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Have you heard about the content revolution? Content is becoming the `must have' for business to gain competitive advantage. If you have doubts, an article titled, Matt Cutt says quality content is key to Google rankings (emphasis on quality) gives fair warning that Google is marching on the front lines.

What does the content revolution mean for business?
You need to make content a strategic priority. It's no longer good enough to rely on Adwords or word of mouth referrals if you want your business to thrive. If you think of your content as a business asset and you should you'll want to make sure you're not falling into some common traps.

1) Your content is old
When was the last time you read an old newspaper? Your content, just like a newspaper, goes stale at an alarming rate. If you're not contributing to your blog, updating your news feed, and publishing new information about your company, you quickly begin to lose the interest of your customers and prospects. The internet is a hungry beast and you have no choice but to keep feeding it.

2) You don't have enough
If it seems like a colossal effort to produce quality material, you're right. You should never consider your content creation to be a completed project. It's vital to have new stuff being published all the time. I see so many websites with one or two blog posts, a case study page saying "Coming Soon", or events pages with one, out-dated event. If that's what your website looks like, it's time to do something about it.

[color=black ]3) You don't have variety[/color]
Dedicating your time to doing one thing really well makes a lot of sense in the beginning. However, once you gain influence in one area, your customers will start looking for you in other places. A blog is a good place to start but you should be backing it up with social media activity. You can curate content on Facebook and Twitter to complement your business. You should also plan to produce one longer piece of content monthly or quarterly a customer success story, a white paper, or a video help add depth to your marketing.

4) The quality is poor
Getting a good deal on a cheap website might be the worst deal you ever make. The image of your company is reflected in the investment made in your collateral both design and content. If you're selling high-ticket items, charging premium consulting fees or trying to attract large corporate customers, your website and marketing material better look like your business warrants the revenue you expect. You're fooling yourself if you think `cheap and cheerful' will cut it.

5) It makes you look stupid
While many people consider spelling and grammar to be a big hassle, it's essential to presenting your business in a professional light. Errors in your copy send a distinct message that you don't care, you're sloppy in your own work or you're just plain stupid. If your staff isn't able to cope, contract your writing out to a qualified copywriter. It's also a good idea to invest in the services of an editor. I like to think I'm particular about the rules of writing but I've never worked with an editor that didn't find something to fix.

6) You sound just like everyone else
If your content is full of gobbledygook or you're snatching all your ideas from competitors, you're not doing yourself any favours. Creating original content takes a lot of planning and even more effort but the pay-off is big. So many businesses go on auto pilot when they pitch their products and services. Think of how you can describe yourself differently; inject some enthusiasm and lose the jargon and clichés.

Using the Content Revolution to Build Assets
There's no denying were in the middle of a seismic shift in how we're presenting our companies to market. All indicators point to the need for quality content. As consumers continue to educate themselves with the web being the first stop for any research, businesses with plenty of original content are going to come out ahead. Start thinking of your marketing collateral as an investment in your business not a necessary evil and you'll be on the path to creating valuable assets for your organisation.

WHAT OTHER IMPROVEMENTS CAN BE MADE IN CONTENT?

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Image Credit: JD Hancock, on Flickr

Last year I wrote a post titled, 6 Reasons for Refusing LinkedIn Invitations. It garnered more comments than any other post I've written. It continues to attract decent traffic each month. The post describes my policy of only connecting with people I know. While it's the most popular entry on my blog, I'm beginning to wonder if I haven't made myself clear.

I'm still getting invitations from total strangers. The requests come from all corners – readers of my blog, people in agreement with a comment I've left on another post, and members of shared groups to name a few examples. I've even had people say they want to connect with me because I wrote that post. What?

The usual suspects
I used to reply to every invitation with an honest explanation about why I was declining. Several months ago, pressed for time with multiple deadlines, I quit responding and let the notices pile up. This weekend as I started going through each request, I became increasingly annoyed. Many of the invitations fell into the following categories:

• People with very few connections, usually 10 or less
• People with hundreds of connections
• Professions requiring large networks to achieve their goals, e.g. real estate
• People located in emerging markets
• People entering my field of work with no experience of their own

So what's in it for me to connect with these folks? Nothing. Nada. Zero. Zip. Zilch. And you know what's particularly annoying? Most of them don't try to convince me otherwise. Rarely do any of them include more than the text generated by LinkedIn. The only time I would find that acceptable is when it's someone I've known and worked with for years and years someone who doesn't need to say more because I'm so intimate with their professional credentials.

No comfort from strangers
Why do I find invitations from strangers so irritating? I view LinkedIn as a valuable tool. My connections record years of experiences and hard work. I'm not about to cheapen my network or my reputation by hooking up with every opportunist or eager beaver capable of performing an advanced search. LinkedIn is meant to reflect your work experience and reputation. It is not designed as a tool to construct your professional persona. Too many people are looking at it as a convenient way to inflate their professional standing.

A welcome change
Do I refuse every invitation extended by someone I don't know? Of course not. Several people in my current network were unknown to me when we first made contact in a social media channel. In every one of those cases, the invitation was written in a way that demonstrated a mutually beneficial opportunity. Most of them didn't start as a connection but as an invitation to explore possibilities for future work together. In other words, even though the contact came through an online tool, the intent was nothing more than good old fashioned professional courtesy.

The Take-Away
Next time you're ready to fire off an invitation on LinkedIn consider the person you're targeting. What do you offer them? Are you trying to boost your profile or are you genuinely looking for ways to increase both your opportunities? If you really want to improve your chances of acquiring a new connection, make a case for yourself and attach an offer of a face-to-face meeting in your invitation. The growth of your network may slow down but the improved quality will be of far more benefit in the long run.

What do you think? Do you accept LinkedIn invitations from total strangers?

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Image Credit: nan palmero, on Flickr

Have you ever had a song stuck in your head that won't go away? Wouldn't it be great if you could get your marketing message to do that? It's not really the whole song playing over and over; it's usually just a few lines of the chorus on heavy rotation. It's made me think really short pieces of content can be just as valuable maybe even more powerful than long pieces. Let me give you some examples.

The Chatty Village
I've had a tagline sitting front and centre of my thought process for the past couple months. The blog by Ralston Vaz from u'budget design in the USA claims, "It takes a chatty village to raise a good brand". The blog is definitely worth reading. Ralston does a fantastic job pulling people in with good writing and a sound social networking strategy. I love the idea of identifying a blog as a chatty village. I wish I'd thought of it.

Anatomy of a Logo
The Bethanie Group Inc. is a large aged care provider in Western Australia. They recently sent a tweet out with a link to their website where they've described their logo. In a few short paragraphs, Bethanie effectively explained how they picked their name and logo image and why it supports their brand. I marvel at the wallop of information in the brief description and think of it every time I see their name mentioned.

The resolution
Earlier this month I wrote about a Facebook post from Activewear Online. On New Year's Eve, Jill Taylor laid down a couple lines about what her customers can expect from her company for 2011. It was a brilliant piece of content marketing which motivated me to do the same for my own company.

The two sentence blog post
On 13 January 2011, while Australia was still in the throes of the horrific Queensland floods, Andrew Bolt wrote a two sentence blog post. I'll probably never forget it. I appreciate Bolt had the good sense and skill to know, sometimes, less is an awful lot more.

LinkedIn Connections graphic
A couple days ago I received an email from LinkedIn with a graphical image of 71 of my connections (see above), all who made a change to their profile in 2010. It was an effective way to get me thinking about my professional network and visit the LinkedIn site. Each thumbnail image had a link to the corresponding LinkedIn profile making it super easy to catch up.

What's the take-away?
Sticky content often works better when it's short and packs a punch. Don't get hung up on creating long, formal documents or elaborate explanations about your business. A well-crafted sentence, a short description, a cool graphic or an emotional tug may leave a bigger impression than a longer piece. Consider brevity an essential tool in your content mix. Just be prepared to hear people complain when they "can't get you out of my head".

WHAT CONTENT STICKS IN YOUR MIND?
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Related posts:

• The Plan to Rock 2011 The post where I discuss my reaction to Activewear Online's Facebook post[*]4 Ways to Improve Your Customer Experience with Content Marketing Read item 4 for a tiny example of short content[*]Asset Based Marketing: The design impact on long content For those interested in long form content

What do Nelson Mandela , David Beckham and Anne Frank have in common? The unlikely trio are famous in their own right but share one thing an autobiography. Technically, Anne Frank kept a diary but, when published, became the best-selling autobiography of all time. What do any of them have to do with content marketing?

Not much, to be honest, and that's exactly my point. Frank, Mandela and Beckham have fascinating life stories to share. Through circumstance and talent, all three have written a compelling book resulting in a healthy revenue stream. Unless you or your company have a similarly enticing story to tell, you'd better make sure your content is focused on your customer and not yourself.

It's not about you
The first place to start is with your eNewsletters. It's easy to fall into the trap of blabbing about yourself and your business. Being self-centred means you're missing the most important thing to your prospective customers: their business. In a post titled Are you sending email or ME-mail?, Gina Lofaro, aka The Word Mistress, advises:

"Every email you send to your subscribers, HAS to be about them! It has to fix a pain, address an issue, solve a problem, make them laugh, make them angry, make them act or even make them cringe."

Of course, your email campaigns are designed to attract paying customers and therein lies the quandary. So how do you develop a newsletter about the customer and still sell your products and services?

The reader focused eNewsletter
Paul Maietta from Fitzgerald Photo Imaging knows the answer. Provide lots of good content useful information, industry news, and professional advice then slip in a single promotion for your own business. To see a great example of an effective newsletter with a customer focus, check out the Fitz-e-News Issue 5 – or any issue, to be honest.

The Take-away
Take a good look at your email communications. Are you writing an autobiography? Move your ME-Mail campaign back into customer territory. You'll begin to see a big change in your customer behaviour, I promise.

What changes have you made in your email campaigns and why?

Image courtesy of Francesco Marino at www.freedigitalphotos.net

Last week the Content Marketing Institute (CMI) launched a new service on their website. CMI Pro is a free subscription service providing plenty of research for anyone working in the content marketing space. According to the CMI website, the Pro membership includes:

[*]Detailed case studies: Learn how brands are executing their content marketing. Seriously these are great stories. We learn something new with each one!
• Original and exclusive research: Get a granular look at how B2B marketers from different industries and companies sizes are using content marketing. You may be surprised at the differences.
• Content marketing stats: See how others are using content marketing by browsing our growing library of statistics. Great to benchmark your efforts or justify your spend.
• CMI's weekly newsletter: Stay up on the latest "need-to-know" information on what your peers are doing, and what our CMI experts recommend. You can opt-out at anytime.
• Chief Content Officer magazine: Members can register to receive a free subscription to the leading content marketing magazine.

Why I like it
As a content marketing consultant, I keep up with the thought leaders and innovators in the field. CMI has assembled a stellar bunch of people, all of whom happily contribute their expertise. Additionally, the quality research conducted by CMI is supplied free of charge. You won't get the executive summary, you get everything. It's one of the principles of content marketing give your stuff away and CMI adheres to it.

Why you should sign up
I didn't waste any time signing up. I've been working with the people from CMI long enough to know the content would be worthwhile. Still, even I was surprised to see the quality and depth of information available from the first day. Other marketing companies expect you to pay for membership to access the sort of data CMI is giving away.

Jump over to CMI Pro and sign up today. If you do, you'll be first in line to get the Australian edition of Chief Content Officer Magazine when it hits the streets in another month.

What do you want to know about Content Marketing?

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