Who doesn’t love a great infographic? Not me. So when I got a link yesterday offering to show the difference between tradition public relations and content PR, I couldn’t click fast enough. Unfortunately, it turned out to be the same old song and dance.
I just received an email from 
Congratulations, you now have 100,000 followers or likes or subscribers or whatever. Now what?
Over the past 2-1/2 years I have run more than 1,375 miles, not just to stay in shape, but to enable me to eat Five Guys burgers and fries whenever the spirit moves me.
In the movie Flashback, Dennis Hopper’s character tells his young protégé “when we get out of the ’80s, the ’90s are going to make the ’60s look like the ’50s”. So would you think I am crazy if I tell you that when we get out of the 2010s, people will look at Facebook and Twitter the way people in the 1980s looked at disco and long hair? To paraphrase Nassim Taleb, if you think you understand the world and possess the ability to predict the future, you are probably wrong.
I have no special insight into the plans and/or capabilities of Specific Media, the new owner of MySpace.Content Marketing: Creating Value for Target Audiences
Content marketing is nothing new. However, we see so much “noise” being created on and offline from online and traditional press releases to social media sites and sites set up just for organic search engine optimization purposes that we wanted to take the opportunity (prompted by a recent Cleveland Social Media Club meeting) to revisit why generating truly valuable content for your target audiences is imperative and beneficial.
Content marketing is the process of developing and disseminating relevant and valuable content to customers and prospects. The goal is to engage and ultimately drive an engaged action from consumers. The key benefit for customers/prospects is they receive information that benefits them, and the reward for the business is it becomes a trusted resource when a customer/prospect is ready to take action on a related product or service.
Examples of content marketing include educational microsites, expert blogs, education videos, useful smart phone apps and small bits of information disseminated through social media. Even creating feature articles for magazines is a good example of content marketing.
Take this article that appeared in TFM Facility Blog. It’s providing relevant content for facility managers when selecting LED lighting.
Below are a few tips on developing/distributing content that will truly benefit your target audiences.
Build Content Around Customer’s Pain Points: In order to develop content that is valuable for your customers and prospects, develop a clear understanding of the things that make them tick as well their challenges. Once you understand the type of information your customer needs, it is easy to develop content directly addressing topics they care about.
Identify Channels of Distribution: It is absolutely essential to know where and how customers/prospects get their information. This of course is different for every industry. If your customers/prospects are not using Twitter or Facebook, no matter how good your content is, it is not going to reach them. Don’t know the best way? Conduct a survey.
Develop a Strategy: Develop a clear editorial calendar to guide your content. What exactly will you publish, when and how often? And yes, this even goes for Facebook and Twitter content. Plan topics in advance and then modify as needed based on current events and emerging trends. A little work up front can save time and frustration in the end.
Content Should Change Behavior: The goal with content marketing is to make a connection with customers/prospects that will eventually lead to profitable action. The first step is developing content that is important and relevant to the audience. But in order for the content to be an effective marketing strategy, marketers need to find a way to relate that content to their company’s message, communicate indirectly how a product or service eases a pain point, and encourage a change in behavior that benefits both the customer and the business. Not seeing behavior change? Test new content and delivery methods.
Understand Impact on the Bottom Line: It is simple to track and measure microsite hits, blog visitors, followers, likes, circulation, etc. But go beyond those statistics. When implemented successfully, content marketing should drive profitable customer actions. If your content marketing strategy is not helping to achieve your goals (increasing qualified leads, driving sales, saving money, increasing customer satisfaction, etc.), it is not truly effective and needs to be revised.
Believe it or not, a lot of people were afraid of Lady Gaga when she first captured the nation’s attention in 2008. Before her, they were afraid of Madonna. Before her they were afraid of David Bowie. Before him they were afraid of Elvis Presley. And so on and so forth.
We are a nation obsessed with numbers and crowds. It is all about volume. How many impressions did you make? How many unique visitors came to the site? How many click-thrus did you score? How many followers do you have? How many Likes do you have?
I had lots of heroes growing up. Edward R. Murrow was one of them. And I am reminded of something he was once quoted as saying: “Just because your voice reaches halfway around the world doesn’t mean you are wiser than when it reached only to the end of the bar.”
In one short day, Charlie “The Ma” Sheen has amassed more than 1 million followers on his Twitter account. That’s a Guinness Book of World Records achievement. This is social media, providing a global platform for a man with nothing to say to a mass audience of people with nothing better to do. Apparently, the emperor is not the only one with a new suit of clothes.