Pow! Superhero Visual Content Strategy From Buddy Scalera

He's penned the comic book adventures of colossal superhero squads like "the Avengers" and "X-Men," but these days Buddy Scalera is using his creative superpowers in the fanciful realm of marketing. Appearing at the New York City Content Marketing Master Class, he gave a thrilling talk on how to take your visual content strategy to daring new heights. The SVP of Content Strategy for Ogilvy CommonHealth was one of the day's three "Guest Stars," and proved his deservedness of the title with "seven and a half" tips for getting your visual content strategy moving. Although all of them were great, I won't give away the key plot twists, and I'll focus on four of the best: Boldly Go Beyond Your Logo"To seek out new content ..." Okay, so that's Star Trek and not comic books. But close enough. Buddy emphasized how important it is to be more visual than just having your logo on the page. "Your logo is not the product," he said. "Your product is your product." Give Evangelists Something to EvangelizeOne critical reason to have more than a logo is that visual content is much more shareable. Links are socially validated—everyone is out to get as many likes, +1's, favorites and retweets as possible, and Buddy pointed out that we're finding a consistent link between increased sharing performance and visuals. Find ways to turn visually boring or dead content like stats or tables into fun infographics, and your shareability will skyrocket. Optimize Visual ContentJust having visual content is a great first step, if you haven't taken it already. But going the extra mile to augment it with fleshed-out tags and metadata, you can go from a Peter Parker-level zero to a Web-crawling master like Spiderman himself in no time at all. Buddy demonstrated how using the oft-ignored metadata fields could help your content be found easier by the people you're trying to reach. Control the Eye on the PageDrawing on his years of experience in the comic book world, Scalera dropped a knowledge bomb by revealing how to control readers eyes on the page. For years, we've been utilizing the traditional "F pattern" to lay out where we put prime visuals and information. But we're well beyond that, now. People are digital natives (or at least very accustomed to Web navigation, if they're digital immigrants), and they would much rather be visually directed in a Z-shaped pattern. Using a vintage Aquaman comic book cover, Buddy noted how naturally it flowed for the eye—as well as the concept that we're socially conditioned to lock eyes with a subject. Use these two tips to deliver visually pleasing flow to your web or print readers, and they'll respond accordingly. No matter where you are along on the content marketing curve, Buddy Scalera proves that you can go from zero to hero with only a few steps—and even the raddest superheroes found ways to take their powers to the next level. Will you rise to the challenge?

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Pow! Superhero Visual Content Strategy From Buddy Scalera

Jeremy Zimmerman

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Jeremy Zimmerman