Many proclaim that content is king when it comes to content strategy for the Internet and social media. But is that really true? Is there a bigger picture? If you think this way, could you be missing out?
Content Strategy – The Truth
The large part of the truth is that Content that GETS SEEN is King. There are many people out there that are writing great articles, and providing great benefit, that will never get their stuff seen at all or very little. Regardless of how great content is, if it does not show up and get shared, it gets lost on the internet.
Now I am not a fan of writing fluff. I believe that we should write well and provide a benefit to the reader. I am not a fan of trying to game the system to get ahead either.
The reality of the situation is that we must create great content and work smart to see that it gains greater visibility. There are things that one can do, and must do, to create content visible.
Content Strategy – The What
Your content strategy must first deal with either answering someone’s question or solving someone’s problem to be useful. It might also provide interesting material on a topic. Regardless, some one has an itch that needs to be scratched. People do not primarily go to you just to see how great you are. They come based on need; their need.
Then you need to determine where your content will reside. Will it be your website? Or might it go on Facebook, for example. Every place has its own degree of visibility. Facebook organic visibility is around 2% and one has to work hard and smart to create visibility there.
For someone to rave about content being king, and not addressing the other factors that try to hide that content from others, that person is short sited. One needs to have a plan for showing up. And one must do what one needs to do to help content effectively show up.
Content Strategy – The Plan
Content must be prepared for a specific search. Before it is ever created, it must have an end in mind. How could it show up in search? What will it look like as a search result? When it should up, will it be persuasive enough to earn the click?
Once the content is created, it then has to have a plan for delivery. How will others come across it, or even share it? A plan of execution must be developed.
Content strategy plan
For example, one could design a post on a website, and then share that link on a Facebook Page where it could be promoted via an ad. This is a simple plan of execution, but it could work.
The important part is that great content needs a great plan for showing up. If you build it, and work at creating visibility for what is created, they could show up.
Content Strategy – The What Happened
Content strategy needs a measurement system to let us know if our plan worked. Did anyone see our great content or did it die on the operating table? This is where social media analytics and Google Analytics can help us understand what happened with our strategy. Did our plan work?
As we learn how things went, we can adjust our strategy to create greater visibility for our next Internet offering. If our efforts results in little to no results, we have learned what not to do. This is still a great learning outcome. Thomas Edison learned how to make a light bulb this way.
Content Strategy – Summary
Content can be king when there is a plan for making that content visible and shareable. Simple believing that creating great content is all you need is nothing more than foolishness. Writing garbage content to show up for a specific search is also foolishness. Write to provide value and work smart to have it show up. Now that is smart.
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