The old approach of Create Once Publish Everywhere still lingers among content marketers, but is this a sustainable model in a multi-channel digital world?
The acronym COPE has been much discussed in relation to content marketing over the years. American radio network NPR brought it into common parlance by committing strongly to the Create Once Publish Everywhere concept.
In order to facilitate the spread of its content more easily, it created a customised CMS to distribute content across multiple channels. One person uploads an article to the CMS and the application automatically optimises it for different platforms.
But as the digital environment expands, COPE seems ever more complex, time consuming and resource heavy. Content marketers seem split over whether to continue the idea or cut back and concentrate on specific channels and select content.
The case for COPE
On a basic level, COPE isn’t so much about flooding the market with as much of your content as possible, but rather tailoring the content you have to maximise its impact.
It gives content marketers control over how content is displayed from device to device. The same piece might be text heavy on mobile, but with a heavier visual element on tablet, for example.
Creating as much content as possible can also help boost content up the Google search rankings – becoming a consistent content provider works in content providers’ favour in search results.
Reaching a tipping point
As much as producing a steady stream of content can drive traffic to the business, there is also a sense that we have reached a saturation of channels.
A recent study showed that 59% of links shared on social media have never been clicked. The conclusion being that “most people appear to retweet news without ever reading it.”
In such a climate, is there any sense in pumping out content to an audience that is barely paying any attention?
Analytics have a key part to play in helping you make a decision as to how often and where content is distributed. If you’re starting from a position of COPE, you can study the analytics to find out which content works best for which consumers. The key stat may be referrals traffic: finding out from which third party source the audience has been directed. Or looking at engagement figures: the amount of time spent reading the piece or the lowest bounce rate.
Or it could make more sense to start small and build up from there. Focus on a couple of key channels before widening the scope, investing time into measuring analytics as you go.
Thoughts around how useful COPE is remain mixed. In her book Content Everywhere, Sara Wachter-Boettcher writes: “It’s about creating portable, flexible content structures”. And the word flexible is the key.
COPE works for some organisations. NPR, for example, needed to share out news content quickly and widely.
But the needs of each business differ wildly. An ever-changing industry requires an adaptable outlook, an open mind and a close eye on analytics.
