Game of thrones: Why content is king, but context is queen

The 'content is king' quote, alleged to have been made popular by Bill Gates, has seen many marketers agree that all digital marketing should ideally include some form of content plan, but it is the ‘who, what, how, when and where’ that have emerged as the crown princes and princesses of content’s regal status. Here’s how.

The why of content

• One of the reasons driving the ‘content is king’ home truth, is that it allows your communications to be managed as brilliantly, uniquely and interestingly as your brand itself, to stand out from competitors and to accurately reflect your company footprint in the media space
  
• SEO, or the ability for your company to be ranked and found by search engines, is another heir apparent to the content king.

The how of content

• If the job of King Content is improving your site’s popularity with search engines such as Google, achieving optimum relevance and quality is the domain of its heiress ‘how’.
  
• Game of tones: One of the ways to ensure your content distinction is by identifying a unique brand tone, voice and visuals to match your brand personality in the media space. Choose from:

  • Professional, informative and educational
    
  • Inspirational, idealistic, unifying, rallying
    
  • Amusing and engaging
    
  • Authoritative, influential - may involve a mascot or regular spokesperson
    
  • Quirky and irreverent
    
  • Rational and technical
    
  • Trendy, pop cultural
    
  • Friendly and conversational
    
  • Exclusive, clubby
    
  • Influencer testimonial stories
    
  • Topical - aligned with relevant news, cultural events and issues

• Headline act:
  
• “A good headline will lure in more visitors and great content will make them stay. That’s another reason why content is king and will be on that throne for a long time to come.” https://socialplanner.io/blog/content-is-king/
  
• Arriving at the right headline to draw readers into your copy and work for SEO, is one of the most difficult but important elements of content creation.
  
• A good tip is to leave enough time to ensure headlines are as relevant, intriguing and succinct as possible to sum up your article.
  
• Including a key word or two can help with SEO.
  
• If you have relationships with your publishers, you can always ask an editor to weigh in on what sort of headlines get best responses from their specific audiences.

The what of content

‘What’ you choose to publish is the crown prince of any content strategy:

• Brand or company ethos, mission and vision stories - allow you to mine brand heritage for gold and tell the stories of what your brand stands for and why it matters
  
• Brand and advertising back stories - allow a brand to bestow honours on the people and processes behind your company, advertising and activations and amplify campaigns
  
• Stakeholder stories - reveal the founding mothers and fathers, owners and decision makers behind the brand.
  
• “If content is King, video is the crown jewels” https://socialplanner.io/blog/content-is-king/
  From the Social Planner blog, comes the statistic that by 2023, videos will be responsible for more than 80% of the internet’s traffic, so if you have video content that can be embedded or linked to releases, take a bow
  
• Format - Whether epic or episodic, the choice of format and visual treatment for your content are another vital asset in embellishing your content status and meaning.

The who of content

• ‘Who’ can apply not only to your royal subjects, the audience, that will consume your content, but also ‘who’ will be responsible for its creation
  
• The trend towards creative and conceptual content solutions is growing and the right content service providers will break through the bland with entertaining and enlightening solutions
  
• SA’s creative agencies have always had the edge in the royal court and are still the secret weapon in creating compelling content
  
• Integrated teams such as creatives and PR service providers, can ensure distribution and media liaison to complete the content value circuit back to the audience!

The where of content

• If content is king, context, or the circumstance ‘Where’ the right audience will see your content, is queen.
  
• Without the right context, your content may not achieve its desired objectives, so a content strategy must include the well-considered distribution plan to ensure the right prospects will see your creative in a relevant context
  
• Many things can influence context but one of the key factors is similar to ‘the medium is the message’ - i.e. where your content will appear will influence how it is received
  
• Including content on your company website is important for SEO, but being seen among news, events or relevant pop culture can help provide context and relevance for companies and brands and drive traffic back to your site
  
• A presence in the business-to-business media increasingly provides greater credibility and control of your content and yet one more reason to uphold its kingly reputation.

The when of content

• Creating the right content presence might not happen overnight.
  
• Consistency and regularity allow you to build a content presence over time
  
• In conjunction with context i.e. where your content appears, consistency ‘when your content appears’, will lend credibility and memorability to your messages.

  Bizcommunity Newsrooms offer the 6 C’s of content marketing:

  
  
  • Content
    
  • Context
    
  • Consistency
    
  • Control
    
  • Creativity
    
  • Concept

• Content: Biz Newsroom is your content’s castle, making sure every word of your content counts
  
• Context: Ensuring business news reaches targeted professional business audiences daily
  
• Consistency: In conjunction with context i.e. where your content appears, consistency ‘when your content appears’, will lend credibility to the messages and build over time
  
• Control: The digital media allows you to track and tailor content to see what works. On Bizcommunity you can start tracking the performance of your content from the minute your release is published. The My Account dashboard console allows you to monitor and track the performance of your content marketing activity on a daily basis and if necessary adjust tactically.
  
• Creativity: As a content creator you know that fresh, relevant, high-quality material is the way to break through to your audience.
  
• Concept: Every content communication has an objective. Working through the above royal lineage with the right team can take your content to the next level.

Find out how to maximise the 6 C’s of content marketing for your organisation and claim royal status for your content. Talk to one of our business content development managers.