Content Shock is a reality that is rapidly beginning to set in. The sheer amount of content currently available to readers is reaching a critical level, leaving consumers feeling overwhelmed.
Wait, what is content shock?
It is the simple idea, or depending on whom you ask, the truth that creating a plethora of content and pushing to have it all reach the consumer will eventually reach a teetering point where it becomes uneconomical and possibly ineffective for businesses to continue the practice as time goes on.
Creation of content is being changed by the evolving landscape of its distribution.
Oversaturation is a real danger and spending more money to put more potential clicks in front of the consumer simply won’t cut it much longer. Being the first to report something, or offering the best deal were once pillars of marketing prowess, now however, a shift has begun to take place.
Unlike airlines where “we know you had a choice in your air travel” is becoming increasingly laughable, consumers of content do have a choice, in fact today they have thousands of choices every hour. According to a report by Mashable there were 347 WordPress blogs posts being published every minute in 2012. This of course will only increase.
Content marketing is often defined as “a marketing technique of creating and distributing valuable, relevant and consistent content to attract and acquire a clearly defined audience – with the objective of driving profitable customer action.” With the current influx of content, an ever-rising bar is setting the standard for what is valuable and relevant in the eyes of a consumer.
This rush to produce content has found itself at one of the most devilish of crossroads between quantity and quality. Filling the void has increasingly become more important than the caliber of material being pushed out into the web. Not to mention getting all this content in front of the eyes of potential consumers isn’t cheap. Paid advertising and placement can only help so much when the amount of material being created is rising exponentially.
So what needs to happen? Is there hope? What is a content creator or company looking to market their business to do in the face of an ocean of competing content?
Perhaps the best thing that can be done is break from routine. Look up from the monitor of mechanised, repeatable, and regurgitated content creation. Strive to provide your customer with something unique and extraordinary.
An abandonment of complacency and a demand for quality content must be met by businesses vying to stay ahead of the curve. Effective distribution of quality content through avenues such as social media in an effort to drive customer retention and relationship is absolutely vital. Social Media Optimisation has taken over and sites like Google now included “likes,” “tweets,” and shares in their search algorithms. The likeability of an article is now more important than ever.
The role of content marketing is to connect with as well as educate the consumer. Without connection there is no retention, without connection there is no urge to share. As time bores on the amount of accessible material will only increase day by day. A hankering for engaging and enlightening content must be satisfied or what you produce will get lost among the rest. When creating, one needs only to remember that while the amount of content you can easily broadcast is increasing, the amount of hours in day are not.
By Russel Cooke, journalist and business consultant. You can follow him on Twitter @RusselCooke2.
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