Is Content Really King? Be Careful…

You’ve heard it a Million times, content is king!

It seems even more true than ever before given that search engines have made major adjustments to their algorithms to favor content-rich, authority sites at the expense of “thin”, commercially focused pages such as squeeze pages, landing pages or other thin mini-sites. 

But wait a minute, some things really don’t add up…

1. Didn’t massive content sites like EzineArticles get hit as hard (or harder) than thin, spammy sites in the latest Panda updates last year?
2. Aren’t people buckling under the sheer amount of content that is available to them online to the point where they are ignoring most of it?
3. Isn’t it rue that there is more content produced in 48-hours currently than was produced until 2003? 
4. Aren’t we ignoring most email to the point where email open rates are brutal? 

So there is a disconnect here…and what we are really hitting is a wall where the quantity and type of content matters more than ever before.

Are You Ready For The Next Marketing Revolution?

We are hitting a revolution that will have huge implications on marketing, I have tried to summarize them into 3 main actionable trends:

1. Content aggregation around urgent questions/demands is becoming hugely valuable. 

Google’s Panda update struck a balance between penalizing massive unrelated content farms, dismissing thin niche sites that were motivated only on commercialization at the expensive of quality while elevating relevant, useful content. 

Perhaps the biggest trend we are seeing emerge around valuable content aggregation is the growth of the InfoGraphic.  What’s an infographic?  Take a look at this blog post from Jeff Bullas, you’ll see how he uses InfoGrpahics to clearly aggregate useful content into a graphic that can easily be read with ease. 

How else can we aggregate content – how about succinct 3-5 minute video updates that clearly summarize facts or answers to urgent questions?

A slide-show placed on Slideshare that provides a summary of useful information in 3-5 slides?

Can you think of other ways to help aggregate, simplify and at the same time, be relevant and interesting with content?

Do yourself a favor, become good at presenting aggregate information and you will do well over the next few years. 

2. Hitting It Big By Going Small Town.

When you have so many options overwhelming you, who do you look for to help?  Your network of course.  Unlike ever before our decision on what information to read, what opnions will influence us and what products we buy are coming from our social networks…that means you not only must participate in social networks such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Tumlr…but you must learn to become a relevant, interesting and effective social networker…a new skill that our grandparents may know more about than we do. 

3. Deeper Before Wider

 It is my firm belief that becoming an authority, expert or influencer in one or two key areas is far more valuable in a world that is fraught with information overload rather than going “thin” and wide.  In other words, I would be spending more time building out authority sites around a niche market you rae passionate about where you build blogs, forums, video channels, webinars, products, online training, etc…rather than building dozens and dozens of “thin”, tactical sites.   These “thin” sites may show some early promise, but the trend toward content saturization dictates they will not remain relevant over time. 

Each of these trends has dramatic, lasting impacts to business and marketing…will you be on the leading-edge or trailing edge of these trends?