Mindjet wins mindshare with infographics

The "content is king" mantra has been chanted over and over again by today's entrepreneurs, with many developing a social media strategy that makes heavy use of high-value content. However, it's just as important for small business owners to consider which platforms they are using when developing their marketing plans. Leveraging the wrong platform to disseminate media – regardless of its quality – is akin to a tree falling in a forest when no one is around.

Mindjet, a company that develops work management software, wanted to avoid wasteful content marketing initiatives, such as Facebook posts going unliked, tweets not being shared, blogs receiving zero views, etc. The key to this, MarketingSherpa reports, was developing content specific for the platform. For example, content that may make for a good blog post might not be well-suited for a 140-character tweet.

As a part of this strategy, Mindjet also decided to leverage infographics.

"The kind of content which has turned out to be not only ‘snackable’ but also sharable is infographics on a wide variety of subjects," Parker Trewin, director of global communications at Mindjet, told the news source. "These infographics are perfect for us because they are very visual and serve as a visual complement to our product which is very visual in nature."

Know your platforms

Mindjet used four primary platforms as a part of its social media strategy: The small business website, StumbleUpon, a company blog and Facebook. These channels were key to distribution because of the audience that frequented these sites.

For Mindjet's infographics, that means simply publishing the content as is on Facebook, which would broadcast the image to the company's fans. However, on the blog, Mindjet might do a formal write-up of the infographic, using it more as a supplemental add-on than a centerpiece. StumbleUpon would then be leveraged as a way to create virality, with Twitter used to stimulate comments and respond to feedback.

"We are making sure that we are not only putting the right kind of content out, but we are putting the content out at the right time so that our fans will have the best opportunity to enjoy and share that content," said Trewin.

The results of Mindjet's campaigns speak for themselves. One Facebook post garnered the company 317 shares, 432 Likes, 113 comments, 122 tags, a one-day engagement rate of 23.9 percent, 3,264 views and a 313 percent increase in daily views. Meanwhile, blog traffic shot up nearly 13 fold, with infographic posts generating 13,000 views compared to the normal 1,000.

Since employing the content strategy full time, Mindjet has noted an average monthly visitor increase of 420 percent, with the company website getting more than 84,000 views in April.

"It goes back to the art and the science coming together," he explained. "To know there is no substitute for creativity. There is no substitute for design. People appreciate that, and there is no substitute for understanding the science behind the channel that you are interacting with."

Choosing the right crowd

Leveraging content correctly between a variety of platforms is crucial, but so is knowing which channels your audience is using. To truly minimize waste, businesses should create content suited to a platform that is also relevant to the target audience. As Small Business Search Marketing notes, it doesn't matter how good content is, it won't generate any traction if no one sees it.

How does your content marketing strategy play out? How much thought do you give to platform selection?

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