I hope you took the time to watch the video I posted a couple days ago. If you haven’t, put this article on pause and go watch it (just click the link in the first sentence.
You’re back? Okay. So let’s discuss today’s topic: the beloved (or loathed) cliche that “Content is King.” You either hate this statement or you love it. There are no middle grounders. If you hate the saying and are sick and tired of hearing people repeat it, you’ve already failed. Let me explain why.
People Who Hate That Saying Are Looking For Shortcuts
This is the gist of it. Let’s cut to the chase. You’ve heard “Content is King”, “Content is King”, “Content is King”, blah blah blah. Right? You’ve heard it a hundred times, you’re sick of it, and you want the people who give advice to step up their game and give you something fresh, innovative, and new. You want the NOW secret. You want to beat your competitors to the punch. You want the latest quick tip that once executed will launch your search rankings or branding or sales into the stratosphere. In other words, you want an edge over your competitors.
And that’s why you’ve failed.
To win online, you have to establish one of the greatest and most difficult character traits a person or company can exhibit: self-control. That means you have to keep yourself from flying in a dozen directions all at once. You have many ideas. You see many possibilities. You want to test a dozen new tools and markets and channels. You are spread too thin, and your brand is suffering. That’s the bottom line.
Content IS King. It’s amazing how many of us hear that saying and internally we respond with “Yeah, yeah, yeah, but which of these cool new toys can I game to trick people into visiting my site more often and purchase more products?” And that’s how you lose.
Did you WATCH that video? Gary V makes it plain and simple. Today’s Web is about listening. Monitoring. What are people saying about your product? What are they saying about your brand? What are they saying about your industry? What questions do they have?
ANSWER THEM
Today’s social Web is not about the message you blast out to the masses. That’s old school traditional marketing for television, radio, and print. This is 2009. Marketing is word of mouth. There is always a broadcast component, but it’s the minority now.
Are you using a comprehensive Online Reputation Monitoring tool? Are you assigning sentiment (positive/negative/netural) status to each mention online? Are you analyzing trends of questions, comments, suggestions, arguments, complaints, and everything inbetween? Do you know your audience?
Listening Is Queen
Content is King because it sets you apart. It IS your brand. If you hate creating content, you hate promoting and establishing your brand. And if Content is King, Listening is Queen. Listening (monitoring) is only secondary because you can’t ultimately ONLY run your business based on the opinions of your audience. You have to establish a culture, a personality, a voice. You have to be interesting, compelling, fresh, and always, always, always helpful.
Let’s break this down. I’m sharing personal revelation with you, so I know of which I speak. I’ve been in the position of being scattered and undefined and focused on tactics rather than content. Here’s the summary all tied up in a nice, pretty bow:
Simplify. Put creating quality content ABOVE tips, tricks, and gimmicks. Put a chunk of your budget into innovative content creation. Cut back where you can to accomplish this goal. Create truly innovative content that people will want to consume. Then live in the trenches of communities by answering questions, getting to know people, and earning trust. You will naturally gain their respect and people will want to read your content and they will develop a deep loyalty to your brand that will form the foundation for viral word of mouth marketing in the years to come.
How do you do this?
Prioritize. Allocate resources. If you say you don’t have the budget to create quality content, it’s because your priorities probably need to be adjusted. Be a brand worth caring about. Be a blog worth reading. Be a video profile worth revisiting. Be valuable. Place emphasis on the content rather than the tactic.
It sounds like I’m putting myself out of work, doesn’t it? I’m the tactics, strategy, and analysis guy, after all. But no, I’m actually trying to improve the quality of clients’ brands so that when I apply my tactics, they are promoting a quality product or service people can easily care about. And more times than not, we’ll do our part by partnering with our clients to craft robust content creation strategies that naturally work hand in hand with social media promotion and link building tactics.
In the weeks to come, most companies will need to restructure to either add a couple new employee positions or budget to harness agencies and/or contractors. You need dynamic, quality content creators. You need social networkers. You need people who can be regular people on the Web. Who are comfortable with the space as it is today, not yesterday.
There’s a lot of meat here, so I’ll look at a few ways to break it down into smaller doses. But I hope this gets you thinking and affords an honest, open look at your brand’s priorities and whether they are conducive to online success.
