Content Marketing

Content marketing focuses on providing content that is useful to target audiences and telling strong stories to draw in consumers rather than simply pitching products and services. The Content Marketing Institute explains it as “a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.”

This Content Marketing Institute infographic shows the evolution of content marketing and highlights companies that have leveraged strong content into connections with consumers.

Social media channels can be a strong platform for content marketing. They provide a mouthpiece to share the “valuable, relevant and consistent” content to specific audiences. Michalovich gives an analogy from his time at agency Wondersauce that social can be a place to build equity, and it’s like feeding a piggy bank.

“You’re periodically feeding consumers good content – something that might make them laugh or just good info. But eventually that piggy bank becomes full and then you’re going to cash in by asking them to do something like visiting your website or watching a video on YouTube. If you’ve built that trust with the user, they will take action.”

The content “buckets” a brand creates for its social media channels should align with the brand’s objectives, but they should also consider what intended audiences want and value. This is the content that will feed the piggy bank.