I do a lot of content marketing research. It’s the biggest part of my day. Which makes it all the more embarrassing that I’ve made each of these mistakes.
Not Clicking Subscribe
The inspiration for this list came this morning while I was looking for content ideas. I found myself back on a blog I’ve visited four or five times in the last month or so. Every post I’ve read on that blog has been helpful, so why do I have to happen upon it each time? They have an email subscription option, I have an email address, it just makes sense to subscribe.
Following Too Many Tweeters
Twitter is a gold mine for content marketing research. It’s a place that offers every opinion on every topic and pushes new ones at you every few minutes. The problem is, there are just too many opinions on Twitter. It can be hard to know who to listen to. When you’re presented with too many options your brain naturally starts to scan. At that point quality control goes out the window and you could be missing good information.
Not Following Enough
Of course the opposite is also true. Too few followers means you’re wasting a huge knowledge resource. The key is to find a balance. The best way to do that may be to follow a lot of people and then start to filter out the ones you often ignore.
Believing Everything You Read
The written word has an interesting effect on the human mind. When we see things written down, we tend to believe them. It is right there in black and white after all. When you’re doing your content marketing research, you need to take everything with a pinch of salt. Expert opinions are helpful, but you’re the only one who really understands your market.
Focusing on Keywords
Keywords are a huge part of content marketing research. Everything you post online should include relevant keywords so that it can be found in search results. The danger is letting yourself become too focused on finding the best long-tail keyword for your content. Good keywords are important, but they rarely outweigh the cost of time wasted on content marketing research.
Ignoring Keywords
That doesn’t mean you can ignore keywords altogether. Adding that extra level of accuracy to a keyword by using the most relevant long-tail version can give you a huge boost in search results. Just don’t let it become the most time-consuming part of the your content marketing research process.
Content Blinkers
I often suffer from this problem. I write a lot of blog posts and read a lot of blog posts so I end up researching a lot of blog posts. There are plenty of other forms of content you can use in marketing your business; your research should consider every option. If you have a particular favorite type of content, try to put and focus on the marketing goal and the type of content your prospects want.
Not Doing Enough
The biggest mistake you can make with content marketing research is not doing enough. If you post something that you think is accurate and then discover you were wrong through a blog comment or social media response, it’s a pretty public embarrassment. Especially if the ‘fact’ is easy to check. Never assume you’re right when posting something on behalf of your brand.
Doing Too Much
As with so many points on this list, it’s all about balance. You can also do too much content marketing research. Once you have your content ideas clear and you’ve checked your facts, there’s no need to go looking for a third, fourth or fifth source of information. Once you have the piece planned, you’re ready to start. It’s all about balance.
Ignoring Good Ideas
When you see something you like, you need to learn something from it. Never look at something, think ‘that’s a good idea…’ and then just move on. We all do it, all the time and we really, really need to stop.
Do you want to learn how to create online content that’s engaging and informative? Download our free white paper to get that Winning Content!
Post by: Eoin Keenan
