It’s hard to feel good about numbers like that. Great Content Has a Point of View Once you have that mind-reading-quality data, use it to write content that is essential. That’s how to create content worth sharing. Great Content Is Amplified by Great Strategy Let’s be honest: If it were enough to create essential content based on solid research, the numbers up top would be a lot more favorable. As it is, creating content isn’t even half the battle; it’s more like a quarter of it. The remainder, what turns your content into content marketing, is amplification. It has stats you can pull out to make cool social media images. Great Content’s Impact Is Measured Beyond Social Shares The points above can help your content earn social shares. Don’t judge all content by the top-of-funnel metrics of traffic and shares. And it’s sitting at nearly 85 million views.
It’s been a little over a year since Buzzsumo’s Steve Rayson dropped a bombshell on content marketers. After his company analyzed over one million blog posts, it was Steve’s sad duty to inform us that:
- 75% of posts received zero domain links
- 50% of posts received 8 shares or less
- 75% of posts received 39 shares or less
In other words, that beautiful content we spent so much time crafting? Half of it didn’t attract enough people to fill a baseball roster. Three quarters of it didn’t attract enough people to fill a school bus.
It’s hard to feel good about numbers like that. But you don’t have to feel hopeless and you don’t have to take it lying down. Your audience is out there, waiting for great content to rise above the swelling tides of mediocrity.
Here’s how to create and promote content that will get you out of the ignored 75% and into the top 25.
Great Content Starts with Clairvoyance
How are your personas working for you? More importantly, how did you create them? For a long time, the industry standard was to sit around a table and think really hard about potential customers and what they might be like.
In other words, imagination instead of empathy. Projecting instead of listening. Which results in content being created for fictional characters.
Great content demands a deep understanding of your potential audience that can only come from data. Dig into keyword research. Comb through your support inbox to see what people are asking. Check your competitor’s content to look for holes you can fill. Ask your current customers, potential customers, and the ones that got away.
Social media and technology make it easier than ever to read your customers’ minds. If your content starts with clairvoyance, you’re well on the way to creating something genuinely useful.
Great Content Has a Point of View
Once you have that mind-reading-quality data, use it to write content that is essential. By that I mean it has a manifest reason to exist.
At this point we usually talk about “adding value” and “being useful.” Both of these concepts are great. But odds are there’s already content out there about your specific topic, bringing the same level of value and utility as yours will.
Point of view is the differentiating factor. It’s what you have that every competitor…
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