23 Dec Blogging Creates a Forest of Content Trees That Can Be Continually Harvested
Getting Organic Reach From a Content Carousel Approach
A natural forest takes from 600 to 1000 years to develop; Shubhendu Sharma can grow one in ten years with a self-sustaining ecosystem. His approach relies on a careful understanding on the ecosystem along with the interaction of the plant life he selects for each individual forest. By thoroughly preparing the ground with fertile material, placing the seed plants and monitoring and manicuring the growth, he recreates a natural phenomenon in a fraction of the time. Still, a decade is considerable, forest building doesn’t happen overnight. In some ways, this approach is similar to community building. What can takes years can be created carefully by understanding the environment (insights), preparing the ground (content and influencers) and fostering growth (engagement).
Content Marketing is evolving quickly as consumers increasingly choose their media. However blogging, an extremely powerful form of the genre, has been an effective marketing tool for over 20 years. What’s evolving is the form factor that blogging assumes. Traditional blog content has expanded to include visual, audio and video blogging. From micro blogging platforms like Twitter and Facebook updates to visual blogging on Instagram and even time exploding content on Snapchat, blogging now takes many forms beyond long form content creation.
Much has been written lately about the death of organic reach on platforms, however; there is a symbiotic relationship between the content on the platform and overall audience engagement. Organic media IS the content, without it, social platforms won’t exist. Seeking to delineate between producers, whether from a brand or an individual, won’t be a black and white exercise. Brands and branded content are part of our experiences online and off as brand content has become OrganishTM. For example, LeBron wearing Beats headphones on his personal Instagram post is branded media but is it paid, owned or earned?
Several years ago, someone at a conference I was attending shared the quote that’s the title of this post, (I can’t find who actually said it, please let me know if you do so I can give attribution) it has stuck with me ever since. What is now happening is that blogging in all its forms is creating content centers that drive search optimization across platforms and becomes key drivers for consumer interaction. The overall share of conversational voice of a brand, product or service is a factor of how much content exists in the channels where consumers are engaging.
Here’s a simple experiment, Google any hashtag and you’ll get a result count. This will give you some sense of direction for how much content exists for that term. Content rich programming will create a continually expanding universe of media as sharing and cross-platform pollination takes place. With careful community management and engagement, overall share of voice will increase for a given category or conversation. A simple “image” view of the same search will give a visual of the conversation. If that view is primarily logos and package shots, consider blending in more emotional and inspirational content, as that static brand content isn’t likely to be shared.
No matter the category or subject, great content creates critical mass across platforms that dramatically affects consumers discovery regardless of platform or device. As social surpasses search and becomes a leading driver of the consumer’s journey, content farming becomes a way to achieve a Content Everywhere™ state of digital presence. Leveraging this approach helps reach consumers when and where they are and adds to the overall body of content they find no matter where they are in a purchase cycle.
Organish(TM) and Content Everywhere(TM) are service marks of Ignite Social Media. All Rights Reserved.
