Here's Some Content Marketing About Content Marketing
Content marketing is one way to get noticed these days. Another is to pull off a Branson-esque PR stunt by doing something silly like flying around the world in a balloon. Or - you could just pay someone to run your ad, like a TV station for example.
Most of us aren't Richard Branson, nor do we have deep enough pockets run TV ads. So - thanks to the potential of social media to distribute our thoughts - we write; tweets, blogs, white papers, slide decks.
The above diagram is from an article on Moz.com called, "The Greatest Misconception in Content Marketing".
Just because you write something interesting doesn't mean anyone will read it, find it interesting or share it.
If content is king, distribution is queen.
Some things stick, some don't.
I've been blogging for years. I write to articulate my thoughts, to share ideas. Some articles get read more than others and it's never the ones I expect.
I keep writing, every day. Something will stick, I don't know when and I don't know when. Maybe it's this post?
If you are a company thinking about doing content marketing, two things matter;
1. Write something that matters to your audience
I've learnt that what matters is not whether I find something interesting, it's whether my audience find it interesting. There are plenty of my old blog posts out there that were pure navel gazing. Companies do the same thing by the way - just look at the blog posts of most companies - so much of it is stuff that interests them, not their audience.
2. Have commitment and consistency
Just keep at it. If you commit to blog once a day, do it once a day. Once a week, do it once a week. Some of your posts will resonate and gain traction, some won't. You cannot predict this. Traction is not directly linked to quality. Sure, you need to write quality articles for people to be bothered to read them, but my point is that you can write 10 articles of equal quality and only one will be shared.
I've absolutely no idea if this blog will be viewed 10 times, 100 times or a 1000 times.
It's time to hit "publish" and I guess I'll find out.