Are you worried about the overload of content online?
Do you, like many others, have a plan for creating more content to stay visible?
Well, the answer may not be to create more content to compete with everyone else.
I want to go over how you can survive content shock with your blog, and share with you some tips for surviving the apocalypse that most people are doing wrong anyway.
The Content Shock Idea
Mark Schaefer introduced his theory of content shock back in January 2014, that immediately spawned a shock of content within itself.
Mark goes on to describe how the internet as a whole is now a crowded place for content, and how it may not be a viable option for business owners in the future.
A recent SocialMediaExaminer.com article quotes him as saying this about content:
By 2020, the amount of information on the web is expected to increase by 600% (and some believe that number is low!) -Mark SchaeferĀ Click To Tweet!
So the idea of content shock is that there is so much content in any industry right now that people can literally get any answer they want just by searching for it.
How can we compete with this?
Especially the new bloggers and content creators just starting. They are up against a high wall of competition with other people that have established their content on the web.
The idea of content shock is that there is so much content out there that the consumer only has a limited amount of time to consume the content in the first place.
This also begs the question that Marcus Sheridan presented of Will these people take the time to research the information they need? And if so, will they find your content?
This has also flown over into parts of the social realm as well.
Which probably describes why we must adopt the “pay to play” scenario when it comes to reaching our audience on Facebook, and even then its not a guarantee that the reader will take the time to grab free information for them which has cost us money to get it there.
But there is hope.
One may look at the articles written about too much content and be discouraged about succeeding online, however, there is still a way that you can make yourself visible to your readers.
Forget Content Shock
If you’re going to be successful in your industry, especially with all of the hurdles you will have to come against now, you have to forget about content shock.
You have to understand that in order for you to become successful in anything that you do online, you have to stay consistent with it.
Sure there’s a lot against you right now.
There was a lot against me when I first started as well, but that didn’t stop me. Partially because I was just dumb enough to have no idea what I was really up against, but more because I loved what I did!
I am not implying in any way that Mark Schaefer is wrong in his assumptions of content shock. These are viable opinions that he has, and I do agree with what he has to say because it makes a lot of sense.
But you have to push forward in your quest for perfect content every week if you want to see results. You don’t have to worry too much about content shock, because there’s still a way around that hurdle.
Just with anything else in life, if you look hard enough, the solution to your problem will present itself.
Create Relevant Content
One of the ways you can avoid content shock is through the use of creating content that is relevant to the niche market that you are targeting.
While Marcus makes some good points in the article above, the content that people will take the time to search for will only be shown in the target specific area that they are searching.
The relevant content.
The content that answers their questions and meets their needs.
That is why it is so important to sit down and create relevant content for your readers every time you publish your content.
Time seems to be the big argument between these two content giants. So if time is the common denominator, then it just makes sense to create content that helps the reader by being relevant because it saves them time in the long run.
Having your voice heard in a crowded area is hard.
By creating content that is relevant to that crowd you have just increased your chances for those people to see what you have been writing.
How To Create Relevant Content
One of the main things you should be looking at in your content strategy is to understand how to create content that is relevant to your audience.
Most people in the social media niche, for example, will tend to particularly write about social media as a whole. But even this area of content marketing needs to be pinpointed to a sharper relevancy as well.
Don’t write content that bores them to tears and causes comatose readers!
Perhaps you need to be writing more content about Pinterest, and even more detailed than that, you may need to know whether or not you should be writing about some particular topic within the relevant topic of Pinterest in your social media niche.
If you aren’t getting a lot of good hits on your content, that may mean that your content isn’t relevant enough yet.
Start to narrow this down by measuring the engagement of your content. When you do this the relevant content that you need to be writing will stand out.
Measuring Relevancy
One of the ways you can measure which content is more relevant on your blog is to understand which content your readers are responding to.
You can do this a couple of different ways, but using social proof is the easiest.
Which of your articles has been shared the most within the shortest period of time? What topics that you have written about are being talked about the most on social media? Does it create engagement?
Learn what your readers and social followers are doing with your content so you can create more of the stuff they want to see to get a repeat of action from the last great post.
Create Persona’s
The first step to creating content that is relevant to your readers is to get a better understanding of who your readers are.
Do this by creating personas for your business if you haven’t already.
Check out this free persona generator to get you started.
These are the people you will be targeting with your content.
The people that will have the most impact on the content that you’re writing. It’s important to understand that if “Jenny” who is 35 years old and loves Pinterest, has a business problem, then you shouldn’t be writing about the Facebook EdgeRank.
Now “Jenny” could represent 10 people or 100. These are all people with the same interests and dislikes and you have to make it a point to get to know what drives them in business in order to be able to write content that is relevant to them.
Here’s an interview I did about social media persona creation. Take a look!
Final Word
Content shock is a thing. But it doesn’t have to be the end-all for your blog or online business. Develop a strategy that veers around the content shock hurdle in order to bring people to your content.
This is THE most important part of content marketing and one you should get used to doing weekly if not daily. Understanding and getting close to your readers with your content is a crucial part of the online processes of success.
Do you have any other suggestions for surviving content shock? Have you ever made personas for your business yet? I would love to hear about them in the comments below!
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Wade Harman
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