In integrated marketing, effective content is affective content.
Think of your business message as a lonely child in a vast new world, poised to embark on a spiritual journey through the digital realm a la Siddhartha. Remember that this idea, be it something you grabbed from Mashable or something you pulled from your own head, began as a tiny idea inside one person’s mind somewhere in space and time.
Ultimately that’s where your content will end as well, as an idea in someone else’s mind somewhere, someone you may never talk to. You want to increase traffic, you want to generate likes and follows, and to do these things you have to generate emotion to truly gain integrated marketing success. Your little piece of information, blog topic, social media post or news release knew something when it left you to begin its journey.
Teach lessons to your content, and your content will teach lessons
At lotus823, our content must always operate within the confines of the assignment, but that doesn’t mean that it ought to be a direct regurgitation of facts; it must have it own voice, body, and mind.
You are old. Your content is young. When you are dissecting a study, take it beyond the facts, and teach your fledgling content to feel. Make it ask questions that are not easy to answer, and the process of attempting to answer them will teach your readers something about themselves. And how does one accomplish that?
Show your content how to question reality and control
If you are, for instance, writing a blog on the history of cell phones, demand “how have cell phones changed me forever? How do they make me feel? How is that feeling different from how I used to feel?” Do this with suggestion, not outright question. Say “the cell phone is an appendage of your body now,” but let your reader ask why.
The public who reads your blog will question itself and they will surely remember your blog. This content is effective because it’s affective. It keeps the human element strong in a digitized world.
Content is the root of integrated marketing strategies. While there’s an elegant, artful, and infinitely complex world beyond content (SEO, analytics, pitching, timing, luck), without the drum beat of the content, the band falls apart, so make it strong and make it different.
Every time your content makes someone question the norm, they will remember it. Gradually, we develop affinity for things that make us think, and the thought you have planted in the public eye will develop strength, as if by magic.
When you were most affected by a piece of writing, and how did it make you feel? Tell us about it Facebook and Twitter, and keep checking the lotus823 blog for new updates!