When television became more popular, the amount of advertising available became scarce. To compete on television, channels had to create better content and advertisers had to pay more for commercials as the medium matured. For example, social platforms like Facebook and YouTube are charging companies money in exchange for the brand’s content to show up in a customer’s newsfeed. And the best people to help you do that are your customer advocates. It starts with getting to know your customers personally. “If you want people to share content for you, it’s all about the relationships you’re building with them,” he says. He now opens their emails because he was treated like a person, instead of a marketing channel they could use. Mark often receives requests from marketers wanting to learn how to become thought leaders. But the definition of success is a very personal thing. Thus, turning your customer advocates and employees into known people should be a strategy in your content marketing plan.
Two years ago, Mark Schaefer, a five-time best-selling author and Professor at Rutgers University, controversially wrote that most content marketing plans were not sustainable strategies.
The problem, he explained, is “content shock”—a term used to describe the point at which the amount of content available to audiences is more than they can possibly consume.
Fast forward to today, and B2B customers are feeling overwhelmed—and even annoyed—by all of the content they’re bombarded with online. “Between now and 2020, the amount of information on the web is going to increase by 500%,” says Mark.
So, if you think it’s tough to create content that cuts through the noise now, it’s only going to get harder.
Last week, we hosted a live video chat with Mark to help B2B marketers understand why “content shock” is a growing concern and how to overcome it.
Watch the interview recording now, or get an overview of Mark’s insights and recommendations in our summary below.
The economics of content shock—and its effect on your content marketing plan
In simple economic terms, content shock is a matter of supply and demand. When your supply of content exceeds demand, you have to start buying your consumers’ attention—even though you’re giving content away for free.
Every new medium goes through this evolution. “In the early days of television, there wasn’t much content, and there weren’t many advertisers,” Mark explains.
When television became more popular, the amount of advertising available became scarce. To compete on television, channels had to create better content and advertisers had to pay more for commercials as the medium matured. This, in turn, raised the table stakes for both groups.
Mark argues this competition for attention is now happening on mature content marketing channels. For example, social platforms like Facebook and YouTube are charging companies money in exchange for the brand’s content to show up in a customer’s newsfeed.
While things may seem bleak for today’s B2B marketers, there is still hope.
The cure for content shock = Peer-to-Peer (P2P) marketing
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