If you’re only reposting links, you’re missing the point. Learn how reacting to articles, videos, and social posts in the right way turns attention into engagement.

✒️ Paul Rigden

Good content is about providing something of value to the reader - that may be an insightful opinion, an entertaining hot take posted to social media, or it could mean a well-thought-out and researched blog or newsletter post.  Most of all, good content is always a reaction to something.  That could be a trending event, but it could also just be an observation, experience, or emerging truth.  Reactive marketing is about perceiving the world as your audience does, and reacting to it in a way they can relate to, or that brings them value.  That’s the secret to growing audiences in today’s marketing landscape.

Audiences view the world through different forms of media.  Web content, video content, and user-generated social posts are all extremely common, and also very different.  As a reactive marketer, the kind of value you can add depends a lot on the kind of media you’re reacting to.  Are you sharing a video link?  Highlights and timestamps are great.  If you’re sharing a social post then often it’s your perspective and delivery that will matter most, so knowing audience sentiment might be more helpful.

Let’s take a look at the different types of media reactive marketers should be monitoring, and the best ways to add value.  If you’re not contributing, you’re just reposting links.

Web content like online articles and news stories are obviously the most common way you’re going to hear about new events online.  Simply sharing that link on your social accounts, or blindly copywriting the article to your blog or newsletter probably won’t have an enormous impact.  What you can do is anticipate how your audience will react, and provide them with what they’re going to want next.  Events mean different things to different people.  What questions, concerns or opinions will your audience have?  If you think they’ll have questions, research and answer them.  If you think they’ll have concerns, find the solution and address them if you can.  If they’ll have certain perspectives or opinions, share and reflect those opinions.  Reactive marketing is about taking events and making them your own.  That way the subject of your post won’t be the event you’re sharing, it will be your reaction to it.

Sharing videos is a great way to add diversity to your social feed or inspire reactive web content for your platform.  Your community probably spends a lot of time watching videos online, and if you can become a source of relevant video content, that’s a huge benefit.  However, the ways you want to add value when sharing a video link can differ a lot from sharing web content.  One of the biggest things your audience will want before watching a video is timestamps and highlights to the moment’s they’ll care about.  People are more likely to follow and engage with your post if they know it contains something they want to see, and the exact moment in the video it happens.  However, if the content is fictional or episodic in nature, be careful about spoilers!  Also, in cases where an event is reported both in article and video form, it’s usually best to link the article as it will have more information and is easier for your followers to quickly browse.  Focus on video content like interviews, podcasts, and fictional and episodic content.

Using social media posts as topics to generate web content for your online portal can be tricky.  Writing content reacting to stories or videos feels straightforward, but how do you write a whole article reacting to a post on social media?  The key is to understand that any relevant and insightful post on social media represents a lived experience.  Ultimately, someone is sharing their perspective, and it’s getting traction on social media because people are relating to it.

"

Create great reactive content in response to social posts by distilling that perspective down and reacting to it.  A social post about a new movie might present the opportunity for an article about its underlying themes, and how the public is receiving the new release.  You can source the trending social post and comments as support in your web article, giving it a fresh spin over a simple movie review.  Write the article about what the trending social post and comments imply about the new movie - it will make for much more compelling content.

Writing articles by reacting to web, video, or social content often requires the right approach.  Knowing the right way to leverage each medium is critical.  Reactive marketing tools like ContentEngine can take a lot of the guesswork out of crafting reactive content, since their writing agents are trained using industry best practices.  At the end of the day, whether you’re writing your own reactive content, or using tools like ContentEngine, it’s important to take the format of the media you’re reacting to into account, because it can make a big difference.

Is it better to be creative, or well researched and insightful?  An artist or a journalist?  There’s no one way to reach an audience, but using the latest content marketing tools effectively means understanding the strengths and weaknesses of each approach.

Learn to substitute creativity for perspective in the next edition of The Content Marketer’s Guide To AI: AI Agents Will Never Be Oscar Wilde, but They Make a Hell of a Walter Cronkite