I recently had the pleasure of traveling to Hamburg, Germany to speak at M2C. With friends of mine raving about this event year over year, I was excited to check it out, meet new people and share my thoughts on creating remarkable customer experiences with content.

Why content? If you think about it, content is something marketers produce daily. Marketers spend tons of time, resources and money producing content to captivate their customers, drive desired actions and achieve their goals. Why not seize those daily content opportunities and maximize those moments and translate them into experiences?

Here are five tips on how to create content that works harder for you to create remarkable customer experiences.

Tip 1: Embrace A Customer Centric vs. Sales Centric Mindset

Look no further than Dunkin’ Donuts’ customer-centric social media mantra.

Prior to my current role running the Content Lab at Sprinklr, I worked in social media for Dunkin’ Donuts. It was this job experience where I learned the value of having a customer centric mindset. Social media is an amazing focus group – each and everyday Dunkin’s customers were sharing their experiences with the brand. Before you dive right into creating content, really listen to and learn from your customers.

In addition to a strong social listening solution to mine customer insights, I also encourage companies to monitor the photos their fans share. How your fans discuss and visually communicate about your brand are both equally important.

Why? Without deeply understanding who your customers are and what drives them, you cannot curate a meaningful content strategy – let alone translate content into a remarkable experience.

#mydunkin
While at Dunkin’, two customer-centric examples stand out. The first was a program called #mydunkin where we focused on putting fans in the spotlight. It was the company’s first-ever social media casting call where we messaged super fans with amazing and everyday Dunkin’ Donuts stories to appear in a TV commercial. It was the first time in my career that I had helped play casting director and I loved it. The reactions from our fans were amazing and the end commercials – TV, radio, digital – were real stories from real customers.

Surprise & DDelight
Another standout program was our Surprise & Delight initiative. Each month, we encouraged members of our community management team to nominate passionate fans to receive a care package in the mail. Each care package is hand-wrapped and personalized to the recipient. While the dollar value of each care package was not high – it didn’t matter. Fans loved the serendipitous and personalized nature of the program and nine out of ten recipients shared photos of their care package on social media, showcasing the value of the program.

Tip 2: Embrace Visuals To Tell Your Story

We’re marketing in an era of infobesity where consumers are faced with more messages, across more social and digital channels than ever before. As a result, research shows that you only have between 2.8 – 8 seconds to capture someone’s attention. No pressure, right?

So, how do you stand out in the crowded newsfeed? Visuals!
Research shows that visuals are processed 60,000x faster than text alone. Look no further than the image below. You do not need to read the text to understand this post, but the clean composition and use of color really pops.

This image from KLM was actually shared on LinkedIn of all places and it drove a high level of engagement with the target audience – business travelers.

The Magic Is In The Visual Mix
Innovation in the social media and digital space has resulted in a multitude of exciting visual and video mediums to use. From photos, to videos, GIFs, memes, cinemagraphs, infographics, Slideshare presentations and more, there have never been more ways to use visuals to be creative and captive your customers.

Not sure which visual to use? Consider the story or message you’re trying to tell.

For example, Bloomberg wanted to celebrate Pie Day in a clever way and crafted this chart type image to visualize commodity prices in slices of pie. Clever and on point for the day.

When Magners Cider wanted to tell the story of its commitment to crafting a quality hard cider beverage, the company’s agency at the time, Share, created this clever video comparing cider to a work of art.

From Visuals to Visual Storytelling
Simply using visuals is not enough to drive sustained engagement. The key is to translate visuals into a compelling story. One example of a company that does a fantastic job of this is the TSA. The TSA shares images on Instagram and Twitter of confiscated items with the hashtag #TSACatch as a way to educate consumers about the items that cannot be brought through airport security. While some are more obvious, others – lipstick tasers, chinese throwing stars, knives, and more are quite sensational.

The TSA also shares which airports the items were confiscated from and more details about why the item is prohibited. In addition to educating the public, the TSA is also telling the story of the great work its agents do to keep travelers safe.

Tip 3: Personalize Your Content By Social Media Channel – Don’t Spray

A mistake brands often make is spraying the every piece of content across all of their social media channels. Leaders in the space know better. The key here is to take the best practices of each channel and overlay the corresponding user experience with fan insights. For most brands, their fan audience will vary by channel – resulting in different conversation themes, frequently asked questions, and more. If you want to drive the most engagement, understanding how your fans use each social media channel and the type of content they’re interested in will identify areas for personalization.

That’s not to say that every piece of content needs to be personalized. Some brands will see overlapping topics and themes where content can be re-purposed. It comes down to those “gaps” – e.g. areas of opportunity. A brand that does a great job of this is General Electric (GE). Look closely at how the company curates content for Pinterest, Instagram and Vine and you’ll see what I mean.

General Electric Pinterest
On Pinterest, GE showcases the many sides of its personality with boards like “Badass Machines,” “Gifts for Geeks,” and “The Art of Innovation.” These boards all exemplify the company’s strategy of using social media to inspire others around science, technology and innovation – albeit, in a way that fits with Pinterest.

A personal favorite board is “Hey Girl.” Created in celebration of Valentine’s Day, the board takes the popular Ryan Gosling “Hey Girl” meme and swaps in founder Thomas Edison for a series of geeky fabulous memes. These are perfect for Pinterest, where content needs to be more evergreen and quote type images perform exceptionally well.

General Electric Instagram
In contrast, GE’s Instagram tells a completely different story. A mix of quotes, statements and stunning imagery, the company takes fans behind the scenes to show the amazing work the company is doing. The key here is how each image is of an incredibly high quality and compelling quotes help bring the story of the company to life.

General Electric Vine
On Vine, General Electric takes a completely different approach. The themes of science, technology and innovation come to life in snackable six second videos that captivate the company’s millennial target audience.

A great example is the #SixSecondScience campaign. The company started by partnering with Vine influencers to create a series of six-second science lessons on Vine. The videos were so popular that the company took the campaign to the next level by hosting a virtual science fair on Tumblr. Fans were encouraged to send in their at-home six-second vine science lessons to get more children and millennials excited about science.

This video in particular generated more than 12 million videos on Vine since it was posted in February 2013!

Tip 4: Boost Brand Loyalty With Visual 1:1 Responses

While leveraging visuals is a fantastic way to garner attention in the cluttered newsfeed, think of this content is as a starting point or “lead gen.” A well-timed piece of content may start the conversation, resulting in inbound responses or questions to follow-up on.

Jumping on 1:1 responses offers a fantastic way for companies to show their customers that they’re listening. While it’s easy to default to a text response, look at how companies use visuals to make the 1:1 responses more memorable.

Dunkin’ Donuts: Don’t Be Afraid To Have A Little Fun
While at Dunkin’, we built an evergreen image library of products, occasions and funny images. Having a range of clever and situational images empowered our cross-functional team of community managers to make their 1:1 responses more memorable, such as the response below.

Benefit Cosmetics: Celebrate Your Fans
Benefit Cosmetics has a great program called #BeautyBoost, where the company creates clever visuals with puntastic pick-up-lines to anyone who tweets them with the hashtag. The inspiration comes from company’s mantra of, “Laughter is the best cosmetic, so grin and wear it!” Originally created at the start of the New Year to shift the conversation from negative attributes to positive ones, the visuals succeed in making consumers smile while fostering a deeper connection to the company.

Ikea Singapore: 1:1 Responses Make Contests More Memorable
Following a hilarious video on improving your private life, in which the company introduces guru Fille Güte, Ikea Singapore took to Facebook to launch the Shelf Help Guru Contest. In the contest, the company encourages fans to ask a question on how to improve their bedroom or bathroom for a chance to win a $50 IKEA Gift Card. Although a seemingly simple idea, what makes this campaign shine is how Ikea Singapore responded to every comment with a funny meme starring the Shelf Help Guru. Each meme is different, personalized to the question or comment, and includes a link to the relevant Ikea product page.

Smartcar: Taking On Haters – And Winning.
But, what about less positive responses? Smartcar is a brand that knows about how to manage these comments all to well. Often at the center of jokes for the cars small size, the company proactively looks for opportunities to take snarky comments and turn them into the brand win. Such was the case with this tweet.

While it would have been easy to stop there, Smartcar didn’t. They created an infographic illustrating the weight of bird crap it would take to total a Smartcar. This response ended up generating a huge response – 22 million impressions!

And the grand finale?

Tip 5: Co-Create Content With Brand Advocates

Last, but certainly not least, a big trend I’m seeing comes from co-creating content with brand advocates. By giving fans a staring role in a user-generated content (UGC) campaign, companies are creating positive experiences and building relationships with brand advocates. But, what do you need to do to be successful? Let’s look at three successful examples of these campaigns.

Sennheiser: What Motivates Your Customers To Share and Participate?

When co-creating content with your customers, ask yourself – what motivates your customers to share and participate? Companies who spend time listening and looking at the types of images their fans share have the upper hand here. Tapping into an existing behavior or asking fans to do something similar is a surefire way to ensure success.

But, what about an ear selfie contest? To promote the launch of its new Urbanite headphones, German company Sennheiser dared to host a quirky ear selfie contest – with strong results to prove it.

The promotion worked due to the company’s largely millennial target audience. Additionally, the prize of a free pair of fairly expensive, high quality headphones offered incentive. To round out the story, the company also put together a quirky series of videos of a man dressed as a headphone show how much Sennheiser Urbanites love your ears.

TOMS: Raise Awareness For A Worthwhile Cause

Another approach to co-creating content with fans is by showcasing how their participation supports a worthwhile cause. A notable example of this comes from the #WithoutShoes campaign from TOMS Shoes. From May 5-21, fans of the brand were asked to share a photo of their bare feet on Instagram with the hashtag #WithoutShoes. For each image – up to one million – TOMS would then donate a free pair of shoes to a child in need.

This campaign takes TOMS pledge to donate shoes, glasses, etc. based on purchase a step further. By not requiring a purchase, more customers can participate in and spread TOMS mission of giving back – all with sharing an image of their bare feet on social media.

Disclaimer: Make sure to run all cause marketing promotions by your legal counsel before hosting them. There are stricter rules in play here vs. a typical social promotion – e.g. consumers must be notified once you hit your goal number, companies cannot mislead numbers by setting goals they can hit in a day, yet running the promotion for a week, etc.

Experian: Maximize Public & Virtual Events To Collect UGC Content

When it comes to co-creating content with advocates, why not maximize the public and online events that you’re already hosting? Experian does a great job of this with its #CreditChats on Twitter. Each week on Wednesdays, the company brings together in-house and external experts to cover different personal finance topics of importance to its fanbase.

What’s clever about this example is how the company drives greater reach of these chats. While not everyone can tune in for a live chat, the company records the chat and posts it on SoundCloud and also creates Slideshare presentations which are shareable across a number of social media sites.

Final Thoughts & Key Takeaways

With so much time and resources spent on creating content, why not focus instead on how the content we create can be translated into experiences? As seen in the examples I’ve shared, there are so many ways to flex your creative muscles – from high-quality visuals, to personalized content and 1:1 responses – that result in positive experiences.

Content is something we share each and everyday to captivate our customers and drive desired actions. If we seize these daily content opportunities and sprinkle in a few major campaigns with a customer-first mentality, content will do more than just marketing – it will help create memorable experiences that drive brand loyalty.

Thank you to M2C for having me – I thoroughly enjoyed my time in Hamburg and met so many wonderful, intelligent new marketers!