How to maximise the impact of your content

Let’s presume you have published an article about the future of British banks and financial institutions after the Brexit. You might have updated that story right now with new facts based on the US election. Several weeks of hard work, research, copywriting, fact checking and other tasks have led to a great result. It’s been published a while ago and has had an impact on your readers for a day, maybe two. Now what? Move on to the next story? No, wait! Don’t waste so much time, energy, persistence and creativity for only publishing once or twice. Break your content apart and maximise the impact of the core essence of the researched information and publish the main components across a wide array of touchpoints. Use all the minimum information units of your content to maximise the impact throughout the next weeks.

Breaking the content apart

Your story about British banks may consist, for instance, of the following items:

–      headline

–      intro

–      several paragraphs (let’s say 10)

–      4 photos

–      1 video

–      1 interview

–      1 infographic

–      1 list of several key facts/bullet points

Altogether you have written 2,000 to 3,000 words. Your story has since been printed in the newspaper (or magazine) and published on the respective website. Maybe you or your team have shared the link on social media and if you’re lucky in the daily newsletter as well. Your impact thus was on four or five channels during two days.  Let’s break your content apart with the ‘New Ebner’ transformation program and create a list of potential MIUs. We then would have:

–      an MIU each for headline, intro, all 10 paragraphs

–      an MIU for each of the 4 photo

–      5 MIUs for the video (video, audio, screenshots, text, key quote)

–      4 MIUs for the interview (full text, 1 abstract, 2 key quotes with photo)

–      an MIU each for the infographic and bullet points

We thus have 27 MIUs, plus your full post. Let’s now create your touchpoints matrix, that is: a matrix of all the channels each MIU can be published on. For example, a photo MIU can be published on Twitter, Linkedin, Facebook, Instagram, your website, print, a forum, an external blog, a PR portal, and maybe four more channels; all with a link back to the full story. This would result in a total of 13 channels. The video can be published on Youtube, Twitter, Linkedin, Facebook, Instagram, your website, a forum, an external video partner site, a PR portal, and maybe four more channels; that’s a total of 13 channels.

So, for each photo and the video we already have 13 channels each and five MIUs (1 video, 4 photos). That’s a content impact score of 13×5=65. Let’s presume all MIUs will have 10 channels each, the result would be 27×10=270 touchpoints to maximise the impact of just this one story about British banks. But that’s not the end of it. Because your company also hosts events, your content suddenly can be turned into a massive platform for continuous monetisation. 

The event package

We have redefined events as a great source of a number of content pieces. Let’s say this is an event about the future of British banks. Your content has been updated slightly and then turned into a video and a speech. The event video consists of the full video stream, the audio file, a written transcript of what has been said (based on your former story) and screenshots from the video. That’s already four different content pieces. The event video can be repackaged as short clips with key messages, one version without sound but with subtitles (great for social media) and another with sound (for your website and partner sites). Then we would summarise your key messages as an infographic that’s published together with the full transcript of the video. The infographic will also be shared across all social media platforms and your newsletter. The full video and full audio (as a podcast) will be turned into premium content for paid subscribers and all content pieces combined will be packaged as ‘The future of British banks’ on your website, mobile app and tablet version, enriched with summaries and opinions by the our editors. At Ebner such packages work great with subscribers who were not able to come to the event but want to read about what’s been going on as well as how this potentially impacts the industry or their business. We typically charge €5 to €20 for such digital packages, sometimes more for the print versions. And that’s only your event content package! Let’s say there were 20+ more great speakers and industry experts at the forum amplified across 5+ channels – makes 100+ content pieces from just one event by simply repackaging existing content on a variety of free platforms. 

Finally, all of this also makes for a great print special about the event, doesn’t it? Suddenly your story has been repackaged, repurposed, reamplified and remonetized multiple times. This is why we look at content from many perspectives. So much effort goes into excellent content that it should never be published just once or twice. It should be amplified to live up to its full potential across many touchpoints and throughout a longer timeframe. Your content deserves a great audience; by leveraging the power of MIUs and a smart touchpoints matrix you will be able to unlock the full potential of your key messages.

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