Now that the internet has been changing our lives for more than 20 years, information has gone from a rare resource to a commodity. The simple answer to this complicated question is content. I want answers to my questions in a definitive way. No one wants to read the same information over and over again. So many people record a video or write an article and want to go over 20 different topics, but that’s insane! Make those topics into 20 different articles and videos. To tell them what’s next: The final goal of content creation should point the consumer of the content to what’s next. One question I often get is, how long should my content be? Of course, there are people who will tell you the best length of time for a video is 3–5 minutes. That is a much more complicated topic, because it depends on the type of business you’re in, and answering that question here would violate our goal to accomplish one thing on our should list.
When I was growing up in the 1980s and ’90s, information was a valued possession. It was rare and hard to get. You had to go to the library if you wanted to find information in any vast quantities. In the late ’90s, I got my first computer with a modem, and within a few chirps, beeps and other strange noises, I was blazing across the internet at 14.4k speed.
At the time, domain names were still $75 per year, and online video was not even on the average person’s radar. Now that the internet has been changing our lives for more than 20 years, information has gone from a rare resource to a commodity. It is freely and cheaply available almost 100 percent of our waking lives.
So that begs the question, in a world of cheap and free information, how do you stand out? How do you get people to take notice of you?
You could Google it.
But when I did just now, I didn’t get the answers I was looking for, which is all too common a problem with such a vast amount of information. Another problem with free information is that you often get garbage answers.
How many times have you clicked on a business article only to find that the “Top 5 Ways to Do XYZ” is a really list of the most basic ways to accomplish XYZ? Solving this problem is a big deal, and I guess that’s one reason Google makes the big bucks — they are the best of the worst at this. But all of that still leaves us with the original question.
How do small businesses stand out and get others to take notice of them? The simple answer to this complicated question is content. You must create content that is unique and adds value to the conversation. This is much easier said than done, though.
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