More than a quarter of B2B marketers’ total budgets are allocated to content marketing initiatives, and 60% plan to increase that spend next year (B2B Content Marketing: 2012 Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends).
The question is, are they creating content that gets results?
While content marketing has only recently become a major marketing trend, it isn’t a new tactic. Businesses have always created informational pieces that point to their products as the best solution, move prospects along the sales cycle and build trust.
The difference now is that these pieces are published online. And that ushers in a slew of other considerations. In order to get the best return on content marketing, we must be strategic, creating content that’s readable, findable and sharable.
Create content worth reading
Pre-internet, content was expensive to produce and distribute. As a result, quantity was one of the biggest issues in creating it.
The web has changed all that. We’re no longer restrained by the cost of printing and postage, which means quantity isn’t an issue. As content marketers, we can now rival most publishing companies in the amount of information we produce. With that change comes another consideration.
That change creates another consideration.
Now quality is the bigger issue. As content marketers striving for readership, we must begin to plan and act like publishers. It isn’t a matter of creating content, but creating content that our customers want to read.
Connect content with customers
The point of content is to build relationship and establish the value of our products. But consumers are overwhelmed with marketing messages, which means the simple act of creating content isn’t enough. Our readers must be able to find our content.
Content should do more than connect with readers. It must also please the Google gods. As online publishers, we’ve got to optimize our content so it will rank well on search engines.
Fortunately, the changes in search algorithms reward quality content. But it’s important to understand how they measure quality. Basic SEO techniques are important. Content must also be unique, offering helpful information that readers perceive as valuable.
How does Google decide which content is seen as useful? One of the most important scorecards is social sharing.
The true test: Is it sharable?
There are now 800 million active Facebook users… 100 million active Twitter users… 10 million Google+ users. And the numbers keep rising.
Remember Marketing 101? Wherever your customers are, that’s where your message should be. It’s time to think “social” when you think content.
As social networks become more sophisticated, they’re proving to be a good way to connect with customers. And social media provides a unique benefit that isn’t available through search engines alone. Whereas Google skims content for key words, metadata and social clues as to its value, social media uses nothing but human filters.
Each share is a direct vote for your content.
That’s incredibly valuable to us as marketers. When a search engine says a blog post is good, we may or may not agree. But when a friend recommends that same post, we’re much more likely to click through.
The human filter is an incredibly accurate way to determine what’s worth sharing and what has the potential to go viral. As a result, content must be written for the human filter.
That means it has to be interesting, entertaining and relevant. It needs to solve problems or give useful information. It needs to be worth sharing.
Upgrade your content and connect
The value of social media is the interaction that goes with it. We trust our friends to be honest with us. We appreciate them acting as a human filter.
As marketers we need to understand that. Create content that your readers want to read and share. Then help them find it by optimizing it for search engines and social sharing.
Quite simply, we shouldn’t simply create content. We should create value.
