What Is Content Marketing?
What is content marketing? The old school definition of content marketing was fairly easy to swallow. You might create articles and blog posts detailing a “how to,” a potted case study or a best practice. You might simply focus on the long tail keywords and develop a thinly veiled attempt to “score” in the search engine results pages.
You might create content that was designed to be duplicated, spun and distributed, as if this were a sure fire way of being seen as the expert in your field.
Content marketing may in fact have been considered to be a numbers game back then. Dredge the stuff out and spin it into the ether and miracles would happen. Sometimes they did, but more often they didn’t.
Thought Leadership for Content Marketing
Today you have to be an awful lot more sophisticated and you’ve really got to make sure that your content marketing is purposeful and not speculative. Content marketing today is inexorably linked to thought leadership. And you really have to get a handle on your leadership or you can never hope to become that market leader.
So what is thought leadership?
It’s basically having an opinion or a point of view, POV. Why?
Well, look at any particular market and the chances are that a great deal of the technical “stuff” has already been said. There’s not a lot there upon which you can innovate. Yet if you really are going to try to position yourself in your field then you must have many an interesting position and numerous points of view.
In short, you certainly don’t want to hide your light under a bushel and you must learn to be opinionated to garner positive results.
The Power of Social Media in Content Marketing
When you develop your point of view you must be flexible and willing to discuss and modify, put more thoughts out there, rinse and repeat. Social media is your friend here and you should actively encourage dialogue and counter arguments. If you are ever going to be seen as the market leader you had better have some really thoughtful, intuitive and provoking points of view and be willing to be shot down in flames every now and again.
To people who really do know their stuff this should be nothing less than exciting. Surely this is what the concept of blogging was invented for in the first place?
Content Marketing for the Future
You cannot now expect your content marketing strategy to be a numbers game and in fact you should be much more selective and restrained when it comes to pure volume. Establish and enhance your points of view and understand what a thought leader is expected to do. Get the conversation flowing and never be predictable.
The definition of content marketing has changed significantly within a relatively short space of time. Think always about your point of view as you strive to become a thought leader in your field.
Stop focusing on ‘what is content marketing?’ and get into action. Serious players here will help to shape the industry and not just be a contributor.
If you want to know more about Content Marketing, contact Kaperider.com today.
