the brand and the culture/country it lives in.

So why not get onto the content strategy as soon as the business has defined the brand architecture?

It will allow you to:

 

So get your content out of the back shed and onto centre stage, where it will do your business a world of good.

Rob Logan is the founder and head of content at 3rdspace 

Tribes. They’re everywhere.

As humans, we want to get around people who get us. It’s in our nature. We want to feel like we belong and that our participation is important. We all want to know that we can make a difference and that our actions count.

It was once thought that the internet would be the great equaliser; that (unparalleled) widespread access to information would economically liberate the masses, but ultimately homogenise us culturally.

Social media has proved otherwise.

Not only have we seen more tribes than ever before, which connect over cross-cultural and geographic boundaries, we’ve seen more innovative ways to organise and mobilise these tribes.

We’ve raised millions of dollars for ALS research through an ice bucket challenge, which enabled a huge scientific breakthrough. We’ve brought home Nigerian girls who were kidnapped by rebel forces, all without leaving our homes.

However, there is a downside -- well, for marketers anyway: our clients are now demanding social campaigns with as much scalability as the ice bucket challenge. With next to no budget. Because social media is free, right?

Due to the success of grassroots campaigns plastered all over social media, a kind of availability bias ensues: because we are inundated with information about the movements, it makes us all feel closer to the problem and the solution than perhaps we really are. This, in turn, it makes it easy for our clients envision their campaigns gleaning a similar level support and making a similar level of impact.

While it’s very much possible to shape an advertising campaign around a social movement, that doesn’t mean that every social campaign calls for a social movement. It’s got to be the right fit, otherwise it’s going to flop. You can’t fit a square peg into a round hole.

To effectively harness the power of the social tribes, your campaign requires a few key ingredients:

  1. Disruption: your cause needs to inherently challenge some kind of status quo. As we have seen, this works particularly well for social causes, where the tribe is driven by a moral or ethical imperative. This also means that you need to propose a better way forward, and clearly outline how easy it is for people step up and make a difference.

 

  1. Connection: you need to bring people together on a social level. They’re united by a common cause, but it needs to be a real cause and they need to opt in. The people who actively opt in generally want to feel like they are part of something bigger than themselves, and as an individual, are an essential part of an important group. The impact of mobilising the tribe also depends on the strength of the call to action from the leadership team.

 

  1. Commitment: in order to make change, you need time and consistency. The group needs to see you, their leader, in the trenches day in and day out, fighting to make a real change. A two-week campaign period with two content pieces does not a social movement make.

 

You also need time to recruit supporters to your tribe, aka build up your following  -- after all, there is strength in numbers, and you’ve got to make some noise to get noticed.

So, how can it work?

Recently, 3rdspace partnered with ITF to fight a real injustice. We rallied together our own special tribe who called for Levis to provide better working conditions for the dock workers of Madagascar, who earn as little as 16 cents an hour shipping denim all around the world.

The result? We got Levis to commit to change in just three days.

Here’s how we did it.

Pay for a personality, or create your own?

That is the question.

You’ll notice a couple of pieces of 3rdspace work recently, that uses "a face" for the content.

Our content piece for Pepsi Max to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Top Gun utilises the talents of Chaz Mostert, one of the drivers Pepsi Max sponsor.

The content campaign for NRMA is fronted by the loveable Deirdre, NRMA’s Do it Your Selfer, a character that is unique to the brand.

Both have had fantastic shares and positive sentiment for each brand.

It highlights a challenge many marketers face - to use a known personality that will likely bring instant credibility and social reach to the brand, or create a character that optimises the essence of your brand. Both have merit. Here’s a few thoughts that may help you make the decision on what’s best for your brand.

The Pepsi Max team have done a great job with their sponsorship of Chaz, finding an innovative intellectual property to reinforce the relationship that’s not a sticker on a helmet. The content taps into a wider audience outside of motor racing, and his personality and presence on camera really brings the brand essence to life.

What we learn from this is, if you’re going to do a personality endorsement or sponsorship, build a strong relationship with the talent, find out what the talent is into outside their core known skills and build a story that has wide appeal. Chaz’s fans have loved the clip, and even Holden drivers gave it a like and a share.

If you’re going to create your own personality, the content strategy and back story have to be developed thoroughly before the camera rolls.

NRMA haven’t just used loveable Deirdre as the face of a product campaign, they’ve been open to extending the story and involving consumers in the conversation.

Her personality and how we add to her back story with the content helps build longevity, which is where the challenge is for brand custodians. With so many changes in the market place and within the business they work for, marketers are always tempted to create something new, and walk away from the hard work they have put into developing a character. Other campaigns and characters can come into the mix, but if you have a character who is building a connection with your audience, think about how their story can evolve with your brand.

To share some thinking from my days running media brands, we would allow 2-4 years to build up a personality, knowing it takes time to build a deep emotional connection with the audience. Whether it’s a new show, a media personality or a character for the brand, make sure the personality you create is planned out, just like you’d plan out a campaign. Map out the journey for the character; have them not just selling a product, but living their purpose through the content.

With the right content strategy and innovative evolution of the characters story, your content can pay off bucket loads.

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Rob Logan is the founder of 3rdspace – where brands with purpose create content of value.

Content Agency 3rd Space has recently started working with the lovely people at Crust Gourmet Pizza. In our first campaign, Crust needed a localised solution for South Australia to prompt brand awareness and trial.

So…. we employed two new delivery drivers for them. Meet Travis Boak and Tex Walker, the two local rival AFL captains.

Our solution embedded the brand in the parochial and passionate minds of South Aussies, who being a two team town, LOVE their footy!

The value offer: The Captains’ 2 for $30 Deal.  All customers have to do is jump online, order the deal and pick their captain for the chance to have one of the boys deliver direct to their door.

The timing has been perfect leading into footy finals, not only with the two captains being the new Crust ambassadors, and also the fact that pizza is the natural go-to food for watching the footy.

We kicked off the campaign with a short clip of the two Captains delivering Crust Gourmet Pizzas to fans across Adelaide, with plenty more deliveries and surprise content still to come: https://www.facebook.com/crustpizza

The campaign seems to have ticked a lot of (pizza) boxes for Crust – Surprise, Celebrity, Passion, Finals, Rivalry, Fun and so far, the most commented and shared social campaign on Crust Gourmet Pizza’s Facebook page - so we’ll tick the engagement box too.

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I’m not ashamed to say it, I have a massive professional crush on Simon Sinek. There’s something about those rolled up shirt sleeves and the old school flip board that pulls you in. Then he starts to talk about the power of why and BOOM, I was hooked.

Simon Sinek’s TEDx talk has 24 million views

Seriously, this guy is inspirational. If you haven’t seen his TED Talk, watch it now.

If you have, watch it again. I use this video all the time. To help clients understand the power of having a core purpose and for friends who feel lost and wonder why they get up each day.

 

But what follows why?

Having spent the last year helping brands to articulate their purpose, mission and values using Simon Sinek’s trademark circles, I got to thinking about what happens after you define your why? Or more importantly, how do you communicate this why, frequently and passionately to consumers so they continue to engage and promote your brand for days, weeks and years to come.

This got me thinking about how the power of WHY could translate into content marketing.

After all, most social media teams approach content from the angle of what they are going to say, rather than why they are saying it and why customers should care. Hours are dedicated to filling out conversation calendars, focusing on the latest product the marketing team needs to promote, what’s topical and what’s the latest trend to piggyback off. Rather than thinking about why they exist and how they can produce content that will impact the ongoing, long-term relationship with followers and customers.

 

Golden circles of content marketing

Adapting Simon’s golden circles to content marketing we see how a powerful content purpose can help guide a social media and marketing team from the inside out. Talking directly to what most strongly connects you and your consumers – why you exist.

3rd Space - Marketing Agency Sydney - 5 tips to Content Marketing


5 tips for successful content marketing

Finally, here are my five top tips for producing content marketing as legendary as Mr Sinek himself.

  1. Define your content purpose.
    Decide why you are doing content marketing and how it can help tell the story of why your brand exists.
  1. Have a singular focus.
    Create a mission with a single focus. Then be relentless in pursuing this goal. Like the Wright Brothers, develop a mission that is focused, courageous, measurable and has a long-term vision for success in social media.
  1. Adapt how you say it, to where your audience is.
    Put yourself in your consumer’s shoes. Use data to better understand which channels they are using, which personalities they follow and which formats they prefer. Adapt to their needs, because I guarantee you they will not adapt to your style.
  1. Live your content mission every day.
    Define your content pillars and stay on topic. Done well this will help develop story arcs and recurring themes that your followers will get behind, support and share.
  1. Check everything you post against your pillars.
    Use your content pillars as a checklist to decide if something should be posted. If it doesn’t sit under a pillar – don’t post it.

 

Rachael Butler has 12 years’ experience of brand and content marketing and currently heads up Strategy at 3rdSpace. 3rdSpace is a content company and Sydney Marketing Agency that helps brands with purpose create content with meaning. If you’re a marketer who is as big a fan of Simon Sinek as we are, why not get in touch and see how we can help you develop a content strategy to help communicate why your brand exists.

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Before founding 3rdspace I spent a lot of time with artists who created iconic music in my role as Head of Content at 2dayFM and Head of Marketing & Programming at Foxtel.

 

Whilst we created winning brands with unique content and great personalities, it was the music that provided the foundation for each brands success.

 

Excessive name dropping warning ahead: I toured with Radiohead, played pool with Robbie Williams, walked next to Daniel Johns as he made his comeback after sickness at the Big Day Out with Silverchair…. And saw a lot of things I’d never dare write about.

 

The artists I was fortunate enough to spend time with, taught me valuable lessons that can be applied to both content strategy and creative execution. Here’s what I learned along the way.

 

  1. Have a singular focus.

Then be relentless in pursuing that goal. Think about all of the interviews you’ve seen where the artist knew right from the outset that they would create impact in people’s lives. The Beatles to Jackson, Madonna and Gaga. We need to apply the same focus to a brands content strategy. First up know what you want, develop a content mission that is focused, courageous, measurable and has a long-term vision for success.

 

  1. It’s not only what you say; it’s how you say it.

From the flamboyant Elton John to the authentic tones of Angus and Julie Stone. Define a look and feel that is both visually rich and unique to the brand. The music industry took on a new lease of life with the MTV generation – as content has in the last few years. Films and stylised Instagram images don’t always need to be high budget but they should have a look that is reflective of your brands personality.

 

  1. Develop story arcs and recurring themes.

Take inspiration from the likes of Bowie and Radiohead, by developing your hero characters, their nemesis and an evolving story that can deliver dynamic competitive advantages for your content as stories evolve over years with your audience.

 

  1. Involve the audience and tour relentlessly.

One thing Mick taught me when we spent a good, mmm almost 5 minutes together, on the road is own the space, and involve your audience. Use every asset you have to tell the story from social channels to your website and EDM’s. Don’t just sing your song; get the audience involved in any way possible. Make them the stars and they will be your biggest advocates.

 

  1. Continually seek inspiration to stay ahead.

So why did Boy George crack one massive album and Madonna a dozen?

True one of them dined a little too much on success, but Madonna was continually looking for the next emerging sound and look. She also listened to what people were talking about and cared about. Like a great artist your content strategy and the content you are creating needs to tap into what people are feeling, doing and thinking. It needs to be relevant. It needs to create impact. It needs a point of view.

 

And for the record, curtains were way on trend in the 90’s.

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