Yes, it is April Fool’s Day. But rather than run the usual fake story routine, we decided to look at the most interesting content marketing-related stories from the past week. Although, if you want to look at how AFD stunts can go wrong, look here.
Shock of the not so new
The Huffington Post ran this comment piece on what it perceives as the greatest barrier to start-ups using content marketing. The obstacle to a successful campaign, it says, is producing the content itself.
The reason? The most successful content needs to be in the 1,500-word range and most entrepreneurs don’t have time to produce that much copy.
It makes the point that only 25 per cent of content marketing hits this word-count.
Although this strikes us as a little too much, as a how-to it is a clarion call to action. The key is to resist being put off by “content shock”, SEO and all the other challenges. Work at it and the rewards will come.
BuzzFeed seeks breaking news
Content marketing platform BuzzFeed is exploring new ways to bring users to its site. BuzzFeed has produced a mobile app that will push breaking stories from its local news teams.
Interestingly, it comes as The Times says it is moving away from live news because it is not profitable.
Social is the way forward
Adweek has reproduced research on the link between social media and successful marketing campaigns. There are some interesting statistics.
For example, it finds that marketers who are satisfied with their social marketing are 11 times more likely to respond to customers via a social platform. In terms of content marketing, 47 per cent of top-performing marketers say content marketing drives ROI.
Content marketing for start-ups is an effort is part of Content24, the online magazine for FirstWord, a content marketing agency based in London.
