The Key Message Is Dead: Hail Content Marketing

There is fat chance anyone is listening to your carefully crafted,

committee approved, centrally delivered key messages.  

A friend recently asked me "isn't content marketing what we've always done?"

In a way she's right.  Communicators have long practiced elements of content marketing -  messaging, knowing audiences, distributing information etc.   The difference now is social media,the mega paradigm-buster.

Social media has accelerated information delivery to breakneck speed. Everyone potentially has a publishing platform for their opinions, and all of us can precisely choose what information we let into our lives and what we block.

No one is dependent on what you say.  We are outrageously spoiled for choice when it comes to information and we can choose where we get it, when and how.

Let's say your company, not for profit or agency tells me something.  Instantly I can go online to check its accuracy or access a staggering volume of contending data, commentary or analysis.  Many hierarchical organisations particularly government bodies still find it difficult to accept that the logo on your letterhead adds little authority to their arguments. 

You can longer claim sole expertise based on who you are.  Google has made all of us experts ... or at least let us think we are.

There is a fundamental difference between old style PR and content marketing.  And it is this: unless we are prepared to provide audiences with information that is helpful, entertaining or both, we stand little chance of connecting with, let alone persuading them. 

The era of the one-way key message blasted from the hierarchical bunker is dead.  Perhaps it served us well in the past.  But today people want dialogue not monologue.  There is fat chance anyone is listening to your carefully crafted, committee approved, centrally delivered key messages.  

Listening, continuously offering valuable insights helping those we need to reach, shared conversation and letting others own your topic hold today's keys to successfully reaching customers, clients and citizens.