Companies like Cybereason publish an enormous amount of content. From white papers to webinars, there’s no shortage of cybersecurity content covering the latest breach, zero day exploit, or new approaches to securing your organization.
The variety of content formats and objectives offers some challenges for implementing a repeatable content repurposing strategy, but it also offers a huge opportunity to reach a wider audience more consistently if implemented correctly.
Content formats at Cybereason
Content at Cybereason ranges from very technical solutions for cybersecurity professionals to more general reporting on cybersecurity news. The publishing frequency varies depending on the stage of the funnel for each content type, but it’s clear there is a strong precedent for high quality research and adding value to the consumers of all their content.
Most enterprise marketing departments, especially at cybersecurity companies, produce the content across the full range of formats. The primary focus seems to be towards the bottom of the funnel, but we are seeing more and more top of the funnel brand awareness and demand generation activity, especially on social media.
Cybereason has a strong coupling between format types. For example, they do a great job posting podcast transcripts as blog posts to benefit from SEO and to cater to an audience that might prefer to read or skim a conversation rather than listen to it. They have a similar approach for webinars and research reports. They treat their blog page as a distribution channel where they feature new content across media and format types.
Cybereason publishes content across every standard format and channel. Here’s a quick snapshot of the main components of their resources page and social channels:
- Blogs: https://www.cybereason.com/blog/all
- Webinars: https://www.cybereason.com/blog/category/webinars
- White papers: https://www.cybereason.com/resources/tag/white-papers
- Analyst reports: https://www.cybereason.com/resources/analyst-reports
- Research reports: https://www.cybereason.com/blog/category/research
- Case Studies: https://www.cybereason.com/resources/case-studies
- Podcasts: https://www.cybereason.com/blog/category/podcasts
- News: https://www.cybereason.com/blog/category/news
- Video: https://www.cybereason.com/blog/category/videos
- Social Media:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/cybereason
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/cybereason
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/Cybereason/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cybereason/
According to Similarweb, the majority of Cybereason’s web traffic comes Direct. However, a sizable amount comes from Search. This is followed by advertising, referral traffic, social, and finally email. This gives us insight into where Cybereason focuses when it comes to driving traffic to their website.
Content distribution at Cybereason
Content objectives certainly vary depending on the scope and type of content published. The objective for creating a white paper is very different from the objective for creating a blog post. However, they are often contextually similar and share a large percentage of the same target audience.
The distribution tactics are also quite different depending on the content type. This is evident in the fact that we see no white papers in the top 10 pages by estimated visits, but we see 7 blog posts. Standard distribution channels include email, social media, content syndication, acquisition of guest posts and backlinks, digital ads, news coverage in industry relevant publications, SEO, and employee-led advocacy with social sharing.
Content distribution with Search advertising
Cybereason focuses a lot on industry analyst reports from organizations like Forrester and Gartner. Their placement in Gartner’s magic quadrant is a focal point, similar to many other companies in this space. You can see they even distribute this report through Search ad placement for their main branded keyword. This demonstrates the value they place on this type of content where they would rather organic search traffic visit this report than their home, product, or blog pages.
Content distribution on social media
Cybereason’s social strategy appears to be very straightforward. It is used primarily as a content distribution channel where they promote the existence of their new assets. This might be a white paper or a blog. They provide a short description of the asset, but the primary purpose is to announce the new piece of content and not to provide native social content. More about the opportunity to trend towards native social content will be discussed in the next section.
Distribution through the company and employee pages is a great way to let prospective customers and employees know what is going on at the company if they are in their first and second degree networks. However, to reach a broader audience, Cybereason also deploys paid ads as a content distribution channel. For example, here’s an ad distributing their e-book on LinkedIn. This approach doubles as a content distribution and a lead generation effort since the call to action is to download a gated asset in exchange for the user’s email address.
Content distribution with PR and news coverage
Another effective distribution strategy that Cybereason employs is earning coverage in industry publications and news outlets. The cybersecurity industry generates a lot of news, which is bad news for most of us but good news for these companies. For example, with every Cybereason report, there are several journalists that will pick up the insights within to include as authoritative references in their article. Here are some examples of coverage based on their blog post on a threat analysis report in relevant publications that provide Cybereason with strong backlinks while establishing them as thought leaders and experts.
Getting links from top publications and other cybersecurity blogs helps increase Cybereason’s domain authority with high value backlinks, increase referral traffic (4th largest source of traffic), and serves as an opportunity to demonstrate industry expertise and thought leadership.
Content distribution with SEO
Since organic Search traffic is the largest component after direct traffic, it’s useful to see which pages are receiving the majority of that traffic. Below is a screenshot of the top pages by estimated website visits via Search (source: ubersuggest.com). The homepage is unsurprisingly far ahead of all the pages that come after, but it’s interesting to see the majority of the top 10 come from the blog section of Cybereason’s website. An emphasis on SEO and producing optimized and relevant blog articles is undoubtedly a focus for Cybereason’s content team and an effective channel for distribution.
It’s great to see three out of the top ten pages are repurposed blog posts that feature transcripts of the podcast itself along with a YouTube video of the episode. If they simply produced the podcast and published it on YouTube and podcast publishing platforms, they would not have benefited from the SEO value of the written transcript.
Content Repurposing Opportunities
A content repurposing strategy enables marketing teams to systematically publish more content across more channels to meet their audience where they are spending time online. Whether repurposing analyst reports for native social content, email marketing, or a digital ad campaign, having a repeatable process that multiplies the impact of every marketing asset is a staple of a well functioning content marketing engine.
Content repurposing strategies are multifaceted plans and are specific to every organization depending on the type, formats, and volume of content they publish. They should be flexible to adapt to new strategies and modular to transfer techniques and approaches to multiple document types and content formats.
Let’s take a look at a few specific opportunities for Cybereason to repurpose their existing content to explore new marketing tactics and to reach more of their audience with educational and promotional content.
Native Social Content
Cybereason provides very little native social, zero-click content. Their social media presence is primarily for content distribution rather than content creation, and on average more than 20% of their engagement on LinkedIn posts is from their own employees. This is not inherently a bad thing if this is why they publish on social media. Many companies announce new content on LinkedIn to share with their employees and do not aim to expand the reach beyond their own first degree followers and network.
There is a big push towards native social content on LinkedIn and other social platforms, especially if your target audience is there, whether it’s current or prospective customers. This is a move towards a demand generation model on social that aims at generating awareness for the 95+% of your audience that is not currently an active buyer of your solution.
Below are a few examples of how Cybereason uses social media to promote the same piece of content on Twitter and LinkedIn:
There are very few (if any) cybersecurity companies engaging in true demand generation on social media. Social media is primarily used as an employee engagement platform and a content distribution channel. Especially on LinkedIn, most company pages simply consist of a quick description of a new blog article or research report and a link to the report.
There is a huge opportunity for a cybersecurity company like Cybereason to invest in native social zero-click content and to use a content repurposing framework as the catalyst.
Native social content doesn’t need to replace any current social activity like content distribution, but it would certainly help further establish thought leadership and brand awareness among their very targeted and relevant audience on LinkedIn and Twitter.
Content Planning
Cybereason creates a lot of timely content. There are so many data breaches, discoveries of zero day exploits, and new security concerns for their target audience, this makes a ton of sense.
There are underlying themes in all content, even breaking news, that can be used to generate new evergreen content ideas that will be relevant long after the breaking news cycle is over.
Breaking news content about new breaches or security patches is only valuable for a short period of time. It’s a good idea to initiate a few pieces of evergreen content with every breaking news article. A case study on how Cybereason solved a specific, timely problem for a client may not be a great gated asset in a year from now if that security threat is no longer active. However, the underlying techniques that helped them solve the problem will likely always be relevant and interesting to prospective customers looking to solve categorically similar problems.
This isn’t the most common form of content repurposing because it doesn’t involve repackaging or reusing content. Instead it involves repackaging and reusing concepts to generate ideas for new content. Repurposing concepts and expanding them for new content ideas is a great way to keep a logical consistency in your content archive.
#1 Example of evergreen content that isn’t connected to a specific event or current issue. This article is concerned with a concept that underlies many current attacks and mitigation techniques, but is not specifically tied to a fleeting topic. https://www.cybereason.com/blog/ransomops-vs.-extended-detection-and-response
#2 Example of timely content that is connected to a specific event. This article is concerned with a recently reported attack on a nation-state that may not have lasting relevance. However, it still provides great value to followers of Cybereason and demonstrates their attention to current security cybersecurity news and events. https://www.cybereason.com/blog/ransomops-vs.-extended-detection-and-response
An example of how to repurpose article #2 into a piece of evergreen content more similar to article #1 is to uncover underlying evergreen topics within the article that describes a recent security event with a nation-state. For example, the following article ideas could be added to Cybereason’s content calendar based on the content within the report on the attack on Montenegro:
- How to protect nation-states from DDoS and ransomware attacks
- Setting up isolation practices to stop the spread of ransomware
- How to prepare your entire organization from the security team to the Executive Suite for security breaches
Employee Advocacy
Employee advocacy is incredibly powerful, especially on social media where having internal thought leaders can have compounding value. This includes a degree of trust established with the thought leaders’ audience on behalf of the company and more efficiently hiring top talent due to greater visibility into the company’s values and objectives.
This only works on social media if your ideal audience is consuming content there. If your ideal customer and decision maker are CIOs, you better make sure CIOs are consuming content on the platforms where you are investing in employee advocacy. If you’re trying to reach potential engineering talent by promoting the exciting work Cybereason is doing in a certain area, LinkedIn is a great place to activate your employees actively sharing company updates and insights.
Employee advocacy on social media, podcast appearances, and quotes in industry relevant publications are great ways to communicate the company culture and demonstrate expertise. Arming employees with repurposed content based on research presented in other channels is a good way to transfer on-brand messaging to employee advocates.
Sales Enablement
Sales heavy organizations like enterprise cybersecurity companies that sell mission critical software like Cybereason often have tight collaboration between sales and marketing. Marketing activity turns a cold audience into a warm audience by developing brand awareness among prospects.
Transferring the value of marketing assets to a sales organization is a great way to help them demonstrate subject matter expertise and deliver valuable and timely information to prospective customers. Repurposing marketing assets into sales materials is low hanging fruit that can have a big impact.
When sales teams have access to collateral that support their efforts, they are best set up for success. Being able to efficiently provide case studies, white papers, and articles that can support their sales process is a critical step that demonstrates the organization’s expertise and capabilities in solving their prospect’s technical challenges.
Email Marketing
Email marketing is still one of the most effective channels to communicate with an engaged audience. Every piece of marketing content has the potential to be repurposed into email marketing content. This doesn’t mean sending an email announcing a new analyst report or a new article covering the latest breach.
Marketing content can be repurposed to be consumed in the email itself. Key takeaways, statistics, and featured quotes can be included in the email to portray the message of the original asset without requiring readers to leave the email client.
This email-native approach is not intended to be a lead generation approach, but supports brand awareness and thought leadership among an already engaged and subscribed audience.
Repurposed Audio and Video
Audio and video are increasingly popular formats for cybersecurity content. Webinars, promotional videos, and internal podcasts are available from Cybereason and many other cybersecurity companies.
The most straightforward way to repurpose any audio and video content into text is to create blog posts that consist of quick summaries or a direct transcription of interviews or conversations. This is often the format of webinars and podcasts so the approach is widely applicable and already done by many cybersecurity companies including Cybereason.
Example of repurposed audio content. This is a blog post that contains the transcript of a podcast episode. This is beneficial from an SEO point of view in a way that an audio-only podcast is not. https://www.cybereason.com/blog/malicious-life-podcast-operation-trojan-shield-designed-by-criminals-for-criminals
The most engaging approach to repurposing audio and video is to truly repurpose it by extracting the key themes and creating a net new piece of content, instead of a simple and direct 1-to-1 transcription.
Videograms and Audiograms
Videograms and auidograms are great ways to repurpose and distribute content on social media. Simply posting a link to a podcast with a quick summary is an extremely boring way to announce a new episode. However, creating an audiogram on top of an image of the subject matter expert in the interview with a few takeaway quotes is very appealing for a social audience.
Here’s an example of this approach (even though this isn’t in the cybersecurity niche, it clearly demonstrates the concept):
By translating audio and video content into a short visual version, your content is immediately more shareable and your social audience will quickly know what to expect in the full episode, webinar, or interview.
Content for Recruiting
Marketing as a recruiting function has been at the forefront of many marketing conferences in recent years. Creating content to support the talent acquisition teams will continue to be important as the job market remains competitive. This is especially the case for cybersecurity companies where talent with specific technical expertise is highly sought after. As more companies and startups come into the fold, every advantage that a company can get should be exploited, especially in recruiting and hiring.
Repurposing marketing assets for the explicit purpose of supporting the talent acquisition team is a no brainer. There are many pieces of content that include interviews with subject matter experts, or external interviews with internal leadership that should be repackaged to demonstrate the values of the company and what it’s like to work for the organization.
Key Takeaways
A content repurposing strategy for Cybereason benefits from the wide variety of formats and content objectives in their content strategy. Since there are published pieces ranging from blog posts and news articles to in depth analyst reports, there are plenty of opportunities for repackaging and repurposing every piece of content.
The majority of research-heavy assets are used as lead generation magnets to acquire email addresses. Readers of this type of content are often at the bottom of the purchasing funnel. However, this same content can be repurposed as top of the funnel content across platforms to accelerate brand awareness as part of demand generation campaigns.