Killin’ It with Content: Staying Ahead of the Content Marketing Curve

“Content Marketing” is a big buzz-phrase these days. Google yields no less than 365,000 results from the industry word du jour, and it seems like almost every other job posting on LinkedIn lists this dubious term as a required skill.  Soon, “content marketing” may just join “disrupt” in my personal list of loathed industry jargon — and I’m a Director of Content Strategy!

Here’s what bothers me about it: Too often, we hear the anthem of “more content!” above the more thoughtful, reasoned rhetoric of useful, informative, entertaining and engaging content. Why? Good content requires work. There’s no button that can produce useful content. No shortcut. No intern who can produce it at warp speed using the latest social media dashboard or Twitter trick. Often the most successful, viral, most-liked, oft-retweeted content is the kind that took many minds, several hours, and a few different drafts to create.

Even trickier: The best content is also often the most simple. Simple means clear, concise, clever, easy to understand. It does not mean easy, intuitive, or labor-less to create. But that’s the problem! We see good, simple content, and assume it was just as simple to create. The result? A perpetual disconnect between the cry for more content and the expectations around how to create it. Too often, brands and agencies set the bar very high, but give disproportionate time, resources, research or energy into meeting that bar.

In some respects, content marketing is experiencing the same pitfalls we witnessed in the television industry, which for too long focused on quantity of programming over quality. Well-written dramas and researched documentaries were replaced with “reality” entertainment everywhere you looked (including in places like the National Geographic Channel); 24 news replaced, well, actual news (look no further than the dismantling of once-iconic “Nightline”), and the world seemed, for at least a while, to care about not what was on TV but how much of it there was.

But then there was a marked shift toward quantity. Consumers got savvy, and stopped tuning in. Networks such as AMC and FX (with arguably some of the most intricate and well-written shows to date) have slowly risen in the rankings, while others (like the Style network) have disappeared completely. Shifts away from cable television all together — in favor of alternative entertainment platforms such as Netflix, Apple TV and  Google Chromecast — further point toward consumer preferences for highly curated, quality content above meaningless masses of quantity.

Today, “content marketing” is on the same trajectory. It’s our job, as part of that industry, to stay ahead of the game, ensuring that our clients and their brands are always the next Netflix in whatever segment they dominate.