Teaming up to create value added content and social media engagement metrics for brands

Strategic Content Labs and Engagement Labs are Partnering to Offer Enhanced Services

TORONTO, March 25, 2014 /CNW/ - Strategic Content Labs, an independent division of St. Joseph Communications, and Engagement Labs, an up-and-coming social media performance measurement provider, today announced a strategic partnership. Their goal is to enhance how the two companies can jointly come to market and enhance their product offering in the quickly-expanding landscape where content creation and social media engagement intersect.

"It is becoming increasingly clear that best-in-class content combined with best-in-class digital and social targeting can effectively identify and engage communities of interest on behalf of clients. Together, we will deepen the relationship between a brand and its community, as we turn brands into publishers and audiences into brand loyalists," said Douglas Kelly, Publisher of Strategic Content Labs.

Paul Allard, President & CEO of Engagement Labs, said: "Today's successful marketers understand that the art of value added content and the science of social engagement metrics and analytics are to be interwoven in order to achieve the highest ROI of any marketing program. This is what this partnership is all about!"

Content Labs and Engagement Labs have several critical-to-success attributes in common. They are independent and are focused solely on client objectives. They understand what makes great storytelling, and how to create a publishing ecosystem across all platforms. They know how to harness the power of social to reach and engage an intended community. They get the importance of curation to guide the discussion. And they see state-of-the-art measurement as key to the whole engagement process - not only to demonstrate results for a client, but to refine methodology to further drive those results.

While the concept of content creation and social engagement is familiar to many brands, effective implementation may be another story. "Considering that it's been around so long, content creation and storytelling is a real art," said Kelly. "It's time-consuming, and not necessarily part of a brand's skill set. We are building a team of people who can creatively and systematically execute a content plan."

The two companies are currently working together on a number of large-scale opportunities. While the Energy and Financial Services sectors are targeted for this unique combination of top-quality content, social media engagement and performance monitoring, other potential clients include the Consumer Products sector, Industry Associations and Government.

With the massive shift underway from traditional advertising and communications to content-driven marketing, Content Labs was launched in January with the goal of creating a dynamic mix of articles, features, infographics, images, illustrations, videos, social posting and events on behalf of clients. Given the growing dominance of digital and social as the most effective pipeline to reach and engage an audience, content is then strategically seeded to targeted communities, which are then brought back to a client or sponsored site for an even richer experience.

Kelly is a former Editor-in-Chief and Publisher of the National Post, who has more than 30 years' experience working with leading writers, editors, designers, graphic artists and digital specialists. While at the Post, he helped design and lead ground-breaking content marketing initiatives for a variety of clients including General Electric and the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP).

About St. Joseph Communications
St. Joseph Communications is spearheading transformational change by redefining the way in which organizations connect with their customers. Our omnichannel marketing approach lets us build solutions and ecosystems anchored by people, technology and insight that intuitively merge all data and visual assets to create multichannel publishing solutions for all mediums. This gives marketers the opportunity to be more efficient at creating and grouping content while focusing on strategy and analytics. Through these solutions we can deliver the widest array of interconnected solutions across all mediums. By redefining how brands develop experiences, we build sales, boost loyalty and create evangelists across all communications channels and technologies. Simply put? We transform the way brands engage with people.

About Engagement Labs
Engagement Labs offers real-time social media data, analytics and insights for organizations that are actively engaging on social networks. They extract business intelligence from user generated data (BIG DATA) and transform it into actionable data for corporate clients, brands and social media teams. Engagement Labs created #esuite™, an Intelligent Data on Demand platform for agencies, marketing teams and dashboard providers. Offered under SaaS or through an API, #esuite™ supports the entire social marketing cycle by providing over 250 comprehensive intelligent analytical metrics to measure performance and ROI for brands to evaluate and coordinate social media activities across all online channels (social media sites, forums, news and blogs). With headquarters in Montreal, Canada, Engagement Labs also maintains offices in New York, Toronto, Paris and Mexico.

Image with caption: "Teaming up to create value added content and social media engagement metrics for brands (CNW Group/St. Joseph Communications)". Image available at: http://photos.newswire.ca/images/download/20140325_C6791_PHOTO_EN_38298.jpg

SOURCE: St. Joseph Communications

For further information:

For more information and interview requests please contact: 

Douglas Kelly
Strategic Content Labs
[e-mail]
416-786-6344

Julie Bourbonnière
Engagement Labs
[e-mail]
514-317-6448, ext.106