Content really is King

06/07/2012 — Scott Frederick

We've all heard the overused marketing cliché that "Content is King." However, after attending the Transportation Sales & Marketing Association (TMSA) annual conference this week, it became apparent to me -- cliché or not -- content really is the foundation of good social media and building relationships with customers.

This point was really well articulated in the closing keynote presentation delivered by Joe Pulizzi, co-author of Managing Marketing Content (and known in some far-off circles as the “Godfather of Content Marketing"). Joe outlined five key points that marketers need to understand before they can successfully create a process for managing content:

• Understand who YOU are. What is your organization trying to accomplish?

• Understand who THEY are. Who and where are the communities you're serving?

• What CONTENT can you provide them to build loyalty? What is your story and how can you tell it in a way that has meaning to your community?

• Subscribers must be fed, nurtured, and yes -- unsubscribed when it's time. Communities are fluid - they naturally grow, shrink, merge, and disband; so play close attention to how they are changing.

• We can measure success. Develop a process to measure success of how you service your loyal subscribers, e.g., views, subscribes, clicks, forms, leads, etc.

I realize the five points above are only the tip to a much larger iceberg. But if you are as fascinated with the subject as I am, I encourage you to check out some of Mr. Pulizzi's "content." I think many of these marketing ideas around managing content really hold true for any small business that is trying to develop a relationship with their customer community. For me, the real epiphany is that -- having a "social media strategy" is less important right now than it is having a "content strategy." After all, social media channels are only as good as the content we push through them.