I often tell people that content is king. And, you know what? This isn’t quite right. Why? You see…content is good, but great content is “king.”Think about it. Why do you become engrossed in a movie or TV show? Why do you send a funny video to a friend? Why do you enjoy talking with certain people? Why do you like to read certain articles? The answer is simple. We do these things because we love watching, hearing or reading great content.
Everyone is busy. Whether we are in person (offline) or online (virtual), it takes something special and unique to pull us in and “wow” us. We live in a world where most people have a short attention span. So, how does something attract attention? The secret is simple. It is all about great content. Good content is OK, but it will always lose out to great content. With that in mind, I am going to attempt (stress attempt) to show you what I mean. OK, here we go…
The next time someone flies off the handle at you with the goal of putting you between a rock and a hard place consider their reasoning. If your goal is to be clicking on all cylinders…do not settle for being stuck in a catch 22 situation or being limited by flavor of the month-type thinking. Instead, work through all the smoke and mirrors to ensure that everyone is on the same page. What does this mean? Simple: Cut to the chase and get to the bottom line. Most organizations seek to raise the bar in performance so they can get their foot in the door with new clients. However, be careful not to jump the gun in doing this or you will be going off half-cocked. If you move too quickly without proper planning you will get close, but no cigar. Then, you will be back to the drawing board and experience a hard fall from cloud nine.
Wow! Did you just read this last paragraph? How many of these expressions do we hear all the time? Answer: Many of them. What is so intriguing about my writing them together in one place? First, is it creative to try to put all of these expressions together in an original manner to make a point? Yes. Does it provide intriguing content? Yes. Therefore, in order for a blog post to be engaging it must provide more than my wording and your reading. It must be a two-way dialog or conversation. It must be about taking the words that are on the device you are reading from—words transformed into a story worth sharing and acting upon.
Isn’t this what you want your customers to do when they think of you? If you sound like everyone else, you lack great content. Always remember:People can duplicate your ideas, but they can’t replicate your DNA. So, what do you bring to your stakeholders–online and offline—that is great content?