How many emails, conversations, texts, phone calls, newspapers, blog posts, podcasts, YouTube and Facebook videos, trade journals, Snaps, and other pieces of information do you receive on a daily basis?

I don’t know about you, but I can’t even count the number. I imagine it is in the thousands by the time I add up all of the messages I am exposed to on a daily basis.

Go, Just Start Writing Content….No!

In recent years, many experts have suggested you need to get out there and start creating content. “Go…just go, and start writing! Get it out there!” They have told you you need to write more often, you need to speak more often, you need to get on Twitter and Tweet more often, you need to post status updates and articles on LinkedIn, you need to post on your Facebook page, you need to send more emails, and on and on and on.

What we’ve discovered is there is so much content out there that we are now drowning in a sea of content. It almost feels like we have been thrown into a mosh pit of content. It might be valuable, but it’s hard to know because there’s just too much of it.

Content Marketing Must Evolve. We Must Evolve.

Content marketing must now evolve to a more sophisticated practice of planning out messages that flow in a sequence to the people we have identified in our marketing and business development plans. These messages need to be ready and available at the appropriate time when they have questions, interests, challenges or curiosity about some aspect of the topics you focus on in your practice.

It is now critical to emerge from this sea of content, this mosh pit of random acts of content, and be more thoughtful about what we are creating, producing and posting.

I don’t want people to establish a perception of the content you are distributing as though these are just posts or messages that you felt you had to produce everyday to keep up. I want your readers, clients and connections to think your content is valuable, that it speaks to what is on their minds, that it somehow resonates with them, and that it comes from someone who thinks about what he or she is writing or saying, vs. just producing content to fill up available space.

You Are Better Than That

I want you to start thinking about why you are producing what you are producing, and for whom you are producing it, vs. just trying to get massive amounts of content out there every day in hopes of it being discovered. You might end up producing content every day once you get your rhythm down, but focus first on creating messages that speak to these typical marketing and business development plan components: 

1. What are your goals? What are you trying to accomplish over the next few months?
2. Who are your clients?
3. Who do you want to be your clients?
4. What needs or challenges do those people have?
5. How do those needs match up against your skills and knowledge?
6. What messages do you want them to know that blend #4 and #5?
7. Where do they spend time, both online and offline?
8. How do they consume news, education and industry developments?

Strategic and Valuable

Content marketing is great, but only if it is strategic and provides value. Following steps like those above will help with the strategic part. Your brain and research produce the valuable part.

Your Brand Is At Stake

Remember that your brand travels along with your content. The information you post…your wisdom, your content, needs to be wise and valuable, and representative of the fine brand that you have spent so much time building.

Take care of that brand. Produce content that matches what your clients and potential clients care about.