The reason no one cares about your content

I've worked in producing content for marketing since a long time ago. It has had different names: press releases, articles, newsletters, thought leadership, content assets... at the end it's all just content. With the proliferation of content marketing, everyone is now obsessed about producing content that "engages my audience" and that is "highly shareable". But most usually fail in this process because the success of content -in any shape or form- is that it has to be relevant for the reader.


This reminds me of a concept I heard the other day about supply and demand. This is a concept usually associated with products, but in the conference I attended, one of the speakers mentioned it as a premise for content too. And I agree. Why would you produce content that no one needs, that there is no demand for? And if you look in social media, there are lots of brand doing just that. Producing just another video, article, story, infographic, etc. of a piece of content that no one really needs, that doesn't add any value to the reader.

This brings us back to relevance. This is the key to engage the audience. No one really wants to see how magnificent your product or service is and all its features. It doesn't matter how beautifully produced the video or animation is... why would they care? When the content you produce is useful to a human need, then it becomes relevant.... the engagement and shareability come with this!

How to make it relevant? People have different needs. Some need help to make their lives easier, others need to learn more, others just need to build their status... and all the basic human needs (as the basic human needs explained by Maslow). The thing is that the global middle class, specially in the developed countries, have most of their Physiological and Safety needs pretty much covered. And this is the big mass of consumers that are in social media, have a smartphone and will most likely engage with the content you're producing.

This leaves us with "Belonging", "Esteem" and "Actualization" as mentioned in the pyramid. The trick here is to start identifying how you can support these through content that provides value to your consumer but also supports your brand. Forget the content about your product and how great it is... The consumer is thinking... What's in it for me?

With so many brands producing content, the answer to this question becomes more difficult. In the content/social world you are not competing against your traditional competitors. This is a common ground where consumer don't distinguish if a company is a telecommunications provider or a clothes retailer. Those who do it well win, those who don't get buried into the content graveyard. 

The strategy will obviously depend on the brand and to what type of need you want to appeal. But it is when you produce content that ultimately helps the consumer achieve any of those goals in a successful way that they really engage, share and love your brand. This is also true when you think about giving your content a purpose. If you think of a successful case like the "Ice bucket challenge", it was a simple idea but with a very powerful proposition: you can help raise awareness of people with ALS. It gave people a reason to participate because if they did it, it allowed them to show off their support to the cause, to show that they care, to build their self esteem, and show them as conscious people that would either do it or donate money. The results? We all know... we all saw it. 

So next time you're planning your content strategy and the content you'll be producing, have a think about the needs it will help your consumers fulfill. Give your content a purpose and make content that really counts for something, not just more Terabytes of html and video that no one will ever watch.