Content Is King

Content is king! Long live the king. We’ve heard this again and again. It’s the tao of inbound marketing, the basis for pull marketing, and something good marketers have known and used for years.

We provide outstanding value in our content, customers find us, they love us, and life is good.

The problem now as content proliferates the web is that while content still matters, context is becoming equally, if not more important. The standards have been raised, with customers expecting seamless brand integration across media platforms.

Context has to do with HOW we deliver our content. Content should look natural, like it’s exactly where it belongs.

Many a brilliant marketing mind has preached this, and on closer inspection it appears to be common sense, after all, effective targeting has been a marketing principle since the world’s first sale, and content out of context, is bad targeting.

We need to communicate with our customers in the way that they want to be communicated with. Whether it’s through a responsive mobile friendly website, a variety of social media platforms, or even traditional print advertising.

We can’t expect our message to resonate in the same way on Twitter as it does on LinkedIn. Aside from demographic differences, there are also fundamental design differences, character limitations on Twitter, and imbedded cultures and acceptable practices on both platforms.

To make content and context work hand-in-hand we need to look not only at our target market and the platform, but also, how our target market interacts on the platform. Different demographics use different media for different purposes, and sometimes at different times, and then the kicker… not only do different demographics use different media for different purposes and different times, but they also interact differently on different devices!

This is why context is giving content a run for its money, and the reason that tactics without strategy often yield less than impressive results. It always pays to know why you’re doing what you’re doing, and design tactics and initiatives around solid strategies and objectives.

Content is still king, but context can no longer be ignored.