5 P2P Content Marketing Tricks For Marketers [Examples]
Before connected devices or content marketing or social media or the Internet, there was person-to-person communications (aka P2P content).
Life is full of content. Most of it we don’t consider formal information.
While we don’t monitor or keep track of it, P2P content is important to us and to our lives. From a marketer’s perspective, it’s information and communications that are beyond our control.
P2P Content is relevant and breaks-through
People filter information based on its relevance to them. As a result, P2P content is always sought and consumed regardless of communication channel or device.
Regardless of how much money a marketer spends creating the best content marketing in the world and promoting it, it will still be trumped by information from “people I know”.
People naturally select the information from their inner circle including spouses, parents, kids, bosses, friends and coworkers.
- 91% of respondents’ information about brands results from either face-to-face or phone conversations while 7% of word-of-mouth conversations about brands take place online. Based on a yearlong study of over 32,000 participants by the Keller Fay Group.
- 92% of customers trust recommendations from “people I know” according to Nielsen’s 2011 Global Trust in Advertising study
When it comes to getting your marketing message out, P2P content will always win. People will interrupt whatever they’re doing to check that personal communication.
5 Major forms of P2P content
Back in the days of the camel caravans in North Africa and market towns in Europe, people gathered to exchange goods as well as information. From these face-to-face exchanges, people sought 5 major forms of information that still are key today.
- News. The information that answers the 5 age-old questions (aka the 5 Ws of information): What’s happening? To whom is it happening? Why is it happening? Where is it happening? When did it happen?
- Stories. Provides more embellishments beyond the facts. This content has a beginning, middle and end. It focuses on a protagonist and is memorable.
- Recommendations. People have always turn to trusted sources to get input on important decisions whether it’s choosing a doctor or a special dress to wear to the prom.
- Gossip. Before Buzzfeed, Gawker and print tabloids, people wanted to know the latest dirt about what was happening to people they knew as well as celebrities, even if it was only the local landowner. This was as mundane as births, weddings and obituaries.
- Humor. We all want to know about things that make us smile. James Altucher noted in a post called What Happened to All of the Laughter? that kids laugh 300 times a day and adults only laugh 5 times a day. Online cat photos and other viral jokes fall into this category.
5 Ways to exchange P2P content
Most P2P content is communicated via these 5 channels.
- Face-to-face. It’s so natural that we don’t even think about it. This includes everything from a conversation with your best friend to meetings and conferences.
- Phone. Voice communications via a landline, smartphone or other Internet connection.
- Text messages (including chat). These are short messages transmitted via mobile devices.
- Email. These online communications can be person-to-person or business-to-customer. They can also include a wide list of people.
- Social media. People exchange communications in real time or asynchronously as well as one-to-one and one-to-many.
5 P2P Content marketing tricks for marketers
What does P2P content mean for marketers? Figure out how to leverage your existing fans and audiences to reach their personal circles of influence.
Remember: P2P content is always relevant and gets read. It’s not a matter of what you know but who you know.
Here are 5 tricks for leveraging P2P content marketing to extend your reach. The key is getting people’s attention in a way that will make them want to brag about and share your information across platforms.
1. Create content focused on influencers.
If you can get influencers’ attention, they’ll then share your content to their social media followers. Here are two great examples of this. (BTW—Here are 9 tips to help you influence the influencers.)
- Lee Odden has become the father of the influencer e-book where he collects input from experts on a specific topic. From this information, he creates an e-book and related articles. Then the people included help promote it. His latest piece was for Social Media Marketing World 2014.
- Killer Infographics did this with an infographic that pitted Seth Godin against Guy Kawasaki. Guy shared it on Google+ and Facebook causing others to share it.
2. Leverage product placement.
Take a page from television and the movies. Get your customers to share photographs and videos where your product plays a staring role. This is good for showing your product in action. Among the social media platforms to use are Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and your blog.
- Gymboree does this on a Facebook page that features real people sharing photographs of their children wearing Gymboree clothes.
- David’s Bridal gives their customers a place where they can share their wedding photos.
3. Spotlight your customers, employees and influencers.
Make your key audiences feel special by shining the light on them.
- Gini Dietrich just started the Spin Sucks Inquisition to ask influencers about their startups with Andy Crestodina of Orbit Media. In addition to providing co-created content, Andy has participated in the comment conversation. (BTW—Check out Gini’s great new book entitled Spin Sucks).
- Knitty City, a New York City based yarn shop, takes pride in their patrons’ work. They take photos of their customers wearing their knitted or crocheted creations. Here is a photo of Bert Freed wearing one of her original designs.
4. Roundup input your friends and colleagues.
This is a classic way to create curated content. Ask people for their special tip on something related to your core topic.
- This is a favorite at the Actionable Marketing Guide where we ask experts to weigh in on various topics.
- Andy Crestodina created My CMW (Content Marketing World) Yearbook where he collected autographs in a spiral notebook.
5. Gather customer recommendations.
There’s a big difference between reviews from anyone and reviews from people I know. This is always a basic content type.
- Sites like TripAdvisor take this form of content to a new level by including easy-to-rate categories and detailed comments as well as user photos.
People always seek and read information from the people they care about, even though we don’t necessarily consider it content.
As marketers, we need to appreciate that our content must talk to people as people. Further, we can leverage the power of human connections to get our message out.
Have you used P2P Content to get your message through? If so, how?
Happy Marketing,
Heidi Cohen
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