When Scott Monty, Gary Vaynerchuk and C.C. Chapman, three of the best and brightest minds of our industry (people who I respect to an umpteenth most degree), get into a Twitter debate on the future of content marketing, you better believe I would be paying attention.
If you haven’t already, I would highly recommend reading their full exchanges. Here’s Gary’s second video. And, I would strongly encourage you to read Scott’s post, related to Gary’s intial article on Forbes, here. Pure brilliance.
With all the epic points being spilled out in 140 characters burst, I had an epiphany. The real future of content marketing isn’t really about quality v. quantity. It’s about the ability to drive meaningful discussions that further connects your community members and brand across your social channels.
At it’s core, your content marketing strategy should be about driving value for your customers and/or potential customers. Whether that value is serving as primarily “entertainment” or providing utilitarian content that serves a specific need is up to you, however, without some sort of value-add, your content will fall upon dead ears every time.
I predict the wave of the future lies squarely on crowdsourced content. As companies’ social media presences mature, more and more will realize the immense power of crowdsourced content. Whether it’s three of the brightest minds in my industry talking about quality v. quantity content or customers talking about a tech company’s latest product launch. Or, brands looking to harness their customers’ experiences to help each use a specific product. The potential uses are endless.
For example, the power no longer lies solely in a CEO’s blog post filled with PR jargon. Instead, it lies in the conversations centered around a more authentic and animated post by a member of the C-Suite. It’s a subtle, but huge difference.
As crowdsourced content matures, I predict platforms like RebelMouse, Storify, and <insert whatever new crowdsourced tools enter the space> will become a thousand times bigger and more important than they already are.
It’s an exciting time to be in this space, and I cannot wait to see how all of this pans out in the next few years. That’s my two cents.
Now, I want to hear from you. Where do you see the future of content marketing headed?
