September 15, 2015

4 Popular Myths About Content Marketing

Content creation has rapidly become a ubiquitous fixture in the vast majority of marketing plans, with 93% of all marketers reporting that they implement some form of content marketing in their work. Used to its full potential, this strategic approach of sharing relevant and consistent content with your target audiences can accomplish great things for your law firm’s SEO and serve as a persuasive call to action for potential clients. However, as in the case of most trends, content creation comes with its fair share of misconceptions. Here are a few of the most pervasive myths people tend to believe about content marketing.

Content creation is more important than distribution. A lot of people assume that all they have to do is post content and readers will come flooding in. Remember that without distributing your content, people won’t know it exists! Utilize platforms such as LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook to share articles, blog posts, videos, etc. with your followers, who can in turn share it with other people.

You need to post every day to be successful. While posting frequently and consistently is important, many make the mistake of prioritizing quantity over quality. One significant example of how poor content can damage your brand was the 2011 Google Panda update, which cracked down on low quality sites with shallow content (those without internal or external links, low quality backlinks, irrelevant or poorly written content, etc.). Cranking out dozens of articles per day, the how-to site eHow.com lost 95% of its traffic as a result of Google’s update and its search visibility greatly decreased. This demonstrates that a high post rate may cause the quality of the content to deteriorate.

Lengthy content is always better. To generate engaging content, it’s important to understand how your audience will consume it. In today’s world, information overload is a common phenomenon. As a result, many people have developed the tendency to skim content as opposed to reading an article word for word. To adapt, try using shorter paragraphs, bulleted lists and paragraph breaks/indentations instead of long, overwhelming blocks of text. These help draw attention to key points and make the piece easier for your readers to skim through.

Content marketing is separate from social media. On the contrary, these two initiatives are most successful when used together. Content is needed to drive social media, and social media is essential for distribution. Building content marketing into your social media strategy is a great way to distribute your original content and gain readership, and to add variety to your social media content.

Content marketing is without a doubt worth the requisite commitment. It is especially crucial to make sure your firm focuses on the right tactics and strategies when developing its plan, otherwise time and effort will be wasted. Pursuing the most worthwhile objectives while honing your content marketing strategy ensures that your time is being used to its fullest, and your efforts will yield the best possible results.