What Club Penguin can teach you about content marketing

For those of you who don’t know it, Club Penguin is a online virtual world for younger kids where everyone creates a penguin character (often brightly coloured), has an igloo for a house and can ‘buy’ small round pets called puffles. There is a free option where you get the basics but can’t customise your penguin and igloo very much and a paid membership option where everything becomes available.

The world they live in has a number of areas (a toboggan run, a light house, a dance club etc) and various games you can play onsite (card-jitsu being a particular favourite for me my daughter). So far so good (especially if you are eight) but what does this tell you about content marketing success?

Well, they do a number of things really well:

An active, rolling calendar of activities and themes

The site, while remaining broadly static in structure, is endlessly changing. Whether this is for Christmas or just because the carnival comes to town there is regularly something new to do. It never gets boring and retains engagement from its members.

Lesson 1: think ahead, at all costs don’t let your content become stale – have a plan you can work to that regularly refreshes and expands your content

User-controlled experiences

The site allows different users to have different experiences. You can become a secret agent and undertake challenges, you can become a ninja with the aforementioned card-jitsu or you can play solo or hang out and play with your buddies.  

Lesson 2: one size does not fit all, create different versions of your content for different types of users – allow them to interact with it in ways that suit them (eg text, audio, video, mobile)

Distributed content

While the prime focus is the online community there is now a range of offline content too. Since the site was bought by Disney, the magic kingdom’s merchandising machine has gone into overdrive. You can buy books, toy penguins, puffles, the lot. And, cleverly (or annoyingly if you’re a parent) offline content unlocks more exclusive online content.

Lesson 3: of course online is key, but don’t rely 100% on online for your success – create content that also works offline, on the move and face to face

It’s social

No new news here but the site is clever in how it does social networking. While it is locked down to keep kids’ identities safe, it is easy to see which members have been particularly successful at earning virtual money from the games and challenges. They have bigger igloos, more puffles, better hair (I know, penguins with hair – scary). They are also keen to show others new features and games.

Lesson 4: examine ways of giving those people who engage with your content rewards in terms of prestige and reputation – offer the most active ones opportunities to create content themselves and praise them for doing so

So there you go, what a community of multi-coloured animated penguins can teach you about content marketing.