Wednesday, 16 January 2013

How Much Content is Enough?


I've been doing a ton of reading on Content Marketing.  Ever since the Google Penguin update (yeah, Panda too), I'm seeing more information about content marketing.  Essentially, the idea is to create unique, quality content for your blogs, websites, etc.  And I get it, content is still king.  But what is quality content?

Content is no longer a simple article that covers a topic in your niche, I think its more than that.. it has to be!  Quality content uses all types of media and packages it in different ways for a particular audience.  Here are just a few pieces of "content" you should consider.

--Articles
--Videos
--Images
--Customer Reviews
--Local Company Profiles
--Press Releases
--Infographics
--Social Media Updates
--White Papers

Think beyond the written word.  Technology has afforded us the ability to create meaningful content for our audiences in different shapes and formats.

I think the companies that will succeed in this content starved generation have to be masters in repackaging.  No one in their right mind has all of the necessary resources to keep pumping out content after content.  And truthfully, content marketing doesn't always work that way.

Repackaging
To succeed, you need to think about packaging and repackaging quality content again and again.  This can be done in a linear fashion and fewer resources.  For example, giving a presentation can produce a transcript, video, and slides to be uploaded to slide share.  You can even tweet about your presentation or post it to Facebook.  The key is repackaging.

Repackaging can take many forms.  Do you have a strategy in place to repackage your content?  Probably not.  I know that I'm just thinking about it myself based on some of the complexities associated with content distribution.  For example, I used to make all of my social updates via Twitter which was attached to my Facebook and LinkedIn accounts.  Now that a social separation has occurred and there are many new social sites online, its vital to explore new options (ex: Hootsuite).

Audience
The companies and websites that succeed in engaging their audience and win organic search will be masters in producing quality content their audience wants and producing in multiple formats.  This doesn't mean that you need to pump out new content by the minute but you do need different avenues to share your content.

You may find a few channels that work best.  Think about how you can promote your content once it's produced and share that content across each channel.  You may be surprised how quickly you can spread your content if you've considered all the possibilities at your disposal.

Share your thoughts on producing and distributing quality content in the comments section...

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