Remember a few years ago, when we were all competing in a race to see who could rack up the most page views? It was all about the numbers and the traffic. But after a while, we started noticing that those numbers didn’t say much.

Number of page views is a thing of the past. #contentmarketing #storytelling
Number of page views is a thing of the past. #contentmarketing #storytelling

Huge brands with millions of followers sometimes were striving to get the lift of highly communicative smaller brands with intensely loyal and motivated fan bases. When it became clear that it wasn’t about owning page views—it was about owning the relationship between a brand and a fan—brands began to fall in step, putting significant time and resources into their own aggressive content marketing campaigns.

The relationship between a brand and a fan is the reason for content marketing campaigns.
Third-party platforms create #brandedcontent to foster the brand-consumer relationship.
Third-party platforms create #brandedcontent to foster the brand-consumer relationship.

Now, it’s also become clear that it doesn’t matter where content is located. People don’t need to be on a brand’s official web site to engage and spread its message—it’s not even important. What really matters is creating and leveraging content that fostered those relationships, and most often that content lives on third-party sites platforms that are optimized to power native content.

Branded content doesn’t have to live on a brand’s official website.

In other words, dates between the brand and the fan don’t always need to happen at the brand’s place. Fans actually like it if you take them to new spots, or meet them in places where they enjoy hanging out. It’s the reason why content discovery platforms like Taboola and Outbrain are content marketing staples now, in addition to the regular social media players like Facebook and Snapchat.

Fans actually like it if you take them to new spots. #brandedcontent #visualstorytelling

Content platforms offer other benefits, too—they can provide innovative, immersive experiences that brands can take advantage of without sacrificing the familiar look and feel of their home sites. Mercedes-Benz’s remarkable “Uncharted” campaign is a great example—the campaign lent itself naturally to social media sharing, which boosted exposure with Millennials, a problem demographic for Mercedes.

#Content platforms take #brand #campaigns to immersive levels & keep the #branded feel of the home site.
#Content platforms take #brand #campaigns to immersive levels & keep the #branded feel of the home site.
Mercedes-Benz’s remarkable Uncharted campaign led to immersive experiences that Millennials loved to share.
Through immersive stories, #content platforms allow for low bounce rates & long read times. Ex: @adobe’s CMO site
Through immersive stories, #content platforms allow for low bounce rates & long read times. Ex: @adobe’s CMO site

They can also act as neutral ground, where users can peruse information without the perceived pressure of commercial content. Because the user’s attention isn’t divided by other brand offerings, bounce rates are often lower and read times are longer. Adobe has nailed this strategy by developing CMO, a marketing news site rich with content of interest to senior marketing executives.

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