The past 20 years have seen the fastest rate of change in human history. Breathtaking as that may have been, the reality is, that was just the beginning. In fact, the pace of change is going to continue to accelerate. Because of these changes, I see the need for brands to evolve into what I am calling a 10x brand.
This is an expansion of the concept of 10x Content that Rand Fishkin discussed in a recent Whiteboard Friday video. During this WBF, Rand showed why brands now need to produce content ten times better than anything else showing up in search. In this post, I’m proposing that not only do you need to have 10x content (as Rand called it), but you need to be a 10x brand. In other words, it's becoming necessary that your brand must be ten times better known, ten times more trusted, ten times more referenced than any of your competitors' brands.
Because of the three trends I’m about to share with you, just being “better” is no longer good enough. I'll conclude the post with a set of actionable steps you can take that will help you become such a brand. So get ready, hold on tight, and prepare to enjoy the ride!
Change #1: The rise of the millennials
It's Duane Forrester that deserves credit for forcing this change into my consciousness. The millennials are the first generation that has grown up in a world with this incredible pace of change:
Image Source: Bloomberg
Don't skip past the significance of that. Change is the norm for this generation. If you are Gen X, or a baby boomer like me, there was some real stability in the world of tech. Things changed, but not every single year as seems to happen today.
According to the above-referenced Bloomberg article, the millennials in North America stand to inherit $30 trillion in wealth from the baby boomer generation. This will be the largest generational transfer of wealth in the history of mankind, and is in addition to their own earnings. This will give them unprecedented spending power. So yes, you should care about them.
Next, consider the impact of the changes that have already occurred. The two biggest ones of these are:
The practical impact of these two things are:
- Nearly all the world's information at your fingertips
- Dozens or hundreds of options to consider in regards to any purchase or action you might want to make
- Immediate connectivity with your friends and others for real-time feedback and information
These factors have all led to changes in consumer behavior — not just for millennials, but for any hyper-connected person. Here are some of the key characteristics of this modern consumer:
Demand for high quality
The demand for quality is higher than it has even been before, largely because accessing alternative choices is easier than it's ever been before.
Engagement or entertainment
They want to be engaged or entertained by the companies they do business with. This expectation has arisen because there are so many progressive brands that are willing to do it, so those that don't look stale in comparison.
Authenticity
All communications need to be authentic and backed by behavior, because there are so many ways that inauthentic behavior can get exposed.
Impatient
When they want something, be prepared to give it to them now. If you don't, someone else will.
Short attention span
You will need to work very hard to keep their attention. There are just too many enticing options available to them.
The desire for these things is not new, but the instant availability of alternative options is what has changed. Any failure to deliver on your part, is immediately actionable by the consumer - they get what they want from someone else.
Change #2: The rise of new Internet-connected devices and voice-driven interactions
Forecasts for device sales over the next 5 years show a stunning rise in the sale of new types of Internet-connected devices: wearables, smart TVs, thermostats, refrigerators, and more. This environment has given raise to the phrase "The Internet of Things."
If you look at the above chart closely, you will see that by 2020 the cumulative installed base of PCs, tablets, and smartphones (all the stuff we actively use today) will be less than 1/3 of the total Internet-enabled devices. The overwhelming majority of the new devices will have no keyboards, and they will instead rely on voice commands for interaction.
For years, people have argued that voice search will be limited because people won't want to use it in public places, but that concern appears to be becoming less of an issue. A study comissioned by Google in 2014 showed that 55% of teens and 41% of adults use voice search at least once a day. It also appears that the times and places where people are willing to use voice search are increasing:
The Google study also shows interesting data on why people use voice search:
In case you think the Google study is biased, data supporting the rise of voice search is available from other sources, such as this one from Economictimes.indiatimes.com:
These two studies show increases in usage of voice search on a smartphone. The trend in this direction, in my opinion, will be rapidly accelerated by the new types of Internet-connected devices. Most of these devices will have no keyboard for input. For example, if you are wearing a smartwatch, or interacting with your refrigerator, voice-driven interaction will pretty much be your only option for most functions.
Change #3: Fundamental changes in advertising models
One of the biggest drivers of Google's success on the World Wide Web has been their AdWords advertising system. It offered a brilliant model where advertisers paid on a per-click basis, and provided a massive source of revenue to the company. For the most part, this relies on people clicking on an AdWords ad in the search results, or an AdSense ad on third-party websites.
Even with the advent of the smartphone, the screen real estate needed for much of this advertising model has shrunk dramatically. In wearable devices and embedded devices, that screen real estate is gone.
It's not 100% clear how the new economic models will work in this new world. In a smartphone environment, where we still have some screen real estate, the number of ads that can be shown are greatly reduced. There are many that believe that success in this environment will depend on personalization. For this reason, major advantages come to those who have people actively using apps (where those people stay logged in by default), as they can continuously collect information about you. For reference, here are the most popular apps in 2015 accoring to comScore:
It also matters what types of information those apps are able to collect along the way. Because they know so much about you, Facebook has an extremely strong position in this new world, and Google is arguably playing catch-up. This entire story becomes even more complicated when you get to the world of wearables and embedded devices. For some of these, there may be zero real estate available for ads. This will further complicate the world of monetization, and it may all morph into affiliate models.
How will all this end up? I honestly don't know, but fundamental change is a given.
(Thanks are due to Mike Grehan for stimulating some of my thinking in this area at Pubcon.)
Why should I become a 10x brand?
The world that Google currently dominates is the World Wide Web, a world which is navigated by the browser. That world is not going to disappear, but its share of people's attention will diminish over time. Google may still be a huge player in this new world, but they will have significant competition. And, even if Google is the leading player in it, the shape of how digital marketing is done will be substantially different.
In short, the tactics that work for promoting your business in a web-driven world won't apply. You will need to view this new environment as a massively connected ecosystem. Any, and all, of your imperfections are likely to be found out and exposed. From a content marketing perspective, the landscape will look something like this:
At each corner of the Internet you touch, you have to view what you are doing as visible in every other corner. Your messaging needs to focus on building relationships across the spectrum of all that you do. For that reason, find ways to add value and help others, find ways to engage and interact, and find ways to entertain.
Why do I think this is the case? In a shifting landscape, your best defense (and your best offense) is a passionate audience. People who believe in what you do. People who believe in who you are. And, in a world where personalization is a huge factor in how information is delivered, having that audience that wants to remain connected with you is huge. In short, if a service provider does not make your products and or services available to people who want them, then those people may become dissatisfied with that service provider. What will those people do then? They might switch to another service provider.
The competition between Google, Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, and others for the future is ON. They all see it coming, and how this will shake out is not at all certain. This means competing for audiences and securing their own market share. Building your own passionate, connected audience is your clear path for surviving and prospering.
Your goal needs to be becoming a 10x brand. You need to go above and beyond what others do. You don't want to simply be good; you need to be outstanding.
What does it take to be a 10x brand?
1.) View every touchpoint as an opportunity to build or enhance relationships.
By everywhere, I mean everywhere. That includes offline. Have stores? Then interactions within those stores are an opportunity. Have a customer service function? Use it to build trust and perceived value. And, of course, anything you do in social media, on your site, or through content marketing, as well.
Two brands that do this really well are Whole Foods and Marathon Petroleum. You can read more about how they engage with people both online and offline below:
2.) Solve problems for others via content and interaction.
Do this everywhere you are present online.
Create 10x content that helps users on a regular basis (at least once per month). As mentioned earlier in this article, Rand made a great argument for why 10x content is a requirement.
Publishing great content is an awesome way to add value to the overall market ecosystem in which you live.
10x content is a baseline requirement for a 10x brand.
3.) Stop producing any sub 1x content whatsoever.
Quality is far more important than quantity. In your content marketing efforts, stop creating OK content, or 1x content — it's a waste of your time. It will not help you grow. Note: what you put on product pages will probably be more focused on driving conversion, and is likely to be more basic; the focus here is on what you do in content marketing.
4.) Freely share the best content covering your market, including that created by others.
So many brands are not willing to share great content published by others, but if it's valuable to your audience, it will help enhance your relationship with that audience. In addition, it will help grow you grow your social media audience.
5.) Build genuine relationships with other progressive industry thought leaders (influencers).
There are so many reasons to do this:
- Close cooperation with other well-known experts is awesome for your own reputation and visibility
- It opens doors to a wide range of joint promotional opportunities
- It can lead to their sharing your content through your social channels
- Ultimately, these factors all play into improved SEO
6.) Proactively engage with others on social media, including customers and prospects.
It's great to interact with influencers, but you can't make it only about them. As noted above, every interaction is a chance to build a relationship. In addition, every interaction in most places online, such as social media, takes place on a public stage.
How you treat others is public information in these environments. Take advantage of the opportunity that represents.
7.) Develop key employees into public faces for your company (what Mark Traphagen calls a PBR, or "personal brand rep").
Every company has limited funds. Enabling your employee base to participate in building your brand can dramatically increase the effectiveness of your efforts.
This should extend beyond social media and into your offline activities, as well.
8.) Stop any edgy business (including SEO) practices you have been using.
The downside risk of public exposure is way too high:
Questionable business practices designed to get you an unfair edge just aren't worth it. Just ask Volkswagen about the downside of skirting the rules.
Summary
You may want to argue with me about being a 10x brand, asking why being a 2x brand isn't enough. There's merit to the argument, but the challenge for you is that the basic channels for information discovery are shifting underneath our collective feet.
If you are seeing success in today's channels, this is a threat to you. If you don't have passionate loyal fans, those new channels have no real need to make information about you available. People won't miss you if you're not there.
That's the key. You need to be in-demand. If some channel does not make it easy to find you, you need people to miss you. That's why you must behave like an authentic, engaged member of the overall community. Having a great product or service will be a requirement, but that's just table stakes — you need to be a 10x brand. If you can create this position for yourself, you win.
I understand the idea behind 10x, but I question the ability for any business (or individual for that matter) to really achieve 10x. When I was growing up, the saying was to give 110%, meaning by giving 10% more than everyone else you'd excel. That's great, but the fact still remains we can't really give more than 100%. So when I hear 10x... 10 times the effort, resources and output, is that really an achievable goal?
My 5 year old daughter likes to say everything is the best. She has several 'favorite' movies, dolls, candies, etc. At what point is 'the best' or 'favorite' diluted to the point of meaningless. Every industry, every market, every person has a 'best'. By definition, the one which is the most excellent, outstanding, or desirable. But there is only room for one best. You can be really good or even a great alternative and have a growing business that wins new customers, delights existing customers and makes owners, employees and shareholders happy. To me that's a win and you don't have to be 10x better than your competitor to acheive that.
Tim - I understand your objection here, but I don't mean my point to be that you must be the best at everything in your business. You need to be the best at some part of it, and have a clear differentiation for your business that people can attach to. Otherwise, you get lost in the morass of all the competition out there.
The graphic for "in the bathroom" showing the guy in the tub may not be entirely accurate ...
Not finished reading yet but Eric Enge you made my day.
The 2nd image puts me into that generation of fast changes and I feel much younger now, you know :)
Freely share the best content covering your market, including that created by others.
Nice work Eric. Thanks.
A few years ago I was republishing a lot of content given to me by academic institutions and government agencies. Then I got hit with a Panda problem.
To escape Panda, I deleted most of that content and added noindex,follow to the pages that were most popular with my on-site visitors. That got my site out of Panda and my visitors still consume the popular contributed content.
Today, I rarely add content given to me by others. I am afraid to add very much of it, because it might cause Panda problems. That approach reduces the breadth of depth of my website and gives my own visitors a smaller menu of content to consume.
My question to you is... What do you view as "best practice" for adding content provided by others?
A) Republish verbatim, but noindex,follow those pages?
B) Require contributor to provide a rewritten version and publish as index,follow?
C) Republish verbatim, but add substantive upgrades or editorial of my own to the page and publish as index,follow?
D) Republish verbatim, but add rel=canonical pointing to the same article on contributor's website?
E) Republish all of this content on a subdomain?
Finally, how much of this type of content can I add to my site? If 10%.... 25%.... 50%..... or more of my content is noindex, rel=canonical, will I start flirting with another Panda problem?
I know it is hard to predict how Google will handle this today, and how they will handle it tomorrow. Thanks for any thoughts that you can share.
Hi EGOL - when I talk about freely sharing the best content of others, I'm not thinking about republishing it, but instead of linking to it in related articles I write, or sharing it in social media.
If you want to truly republish the whole piece, I'd probably NoIndex, Follow those pages. Of course, if you can get the author to write a fresh original article for you on the same topic, ideally with a different spin as a part of it, that will work too.
Thank you Eric.
I was thinking on a different channel. But, thank you for sharing your thoughts on noindex,follow for these types of pages and getting the article rewritten with a different spin.
Adding a link to the source article on there helps Google as well.
I appreciate the 10x brand concept and being that much above and beyond competitors. It is really necessary to be able stand out from the clutter. Good goal to have.
This is a great article and acts as a wake-up call to anyone in charge of their customer service. Being the crux of business strategy, it need attention from those on high.
Too many times businesses grow large from success and become slow moving bureaucracy without anyone in a position of authority thinking about customer service.
The 10x principle just as the give it 110% principle is all about evolving, as a person, as a brand, as a business.
It'[s about having change-agents that can communicate with executive decision makers. It's about giving your staff the flexibility to go beyond their job description, it's about having a staff that care about more than just their paycheck, it's about people who want to create something better, a better product, a better service a better business process.
Too often people will continue to do as they are told without thinking, we need thinking, caring people. That's how a brand does better than the competition, by empowering their staff and thereby delighting their clients.
When it comes to content, quality is definitely more important than quantity. Also, technology has changed rapidly and this has impacted the way that people find information online. We need to adapt to these changes while also posting excellent content. This gives people a reason to engage with your brand in the first place.
Thanks for sharing these insights Eric, always helpful these kind of articles.
Thanks Eric. Your article is great. It's not easy to reach the top edge.
Thanks Eric. Great information and astute observations in terms of advertising models and consumer behavior changing!
Those are some crazy statistics about device-usage, etc, in regards to millennials and teens vs adults. Didn't realise so many people used voice search either... Really informative blog post. Makes a clear case for becoming a "10x brand". Engagement has become everything. And with so many points of entry these days, companies need to have clear brand consistency across all appropriate platforms to be just as visible as they were before.
great post. But i must say, Its a big and tough race among companies. Only few reach the top edge but every single company do their best.
Thanks. But for new domain how can we get good result.
That's a big question! The best advice I can give you without writing a long post is to focus on the very first few steps, starting with establishing yourself as an expert. From there, may opportunities can unfold over time.
Great Article Eric!
I read and confused that what is 1x content or 2x brand?
Your article is very well described and easy to read but can you clear my confusion about "1x content"? I understand 10x brand but waiting for your response.
I think that x1 is the way that the brands worked before all this changes, also x1 is the way that all the not cool brands are working, something normal, something poor.
Delance, 1x is really just the notion as being more or less the same as the competition. If you truly want to get ahead, you should plan on producing content and being so engaging as to be MUCH better than them, e.g. 10x better.
Thanks for the great in-depth article. Eric.
Nice Article Eric
Thanks Eric!
Great share
The blog was absolutely fantastic! Lot of great information which can be helpful in some or the other way. Keep updating the blog, looking forward for more contents...Great job, keep it up..
Thanks Eric for this information. I used to thougth that more content (articles) means more visits but with the time i learn that people want to read something different and professional. It is true that this is the hard and longitud way but at the end is very rewarding. Sorry for my english, it is nit my native language. Thanks a lot for this new ideas that i'm going to apply it.
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