Content as a common thread: how can you bring your content to life all year round?

In the age of social networks and mobile-first, content is the mother of all battles. The budget allocated to content creation has become a colossal expense item.
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According to the Content Marketing Institute, on average, companies allocate between 26% and 30% of their total marketing budget to content. This includes content creation, distribution and promotion. Another study by eMarketer found that companies spend an average of between $25,000 and $50,000 a year on content marketing (a figure that varies according to company size).
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To stand out in this competitive universe, brands need to be bold and original to captivate their audiences faster and longer.
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Consumers, drowning in this constant flow of information, have become more selective and impatient. The average attention span of an Internet user has dropped considerably in recent years. A study by Social Media Today shows that videos lasting less than 60 seconds generate an average engagement rate 6 times higher than longer content.
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Companies have therefore understood the need to capitalize on short-form content to engage their audiences, particularly on social networks, with the famous stories.
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However, this raises crucial issues, including the limited visibility of this content, which is often confined to social networks, and the ephemeral nature of these stories. Stories are temporary and limited to a restricted audience, due to each social network's algorithm.
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We are then faced with a growing paradox: the cost allocated to content creation is increasing, and yet this content is under-exploited, since it is only distributed on social networks.
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In the age of social shopping, where online purchases are influenced by social interaction, notably via reviews or recommendations, it's vital to integrate content into the buying journey.
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How? By introducing content at key points in the customer journey, such as the product page, the homepage or the app.
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But how do you capitalize on short-form content outside social networks? JOIN gives you the answers in this article.

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Web Stories: the ideal format for extending the social networking experience on your sites/apps

The technology is now available to solve the problem of under-utilized content. It is now possible to extend the experience of short content present on social networks by integrating them into your own platforms, in strategic locations such as your website, your mobile application, or even your emails.

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Today, this is made possible by the Web Stories format. A web story is like an Instagram story, except that it can be integrated directly into a website, product pages, e-mails, a mobile app and much more. With the web story, the temporal and ephemeral issue doesn't exist since it doesn't disappear after 24 hours.
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It's an immersive, mobile-first format that fuses the power of storytelling with visual impact to create engaging experiences that captivate and convert. Web-stories are perfectly suited to the mobile-first approach, they're short, vertical, allow you to integrate video and don't slow down your site.
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This approach offers extended visibility, reaching a wider, potentially interested audience. It also means that content is no longer limited to the customer discovery phase, but is actually introduced into the customer buying journey.

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Faciliter la collaboration entre vos équipes e-commerce et social media

What's more, Web Stories not only extend the social networking experience, they also facilitate collaboration between social media teams, who know how to create brand-relevant content, and ecomm/mobile app teams, who know how to integrate it at key points to enhance the customer experience.

Capitalizing on the Web Story format helps to build bridges internally between teams with sometimes divergent objectives, improving collaboration within companies.

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Here are a few examples to show you how brands are investing in and capitalizing on this format to bring their content to life all year round and beyond social networks.

L’exemple de Wethenew

France's leading platform for buying and selling sneakers. Their online store offers a vast range, from the latest trends to classics.

Despite the abundance of video content at their disposal, from a variety of sources such as product reviews, user-generated content on social networks and their own online media, Wethenew was faced with a challenge: they didn't know how to use it effectively.
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Wethenew chose the web story format to aggregate all its video content and quickly integrate it into its site and product sheets.
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Social media teams choose the content they feel is best suited to address customer issues. To do this, they use JOIN Web Stories to distribute the most suitable content, such as the "Product Review", which highlights sneakers from all angles and provides customers with internal reassurance.
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Wethenew has also chosen to capitalize on its UGC from social networks to provide social proof on its social profiles with "Inspirations" Web Stories. UGC provide elements of trust and credibility, as well as a better understanding of the product. They act as a key element in a customer's decision-making process, offering reassurance that the product is of high quality and will meet their needs. Via the JOIN platform, contributors can directly send an automated rights request to content creators and obtain the story on which the brand is tagged in a matter of moments.

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E-commerce teams just need to choose the best place to broadcast their Web Stories: product sheet, Homepage, etc.
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In addition to this strengthened cross-team collaboration, Wethenew achieved promising results following an A/B test to evaluate the impact of Web Stories on product sheets. Pages integrating Web Stories recorded a significant increase in cart additions, conversion and a reduction in bounce rate. These results prompted Wethenew to extend the use of Web Stories to all its product sheets, reinforcing customer reassurance and conversion optimization.

L’exemple de SyncProtein

SyncProtein, which offers plant-based protein solutions, has also chosen to capitalize on the Web Stories format to extend the social networking experience on its website and provide internal reassurance to its customers.

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On the HomePage, SyncProtein displays several Web Stories of internal reassurance, such as a word from the founder or a female employee explaining on camera how to correctly make a protein shaker.

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SyncProtein also uses customer UGC from Instagram stories on its HomePage. This enables the brand to create a human and emotional connection with its customers, as well as building trust and authenticity towards the brand.

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Integrating Web Stories on its website also enables the brand to reach more people at decisive points in the buying journey, particularly on the HomePage and product pages.

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L’exemple de NRJ

A national private radio station since 1981, NRJ has adapted to digital transformations over the years.

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Recently, NRJ decided to capitalize on short content on its online media and in particular on Web Stories to reproduce the social network experience on its website and mobile App.

This use of social network content on the online medium enables NRJ to make this content visible beyond the social networks, for a chosen and unlimited duration.

This content is not limited by the algorithm, and is visible to every Internet user. This enables NRJ to monetize its investments in short content and boost conversions beyond social networks.

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As we've seen, by investing in the Web Stories format, companies can extend the reach of their content, attract a wider audience, and optimize their return on investment. Capitalizing on this type of content also fosters collaboration between teams and helps to harmonize the sometimes divergent objectives of different stakeholders, reinforcing the effectiveness of an overall content strategy. Investing in a technology for creating and distributing Web Stories can therefore deliver a considerable return on marketing investments in content creation.