Читать книгу The Small Business Guide to Online Marketing - Lola Bailey - Страница 11

Source: www.flickr.com/photos/toprankblog

The above image shows the cycle of content creation, search engine optimisation (SEO) and promotion via social networks that facillitate a continued insight into content marketing. Read more at www.toprankblog.com/2010/05/beyond-google.

Spend any amount of time on social media and you will invariably come across the oft-repeated maxim ‘Content is King’. It’s true. But what is this mysterious ‘Content’?

For internet marketers, content is any kind of material you create on behalf of your business. This could include a simple advert, a YouTube video, a Facebook page, a SlideShare presentation, a Tweet or Twitter promotion, a mobile app – anything, in essence, that aims to attract people who are potential customers. If it leads them towards your brand and to greater levels of engagement with your brand or business, then it must be good.

Online, it is less about pushing out messages and more about pulling in customers and potential customers. This is done through material that entertains, amuses, informs and serves a function, but also answers a need. In some way the material must provide added value to such an extent that it is welcomed, asked for again and shared with others. The traditional model of advertising – of promotional messages – has been used since the genesis of time by marketers and is based on this premise: in exchange for subsidising content produced by a third party broadcaster, publisher etc., the advertiser earns the right to interrupt the consumer’s experience with adverts. This is the case with television advertising. Online, however, customers simply click it away. They are becoming increasingly resistant and hard-to-win-over to advertising messages of this sort, resulting in a gradual erosion of trust in the advertisers themselves.

Time was, when everything and everyone had a defined role. There were those who produced, those who consumed and those who paid. Online however, everyone is a content producer, consumer and payer. We see ‘consumers’ creating their own content in the form of blogs, videos, and photos posted to Flickr. They create branded videos on YouTube, they write customer ratings and reviews, publically declaring themselves as “fans” and openly discussing good and bad product experiences. Consumers now ‘own’ brands, virtually. Companies that originally dismissed social media as a serious marketing tool now ensure they have a distinct presence on all social media sites. Marketers are bypassing the middlemen and are creating content themselves, to get ever closer to, and in more direct contact with, the selected audience, as well as gather vital data for future marketing initiatives. Entertaining YouTube videos, information-orientated how-to microsites, useful mobile apps and a variety of other services that only conceptually relate to their brand – and are not meant to directly sell the product (yet) – are all developed by present-day internet marketers.

Online, it is the best material which will pull in the right people; those who are most likely to buy your product or service and tell others about it, eventually becoming your advocates. In a crowded market place your content must be outstanding in order to stand out.