Standing Out From Plagiarized Content
Plagiarism is highly unethical, and professionals such as journalists or web influencers found to be guilty of this crime are being discriminated against, stripped off of their career, and then thrown to the abyss where they can never return to their excellent thriving career path again.
However, with the practices of impunity in plagiarism, the intense consequences seem to be only a thing of the past now. Not everyone cares to report plagiarized content, especially in social media, probably because of the vastness of the web or because it had just become a culture almost everyone perceives to be expected.
Intellectual property rights lawyers, advocates, and educators are now moving to reconstruct people’s mindsets about plagiarism, especially in social media and the digital world.
Social Media has served as the host of the most abused content, and that’s why social media marketers are the most encouraging adherents.
Stick To Your Brand Story
Each brand has its own unique story and journey. However, it would be best to stick to your brand story when creating content for your site or readers. This is because your brand story will be the main backbone of your company’s future content.
If you are struggling in creating content for your social media followers that is relevant but at the same time original, look for ways you can relate your brand story to their story as well.
Align your company’s goals to their needs as people. For example, Coca-Cola, a century-old brand of beverages, always sticks to its brand story everywhere, whether it is an advertisement, a contest, or just the usual social media post. They always bring up the feeling of togetherness as something that almost everyone can relate to.
Despite being a high-profile brand, Coca-Cola pursued its digital marketing game to improve its customer’s experience and support global awareness in social media ads and on the web. What a wise decision!
Brand Story is an accumulation of your company’s journey throughout the years, who you were, who you are now, and you will be in the future together with your stakeholders and customers.
Same Story, Different Eyes
One key to getting virality is to be “in the trend.” So Google had created a free tool called Google Trends to help you know what’s trending locally and globally. In addition, Google Alerts is another free tool that sends you emails about the latest and freshest talk about Google-wide.
But suppose you blindly piggyback on the trending news. In that case, you will be most likely tempted to create a news or blog article that is mainly paraphrased or, worst, plagiarized from authority sources and sites, which is a total no-no in social media marketing.
If you plan to ride the trend, you should create a new spin-off out of it and not an accurate replica. So, for example, you can focus on the more editorial side of writing and not on focusing on the news that broke out. And you can also relate it to the possible effects of this on your line of business and its customers.
Narrative Entertainment
One of the best critical goals is to create engaging content for social media marketers. Entertainment can have a variety of styles, but one of the most effective forms of entertainment online are narratives or stories.
You can create a story or straightforward narrative about customer experiences that you can relate to your brand. Creating a contest about people sending their own stories and experiences about your brand will help you evaluate how you fared so far.
Expect to receive hate messages, of course, as no one can please everyone. However, the strength of your customer service will come at play in this scenario which could either make or break your company. Remember, the power of reliable customer service drives sales and customer retainment, and loyalty.
Narratives are one of the most viral posts on social media. A woman who posted a photo of herself crying inside her car because of the overwhelming embarrassment she felt inside a store with her uncontrollable kids gathered millions of sympathy, likes, and shares. How do you think the store she went to fared during those days when she was everywhere on the internet?
Do you think they found popularity? Unfortunately, the store employees contributed nothing to help her. The popularity they gained wasn’t positive, which would significantly affect their customer’s opinion about them.
A woman wearing a Chewbacca mask didn’t even expect her video to be global. Still, it’s someone everyone can relate to, so it took Facebook and other social media sites by storm without her even realizing it the first time.
She tagged the video “It’s the simple joys in life,” and bam! She made it to Good Morning America, Hasbro, The Late Night Show at James Corden, and even the Star Wars Show. In her heartfelt filming, she got millions of shares and even met Mark Zuckerberg since she just made her video the most-watched Facebook Live video of all time.
How do you look at your posts? Do you think it will be viral? Think again.
Challenge the Familiar
Challenging the familiar means starting a new perspective, not necessarily opposing the standard views and norms, but challenging people’s attitudes by creating a new ideology.
A black model who had posted her photos of a remake on several magazine covers of other white models had earned a lot of shares and likes on social media. Her post was all about her challenging the thought of not having multiple black models in a fashion show roster because they allow numerous white models.
The thought is all about diversity and that no two black women are the same and look the same.
She had pulled off her magazine cover remakes and earned herself a reputation, more than her expectations.
Takeaway
Uniqueness and viralness are not two opposing magnetic poles. On the contrary, your originality is one of the keys to standing out and making your posts viral. Compelling content always aims to educate, help and entertain.
Author Bio:
Vincent Spivey is a passionate social marketer, researcher, and writer. He is also an advocate of anti-plagiarism and intellectual property rights, and he is on the move to inform other digital marketers about its importance. The Livingston and Loeffler Law Firm, a group of intellectual property rights lawyers based in Miami, is helping him make this happen.
