How to Fight the Infobesity Monster with Quality, Shareable Content

With 2014 practically in the rear-view mirror, I thought I’d take a look back at some of the more shocking content statistics from this past year. Consider the following:

93% of B2B marketers use content marketing (Content Marketing Institute)

82% of marketers who blog see a positive ROI for their inbound marketing (HubSpot)

70% of B2B marketers are creating more content than they did one year ago (Content Marketing Institute)

60% of marketers create at least one piece of content each week (eMarketer)

58% of B2B marketers plan to increase their content marketing budget (Top Rank Blog)

The above stats, in combination with the more than 150,000,000 blogs currently in existence confirm one thing: In the content marketing world, competition is pretty darn steep.

But cutting through the online clutter and fighting the so-called “infobesity monster” takes more than content marketing budget, resources, and planning. As Kevan Lee notes in a recent post, “You must still create the content to be shared, loved, and engaged with. The blank page must be conquered.”

I know this monster is adorable and all you want to do is love him (that tongue! those eyes!). But think of him as the evil “infobesity monster” standing in the way of you getting your content in front of your target audience. Here are 3 ways to squash him dead with top-notch content that your audience will eat right up:

Curated Content Designed to Drive Social Shares

I don’t really want that little guy dead! I just want to show him who’s boss.

Curated content is one way to do just that. While it sometimes gets a bad rap, many content marketers (myself included) would argue that curated content is one of the best ways get a post consumed and promoted by the target audience.

For the past several months, we’ve made a concerted effort with one of our clients to create long-form, curated content targeted for three industry segments in particular. The decision to do so is based upon several factors but the basic idea is to general social buzz and potential link partnerships by referencing key bloggers/industry pros in each post.

For example, a recent curated post we created for this client has received seven times the page views as the next most competitive post, almost half of which came from social channels.  It’s also received more than a dozen inbound links from industry-specific sources.

Variety = the Lifeblood of Content Marketing

In a recent post about breaking through the online noise, Michael Brenner says that variety is the spice of life – and the lifeblood of content marketing. “Text-based articles are the foundation of almost every content marketing program,” he says. “Your audience is looking for information. And your brand can be the source of it.”

However, Brenner also notes that successful content marketing programs have a plan for creating other types of content, such as visual and/or long-form and, in some cases, entertainment and comedy.

Many marketers may hear the word “video” and run for the hills (although new research suggests video is more effective at generating conversions than other types of content, meaning those wary of the investment may want to consider it for the future).

But, as a recent post from my colleague Ryan Young illustrates, traditional, text-based content can have a significant impact on organic search performance as well. Originally posted in March, Ryan’s blog drove more than 15% of all organic search traffic to KoMarketing last month and it’s shaping up to be one of the most successful content assets created for the year.

Two Heads Are Better Than One

A few months ago, I wrote a blog post about the increasing overlap between content marketing and public relations. In the post, I outlined the ways KoMarketing is stepping outside of our content “comfort zone” and taking on some of what have traditionally been considered PR tactics (i.e., interviews with industry experts, tradeshows, guest blogging, etc.) to better serve our clients.

Since that time, we’ve ramped up the initiative even further. On behalf of several of our clients, we’re collaborating closely with external PR teams so that we can better align our respective content creation and distribution efforts. This includes everything from topic brainstorming to editorial scheduling to social strategy to third-party site identification (and pitching) and more.

The point is this: Everybody and their mother is doing content marketing now. Instead of getting caught up in our respective roles, it’s important to work together to create the type of content that will optimize performance across channels.

As Lee Odden states in a post on 2015 content trends, “Marketing is everybody’s job…Content creation, search optimization, and social media will [become] less siloed as specific departments and treated more like skills that exist across the organization.”

Final Thoughts

Remember our darling little infobesity monster from earlier? Instead of knocking him out completely, why not try thinking about how your company can create the kind of “larger than life” content assets that will simply overpower him?

See him in there? With a little finesse, strategic planning, and collaboration, your company can reduce him to a little tiny box he’ll have to fight his way to get out of.

©iStockphoto.com/frentusha; bertos