When developing content, don't follow the crowd

It’s one thing to create content that the market wants to read. It’s a completely different thing to create content that mimics what the market sees. Even the press has a hard time with that.

At the end of the Iowa Caucuses this year there was only one thing that was perfectly clear: the polls do not reflect how things are going to turn out. Yet for months now, the political press has been bombarding us with reports about who was doing well and who was not based on the latest of a plethora of polling agencies. Even though that was plainly clear, they have not yet stopped reporting on what the polls say.

The very simple reason the press continues to report faulty information is … everyone in the press is reporting it, therefore it must be reported. News is supposed to be about whatever is not usual. It is supposed to alert us to the extraordinary and it is supposed to be vetted before it goes out.

I had the opportunity to cover a presidential race in 1976 and was stunned to find out that the information I discovered with relatively little effort was not what the rest of the press wanted to report on, simply because no one else was writing about it. More specifically, if it wasn’t covered by a network, or the New York Times, or the Washington Post, then it was not covered by anyone else (This was before CNN and cable news, by the way. Yes, I’m that old).

There are other examples of the press not letting a dead story lie, but let’s not use this time to gang up on the press. The rest of the world is not much better, especially in B2B content.

Plagiarism is an ugly word, but I have found it to be quite common within the tech world when it comes to marketing and collateral content. In almost every case it is unintentional, but in every case it really messes up your program. Not only does it tend to destroy credibility when people recognize you are “re-using” someone else’s content, it’s a great way to drive your content lower in searches. I constantly see the same document published under different bylines on behalf of different companies. I’ve even seen stuff I originally wrote decades ago popping up under someone else’s byline, who got it from a client I originally ghostwrote it for. Let me explain why this is a really bad thing.

First, all the major search engines will scan new content and if they find large sections of a piece of content duplicated in another, newer piece, they newer piece will be driven down in the search listings, along with the URL of the company that publishes it. Original content is the number one, most important measurement for search engine rankings. That is followed by the number of people who actually take time to read it, and whether they share it and comment on it. It’s tough to get people to do those three things if they have already read it somewhere else.

Second, your content is what differentiates you from all your competitors. If you are the larger, more established player in the market, and every smaller competitor is duplicating and appropriating your content then there is no clear differentiator, and customers will always go with who they know. If you are the smaller player they probably don’t know you. So don’t copy the big player’s style or wording. Find your own.

You may think that isn’t you. You may think you have written the most important text document ever produced. That is generally not the case.

Footwasher Media evaluates all its potential clients according to their content and one of the first things we do is take their most recent content and run it through a plagiarism engine (there are many available and most for free). Nineteen of 20 companies have less than 10 percent original content in their material and are, frankly, surprised when we tell them that. If they don’t believe us, we don’t take their business. In many cases, they plagiarize their own content, but that, too, is not good. If you publish an article on your blog and then republish it on Linkedin, you will get dinged by all the search engines and by Linkedin. So just re-publishing content is just as bad as stealing it to the internet. Don’t do it.

There are ways to get around this and even re-use material effectively, but that’s a conversation that comes with an evaluation. Click here to get one.

Video (and other tech) doesn't have to be expensive.

I’ve done several posts on both the value and process of creating video content, but it was pointed out recently that some people have misunderstood my position on investing in high quality equipment and professional videography services. So I thought it would be a good idea to clarify my stance.

There is nothing wrong with making a significant investment in equipment, professional service and personnel. It will make your videos look great. However, if your investment comes before you make a budget for the creation of what you put in the video and how you measure its effectiveness, then it’s going to be a big expensive mess.

When it comes to content development, most companies approach from a “fire, ready, aim” philosophy. It is both backwards and inside out. I’ve talked with dozens of potential customers over the last year, and in nearly all cases these companies have seen a competitor using a particular delivery technology and decide to look into doing the same thing, rarely looking to see if the competitor’s effort is accomplishing anything positive. This has been true in the area of websites, blogs, podcasts, social media, and now video. 

The providers of these technologies and services are more than willing to provide glowing case studies to the efficacy of the technology. They will tell you only if pressed that if the content sucks, the tech won’t achieve its desired goal of increasing engagement. While it looks flashy and beautiful, if your content is bad, you can not achieve your goal.

The companies we've talked to rarely understand that the process always begins with an investment in content, in conjunction with measurement.  What is left of your budget can go into the the tech, and only then. Most companies, however, have very limited budgets and are so enamoured of the tech (fire), that they want to skimp on or eliminate content (ready) and measurement (aim).  So when the issue of video comes up, they immediately want to hire or build a studio, get $10,000 in cameras and lights and film their CEO reading from a marketing brochure.  When they finish with that, they lack the budget to do more than one or two videos, poducing poor results.  In the end they decide that video (or whatever tech they invested in) doesn’t work.

So here’s me making my position clear: if you don’t have the budget to do the first two steps (content and measurement) along with massive investment in tech, then back off the tech investment.  Get a good content provider, a reasonable measurement tool, and then create content to be captured on an inexpensive HD camcorder.  Use a good mic. Shoot in natural light or get an inexpensive lighting system. Focus on what the customer needs to hear, not on the bells and whistles.  It will pay for itself quicker and give you more budget for something shinier down the road.

Content comes first.