Content Marketing is Your New Lifeline
Content marketing: noun. A type of marketing that involves the creation and sharing of online material (such as blogs, videos, and social media posts) that does NOT explicitly promote a brand but is intended to stimulate interest in its products or services.
Whoever figures out a system to properly market their brand through content aggressively and consistently will win the next decade. The radio was taken over by the television which, in turn, was overhauled by social media. Why is that good? The playing field has been leveled out. No more gatekeepers are holding you back from championing your cause to the world. The execution period is long and can be very tiresome, but worth it ten times over.
Social media has only been mainstream for 8-10 short years. With half of the world’s population regularly active on Facebook, you would think that would be a signal to build a wholesome community on there. Newsflash: Nobody wants to do the work involved.
What some business owners don’t realize is that Facebook and Instagram aren’t going away- so why not take advantage of a platform that offers you the opportunity to accumulate a cult-like following if you’re good enough? That’s the variable, “If you’re good enough.”
Most businesses I have seen on social platforms don’t even give themselves a chance to see if they’re good enough. They are pumping out tone-deaf post after tone-deaf posts. There is an art to this level of marketing and it is much more complex than 30 years ago. That is good news because times of turbulence allow for new players to emerge victoriously.
A phrase that has stuck with me since I came across it is “underpriced attention.” Where is the consumer’s attention cheaper than what it should be? Each platform throughout history has a cost of entry to promote your message on their respective platform. It costs money to print an ad in the paper, run a radio advertisement, plaster your logo on a billboard, and run a television commercial. These options are all still available today, but they are just overpriced.
Running a commercial during the Oscars translates to spending $500,000 for viewers to either A.) skip the commercial with DVR or B.) Go on their phone during the break. Social media allows you to build a community on their platform for free if you choose to do it that way. Well, not completely free. It is a daily grind of hard work.
I want to tell everybody what micro-content is and why it is so important. Micro-content is divvying up your “pillar content” or “macro-content” and using those sound bytes to strategically post across all other platforms. Let’s say you’re a restaurant owner and you put together this really cool home recipe for your fans to enjoy during quarantine.
First, that’s an excellent piece of content. Imagine how strongly that video is holding the attention of the viewers. It also shows how much you care about your community. So your “pillar content” is the front to back footage of the recipe list, the shopping, the tools needed, and, of course, the actual preparation of the food. Now, edit that footage and post a quick 10-second snippet on your Instagram story of the moment the volcano onion caught fire and erupted for a “wow” moment.
You have now turned one piece of content into two, you can rinse and repeat this method as long as you maintain creativity and nimbleness. You also have to be hyper-aware of the right time, place, and tone to use on each respective platform. Speaking the native language of a specific platform automatically increases your odds of the call to action being fulfilled by the user. With an abundance of nuances involved in content marketing and in particular, “micro-content,” the time to become a practitioner is now. Your grandchildren will thank you!
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