What is content marketing? I’m sure you have heard the term and some know it really well, but many are getting it wrong.
If you have a business or are a professional with a blog, then you probably are touching on content marketing. There are many other ways to leverage content marketing.
Basically, content marketing is freely sharing of good information either through your business blog, in business documents (like a statement), in a free webinar, etc.
Here are some keys to it:
1. It is free. You don’t have to pay for it, you don’t have to sign up with your email to get spammed for the rest of your life, no one is going to psycho dial you to see if you are interested in buying their product or service. It is free.
2. It is information that you can use. The article is complete and good information that someone can apply. Not only does it bring up good points, but it is complete and has value. Posting a couple of sentences highlighting a problem, but not providing any advice or detail is not content–that’s a tease. All you are trying to do is convince me to ask for more information (see item 1).
3. Weaving in your product or service as part of the content is nothing short of an advertisement. It’s spam. You haven’t figured out content marketing. Having a bio at the top or bottom with infomation about your product or service is content marketing
I have seen a lot of this non-content marketing lately on LinkedIn and Facebook. Word to the wise…you are not doing yourself a favor. People are not stupid. If you want to share information, share it, if you want to sell something stop trying to disguise it as content when it is not.