It’s Time to Ditch These 8 Myths About Content Marketing

When you think of viral content,  the Jenners dressed up as the Avengers for the premiere of “End Game” on Instagram with over 13 MILLION likes may come to mind. 

How the heck can your company can ever be on par with that?

You publish like crazy. You’re on every social platform known to man. But no one’s biting. 

So what gives?

You may be succumbing to one of these content marketing myths that are killing your conversions.

Myth #1: Content Marketing is All About Selling Your Company

Though content that makes your company walk the walk and talk the talk is essential, it's even more important to provide informative and engaging content that does not directly sell your brand.  

Gasp!

Shocking, right? Hear us out. 

This might hurt to hear, but your customers don’t actually care about you personally as much as they care what you can do for them. 

If you want your target customers to care about what you have to offer, you need to put their needs front and center.

The goal is to give as much educational and valuable content in the form of how-tos, guides, ebooks, infographics, and videos that will provide answers and solutions to your audience first before you sell yourself. 

Providing creative solutions to difficult problems makes you an authority in your field and also builds trust with your audience.

Consumers don't want to be hard sold anymore. Instead of trying to sell yourself with content, spend more time trying to engage and entertain your audience with authentic conversations. 

We love this quote that sums this section up, "Traditional marketing talks at people. Content marketing talks with them." @dougkessler

Focus on: Solving your consumer's needs and crafting conversations instead of pitches.

Myth #2: Anyone Can Create Content

Yes, anyone can indeed create content, but that does not mean anyone can create high-quality content. For example, you could shoot a few home videos for your business, but those videos would really wow your customers if a professional videographer created the clips. 

High-quality content takes expertise and lots of time (and yes, money). Unless you or your staff have considerable experience, it's best to let the professional photographers, videographers, and writers create your content. 

Focus on: Hiring talent that will take your content to the next level. 

Myth #3: Photos and Text-based Content Is Enough

People are visual learners. We are more engaged by photos than we are text. A single good photo can say a thousand words. But do you know what works even better than pictures?

Videos. 

People consume videos more than any other content on social media platforms. Since 2017 video engagement skyrocketed to 71%. On average, consumers watch video ads five times longer than a traditional ad and say videos are the best way to discover new products.  

Video is only going to continue to grow. Get in the video game now.

Focus on: Creating videos first, then transcribing videos into blog posts.

Myth #4: The More Content, the Better

Google used to boost sites that created content daily. What transpired was tons of cheap, thin, and low-quality articles that didn't provide value to readers. 

Cheap content hurts your brand because it depletes trust and lowers conversion rates.

In fact, when Google updated to Google Panda, sites that pumped out useless content lost more than half of their traffic and received a lower SEO ranking. 

On the flip side, sites that provided real informational content slowly saw rises in traffic and improved SEO scores. 

Remember, it's always better to invest in one high-quality piece of content rather than investing in 10 low-quality pieces. 

Focus on: Creating fewer high-quality pieces of content and updating on a slower schedule rather than churning out a bunch of junk content for the sake of frequent updates.

Myth #5: If My Content Is Good, People Will Magically Find It

You can publish killer content, but none of that content will matter if nobody sees and shares it. 

Social media distribution is a critical part of content marketing. Social media provides traffic to your content, while your content funnels the traffic into leads and sales. Without the traffic, your business just doesn’t rise to its potential.

A word of caution: Don’t publish everywhere “just in case.” Figure out where your audience is and update frequently there.

Producing one piece of great content and strategically distributing it on the right social media platforms can be your game changer. 

Your new social media mantra is, “Quality always trumps quantity.” 

Focus on: Determining the most strategic social platforms for your audience and publishing your content there.

Myth #6: Likes and Followers are Everything 

It's natural to think your likes and follows are important metrics for your brand's authority and recognition. In some ways, it’s true. People are more likely to follow accounts with more followers. 

However, anybody can buy followers and likes and your social media crowd knows it. While building your following is an important goal, you always have to consider the quality of your squad. 

Essentially, likes and followers are vanity metrics. They don't indicate the health and performance of your content. 

A hundred loyal fans are much more likely to engage with you, share your content, build your reputation, and purchase your product versus 1,000 fans that are following you merely for a follow back.  

Comments and shares are much more valuable metrics because they indicate how well your content builds traction, evokes emotion, and inspires. In fact, Instagram’s recent algorithm change boosts posts with higher engagement rates to provide its users with more relevant content.

More and more social media apps are making changes to try to make what mattered at inception important again: connecting people. It's not called social media for nothing. You actually have to be . . . well, social! 

Focus on: Authentic engagement. Talk to your peeps and get them talking about you.

Myth #7: Branding Is No Biggie 

Most people think of “branding” as your company logo, colors, and fonts. But it goes beyond that.

Branding is the process of creating an identifiable image for your company that your audience will remember. And that includes your brand voice — the overall tone and words you use in your messaging. 

Your words and images together paint the experience you provide for your customers. 

Branding is an opportunity to tell your story and invite your fans to participate. A story is powerful, and a good story will always outsell a hard pitch. Learn how to craft a unique story that distinguishes you from the crowd (then share it all over social media!). 

Focus on: Determining your visual brand cues along with your brand voice — the stories you want to tell — to craft a memorable experience. 

Myth #8: To Be Seen, You Must Pay for Ads

There are essentially two types of digital brand growth:

1. Paid: Just like it sounds — you pay for search engine and social media ads, paid guest spots on high-ranking publications, paid listings, etc. It’s a quick fix to getting seen, but the returns are low.
2. Organic: Growing traffic to your social channels and website through long-term, consistent publishing and audience engagement. Slow-growing and hard work, but a potential for a much higher ROI.

To grow organically, you need to consistently produce relevant, interesting content. 

To grow your social media fan base, you need to post daily and give your audience what they want. 

In addition, you need to be social and engage conversations with other brands and groups in your niche. 

Paid marketing can help get you immediate visibility, but it's not necessarily required. With consistent content production and quality content, you can drive your organic reach without breaking the bank.

Focus on: Publishing consistent, relevant content to your audience and niche.

There are a lot of marketing myths roaming Google today. Like most anything worth its while, successful marketing takes time, patience, skill, and help from experts. 

But differentiating fact and fiction will arm you with the sharpest strategies, to expand and conquer your content marketing reach.