Content marketing is far more than posting the occasional blog, tweet, or whitepaper—or too many of them too often. It requires strategy and finesse to be effective—and worth the investment. Jonathon Colman, content strategist at Facebook, shared with the audience at eTail West the top six things he thinks brands are doing wrong when dealing with content today, and what can be done instead:
1. Seeing content as just another commodity: Instead content needs to be seen as a critical business asset. Stakeholders within your organization who deal with content need to be brought into communication with one another.
2. Publishing as much content as possible: Instead, brands should look at what customers need and value and then curate compelling content around that. An inventory needs to be done of what content you already have and and research needs to be done to see what content your customers are looking for.
3. Not scheduling or editing content before it’s published: Instead, plan when your content is going to be published. Put together an editorial calendar that highlights yearly events that are important to your customers.
4. Releasing content that’s useless and inconsistent: Instead, make sure content is clear and complete.
5. Designing first using placeholder copy: Instead design with the content in mind.
6. Allowing your platforms to define how content works: Instead, content should shape your platform.
Elizabeth Robillard is a production assistant at World Business Research, the creators of the eTail conference series. This post is brought to you through a special DMN/eTail Blog partnership; copyright eTail 2014, reprinted with permission.
