What is Content and Why is it Such a Big Deal?
You ever heard the term, “Content is King”? Yeah I have too and just like you, I also hate hearing it. It is one of the most overused terms used in the business and marketing world right now. It is being used for the right reasons though and the adage “Content is King” overuse is the unintended consequence. Content truly is now the focus of many agencies and corporations. Now it may not necessarily be the king, but it definitely is the fuel powering campaigns.
The reason content is so important is due in large part to the advancement of the information age. Our world has become better and better and finding data and information and with this added skill set, the expectation for information has grown. Companies can’t hide behind cute jingles or vibrant billboards in hopes that consumers will just pull out their money blindly.
Nope, now consumers want to know everything about the product. Where is was made, how it was made, what the product and the company that made it stands for. Sometimes this can sound pretty ridiculous, but anytime you have chosen Coca Cola over a different soda, you pretty much have done the same thing.
What is Content Marketing?
“Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.”
This definition is brought to you straight from the kings of content marketing at Content Marketing Institute. To state the above definition in layman’s terms, content marketing is centered on creating and distributing information that will engage your customers and fans, in the ultimate goal that they will continue the relationship between them and your business.
To get the best understanding of content marketing, I’ll give an example that has directly worked on me. Note that I’m not going to use some big corporations because I want to show you how content marketing can work for smaller businesses. I’m going to give a special shout out to the Costa Mesa business, Honey & Butter.
Now, I’m not much of a macarons guy. But, my sister and a lot of my friends go crazy over this kind of stuff. But the reason why I decided to include Honey & Butter is because I follow them even though I am not a fan of their actual product. The marketing they do is so engaging that I continue to watch them on Instagram. On their Instagram they post every day about what macarons selections they will have. Posts will often look like this.
The interesting thing here is this is not the traditional content you would imagine when thinking of content marketing. However, their content marketing is extremely effective because they respected the Instagram environment. Instagram is not for long text, but rather expression through well-crafted images. Honey & Butter has crafted a great content strategy is by uniting their product with pop culture. By creating macarons that are themed, it adds another layer of interest to the product and business. Often the theme of the macarons will coincide with launches of video games, movies or national appreciation days.
As a small business Honey & Butter has seen incredible success publishing their micro-content. They now have over 43.2k followers and I’ll even see national blogs or sites pick up stories about Honey & Butter’s creations. Do yourself a favor and give them a follow.
Why Should I do Content Marketing?
Content Marketing is the one aspect of any campaign that will power everything else. I mean it. SEO, Social Media and Link Building all revolve around the effort your put into content marketing.
Content Marketing and SEO
When any business attempts to run a SEO campaign, they will soon figure out that content is a large part of their efforts. Of course you can do the simple things like optimizing title tags, meta descriptions and ensuring keywords are located on the page. However, Google much prefers businesses who update their page constantly.
How do you ensure you are continually making updates? Well your most likely going to do this with a blog. In this blog, you will need to have articles that are on topic and correlated with the keywords that your trying to rank for. Now this is where content marketing comes into play. What are you going to post on this blog?
If you don’t know, I’ll just let you know, the answer is content. The key is to creating content that your customers and fans will enjoy reading and want to come back for more.
Content Marketing and Social Media
If you have ever tried to run a social media account, personal or business, I am sure that you have had the following words blaring in your mind, “What can I post today?”
I like to call this “Social Block”. Get it? Like Writer’s block? Yeah, you do.
Well again, the answer is social. It is much easier to share information on social media when you have something to share with the world. And I mean actual interesting information. Not another cute graphic with a quote scrawled across it.
Actual interesting information is something that you as a business know that you think the community might enjoy. For example, the best foods to eat with the coffee you serve. Or maybe cute ways to decorate for your party this summer.
Content Marketing and Link building
I’ll keep this one short because I’m sure you get to the point by now. When your trying to get people to link to your site, the best way to do it is if you have interesting content. So you see, god dang it, I guess it’s true, “Content is King”.
How to Get Started on Content Marketing
So I hope that I have shown you the benefits of content marketing and why your business needs to be doing it. If you were excited to get started on preparing great content, I’ve provided some companies that offer great content (<—- See I told you it works for link building) that will be a good starting point for you.
*I actually have not gone through Moz’s content marketing guide, but I have gone through pretty much everything else. They always have great content and I trust they will on this one as well.
