What Is Content Intelligence (and how to use it as a weapon)

So this one’s for the advanced pupils in the class.

If, despite 54 Journeys before this, you still don’t produce meaningful content, this conversation I had with Ceralytics Chief Strategist Brandon Andersen may amuse, but it won’t help you one bit.

Here’s our full interview. The transcribed part starts around the 8:25 mark.

Joe Hage: What do you do? Exactly? And how can I, the viewer of this video, benefit?

Brandon Anderson: Yeah, so what we do is something that is coined “Content Intelligence.” That means a lot of different things to a lot of different people because it’s a very new term and everyone’s kind of scrambling to figure out what it means.

For us, what it means is, “We understand your content and your competitors’ content at a topic level.”

So we can actually identify: Here the topics that work best for you. They are the topics that actually engage your audience.

Then, here are topics that bring people into your site; here are topics that you’ve underutilized.

So topics that you’ve covered before, they did incredibly well. But you didn’t write about again, and we do the same thing for your competitor.

So we’ll actually look at their content say, this is what’s working for them. Here are the pieces of content that they’ve created that do spectacularly. They have topics they cover that are amazing, they do amazingly well for whatever reason, they only wrote about it one time and, you know, that’s a huge opportunity for any company.

So wow, this actually worked for them, they didn’t cover it again, we should go in there. We should start taking that audience and that topic over.

But then we also look at the competitive set. So if you have three competitors, five competitors, 10 competitors, we will look at them and say here’s what they cover as a whole. And we compare that to what you cover and say, okay, here’s where you differentiate. Here’s where you are kind of in a battle with all of your competition. You guys battle over these topics.

And then, here are your gaps.

This is what your competition is writing about that you don’t cover. That’s huge, I mean, that right there is, like, all your opportunities for content… are usually in that gaps report which says, you know, you’re not here. Why aren’t you here?

And that’s probably the most eye-opening piece of what we do is people saying, Oh my god, I didn’t realize that we don’t we don’t cover that thing,” or, “That thing is actually of interest to our audience.”

Content Intelligence

As I began, if you’re not writing meaningfully for humans and search engines, you can breeze on down to the Fast Rounds or something.

You have to really be looking at your content as a strategy for anything Brandon’s talking about to help you out.

By the way, I invited Brandon to my 10x for Sales and Marketing event in Orlando (Jan 29-30) and I believe he’s at least attending, if not presenting.

We need a photo here

Too much text. We need an image to make you smile.

This is the photo that hangs above our bed.

“A LinkedIn Fast Round”

• How’s the migration from LinkedIn, you ask? Many friends inquire how the transition from the Medical Devices Group on LinkedIn to my site MedicalDevicesGroup.net is going.

  They typically mean, “by the numbers.”

  The day LinkedIn turned off the announcement spigot, my audience immediately dropped by 90 percent. There was no amount of ‘If you value this content, act now” that would overcome passing interest from intermittent subscribers.

  Among the 31,000 who stayed, my open rate in week one (Headline: 510(k) was supposed to be the exception. “It’s Regrettable.”) was 44.5%. Now in week 11, the open rate halved, running in the 20s the past four weeks.

  Interestingly, though, my conversion rates did not suffer much. The “one-click concept” did wonders for registrations because everyone who clicks is immediately opted-in. For example, tomorrow’s webinar with Rob Packard has 775 registrations.

  Progress on “the most useful medical device website” initiative stalled this month; just a matter of coordinating with Martyn. We’ll resume in November.

• Are we connected on LinkedIn? I wrote “Why did you link with me?” four years ago. I lamented how few new connections replied to my “thanks for connecting” messages.

  I used to write something like, “Thanks for inviting me into your network. I specialize in marketing strategy and communications, lead generation, and website development for medical device and related companies.

  Did you choose to connect with me for any particular reason? May I be helpful for you in some way?

  I thought it would solicit a response. It really didn’t.

  I haven’t cracked the code: I believe connection requests, more often than not, are somewhat mindless clicks-for-clicks sake. But I have refined my message and, while the response is improved, it’s still lackluster.

  Baby steps, you know? So now I simply write, “Thank you for adding me to your network. Please, tell me about your work?”

  I guess I’m not shocked people want to talk about themselves. Still, it wasn’t an unreasonable assumption they cared a little about me. You know, the one they connected to?

  Anyhow, if you and I aren’t connected, have at it: https://linkedin.com/in/joehageonline and say “Journey 54” in your greeting. That’ll make me smile! ????

• Interactive captions. I stumbled across this tonight. I’m very, very intrigued. Lucia, let’s discuss.

  With Interactive Captions, your videos can be more accessible than they've ever been. Try them today! https://t.co/O6tY90NpCI pic.twitter.com/CjvrxG33p6

  — Wistia (@wistia) October 24, 2018

Thank you for joining me on The Journey.

See you soon – or right now! – if you reply to this email,

P.S. I’m flying to Spokane for a barbershop competition this weekend. When we win, we’ll qualify to compete on the International Stage in Salt Lake City this coming July!