Content Marketing: A Fool’s Paradise

Today, the Internet is flooded with articles, videos and static posts on content. Some of them even share guidelines on how to make interesting and engaging content.

There are companies getting floated which teach how to create flabbergasting content and others who organise seminars on content marketing with the who’s who of the corporate world. Surprisingly, only a few understand true content, and even fewer know how to get it done.

Before I write anything further, let me ask if you ever asked yourself “what is content?” Technically, content is not new. Its been here for ages.

After all what runs on TV, radio, outdoor is also content. Isn’t it? But what’s different about digital content is its form. Digital content is dramatically different and complex in comparison to other forms. There are multiple reasons for that.

The Duopoly of Facebook And YouTube

Monopoly of platforms, duopoly actually between Facebook and Youtube when it comes to video consumption. Both of them have different formats for video consumption: Facebook claims that 70% of video consumption happens in mute. Hence ideally brands should adapt their videos to be more visual- friendly and not rely so much audio. Youtube on other hand, relies on its perception of higher time spent on its platform.

This also means different metrics evaluation methodology for both these platforms. For instance, some marketers look at view-to-like ratio and like-to- share ratio on Facebook.

Whereas no such metrics exists for YouTube. This makes marketer’s job to evaluate content tougher.

Lastly, most marketers don’t understand the fact that content marketing is different from performance marketing. The entire concept seems to vanish when it comes to building brand equity through digital marketing.

More so, cost per acquisition is expected to be at par for both types of marketing. It’s a shame that many of today’s managers fail to understand that the objective of content marketing and performance marketing is different and that is why they both have different names, to begin with.

Challengers In Content

Content distribution is another challenge. Today’s marketers look at digital content distribution with the same lens as traditional content distribution. That’s like riding a superbike when you got trained to ride a bullock cart.

The cost of reaching per thousand people on digital is noway less than that of traditional mediums. Did you forget, there are no free lunches? You have to shell out money to reach to your audience.

Another mindset is to develop content for free or almost free. Such content is good enough to be showcased only in your living room and not to your audience. Yes, once in a while you can get some content develop which rocks the world but it cannot happen on an every day basis. You can’t get lucky every time.

Keep aside some part of your budget for marketing if you are serious about content.

In Conclusion

But that’s not the case with all brands. There is hope for content marketing as some brands are doing some stupendous stuff. Look at content developed by Volvo, Redbull, and even Boeing. If brands are serious about benefiting from content, then they should keep these brands as a benchmark.

Remember, when we were kids, we were told by our parents and teachers to understand the subject and not just mug it up. The same logic applies here.

Understand content in its entirety before announcing the verdict. This is not a fool’s paradise. Get smart!

[This post by Abhishek Singh first appeared on Digitalbananas and has been reproduced with permission.]

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