This month’s publishing and marketing news round-up is going heavy on the topic of content. With a whopping 27 million pieces of content shared online every day, it should come as no surprise that content management and marketing, is as topical as can be right now. This month, we’re exploring the signs that’s you’re delivering the right content, underrated types of content you may be ignoring, and how Hollywood A-listers could be impacting your content strategy.
Capturing your content
Kevin Goldberg writes a piece for Business 2 Community on the 7 habits of highly effective content marketers. Kevin outlines some habits that every successful content marketer will hold. To begin with, he notes how they are ‘in the know’, and how you can’t provide relevant content if you’re not current in the latest trends and topics. He recommends starting each day by reading 30-45 minutes of the latest industry news, Google Alerts on competitors, and any relevant blogs. Another point Kevin stresses is to be resourceful, and how essential it is to get the most bang for your buck. He suggests finding cost effective vendors and freelancers, negotiating an abstract, blog posts, and a webinar from the person writing you that white paper, and getting the most mileage out of your content. Kevin rounds up the piece by reminding us of the importance of simply writing. He believes that sometimes, it doesn’t matter what you write, just as long as you find time to sit down and do it. Whether it’s a journal, random ramblings on Medium, maintaining a steady blog, or even writing letters to your friends and family, it’ll prevent rustiness and keep your talents sharp.
Aaron Agius’ article for HubSpot asks whether you want to take your content from good to great? Aaron reveals that when writing content, he uses a checklist of ten key signals to help decide whether he’s created something great, or merely good. The first, and maybe most obvious point, is making sure that the work is original, with excellent spelling, grammar, and punctuation. He agrees that most ideas aren’t new and what you’re writing probably isn’t 100 percent original thought, however unless you can give it a unique spin or add new information, you should probably question why you’re writing this content in the first place. Point number four is to create a headline that is strong and attention-grabbing. According to research from Copyblogger, 80 percent of people will read your headline, but only 20 percent will read the entire article. So be sure to create a headline that will draw readers in and make them want to stick around. Aaron’s tenth and final point is about creating content that goes above and beyond reader expectations. You need to produce content that is adding something new to the conversation, with backed up points, and provide readers with something they can actually apply to their businesses.
Utilise all forms of content
Ramona Sukhraj, writing for Impact, discusses three of the most underrated types of content you should try, and how you could spice up your content strategy with one of these new mediums. Ramona states how everyone is blogging, and everyone is creating eBooks. Instead, it might be time to shake things up and introduce one of these underrated content types. The first one she mentions is quizzes. Surprised that more marketers aren’t taking advantage of quizzes in their strategies, she explains how they can be engaging, shareable, entertaining, and when done right, can be extremely informative. She cites Buzzfeed as a perfect example of this. Second on Ramona’s list is gifs. She believes that gifs are extremely underrated and underused, and can take the visual effect to a new level. She describes them as a great way to incorporate humour and connect with a persona on a more human, emotional way. Finally, the last underrated piece of content listed is videos. Ramona states how people aren’t reading as much as they used to, and instead of deciding between visuals or auditory learning styles, you can leverage both at the same time with a short, engaging video.
Lessons from Hollywood
Concluding this month’s news round-up, Quinn Whissen, writing for Marketing Land, explores the content marketing lessons to be made from Hollywood A-listers. Quinn reveals that in her experience, content marketing insights and inspiration can be found in seemingly random experiences, which includes Hollywood movies and their leading actors. She begins with Tom Cruise in Jerry Maguire, with the now infamous line, ‘Help me, help you.’ She explains how content marketing is all about helping, not selling, embodying a new paradigm that includes words like ‘listening,’ ‘teaching,’ and ‘educating,’ rather than ‘selling’ and ‘pitching.’ Next up is Brad Pitt in Moneyball, with ‘You get on base we win. You don’t, we lose.’ Quinn believes that baseball, just like content marketing, is a numbers game. The more you get on base with your content, and the more you post, the more chances you have to knock it out of the park. Quinn concludes with Ellen Degeneres’ Finding Nemo quote, ‘Just keep swimming.’ She stresses not to angst over punctuation, voice, structure, and imagery for months, but instead keep a steady flow of posts coming out. It takes consistency and dedication in content marketing, which includes publishing content week after week, month after month, with no rest in the middle.
Are there any other film quotes that could relate to the world of content marketing?
