Content marketing: In the marketing world, Content is King and marketers are the kingmakers. It’s fair to say that social media has changed the content marketing landscape for good. Social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter have further empowered the kingmakers to take content marketing to new heights.

From a business perspective, content marketing is all about keeping your customers informed as well as getting them excited about your products and services. The idea is to create and publish content which will help your existing and prospect customers. As a content marketer, I believe you need to follow these 7 golden rules of Content Marketing.

Rule #1 – Be original with Your Content Marketing

The easiest thing you can do is to copy what your competitors are successfully doing. While that can lead to short term gains, I don’t think it’s the best long term marketing strategy for any business. If anything, it reflects a lack of innovation in your marketing efforts. Of course, I encourage businesses to take inspiration from others and build on those ideas to develop original content.

Rule #2 – Share Insight with Your Content Marketing

Your content should not just be original; it should also be informative, insightful and interesting. There’s no point in publishing original content which lacks appeal and offers no insights into your products/ services. If you produce a great product, make it a point to back it up with great content that offers useful insights.

Rule #3 – Show You Know your customers with Your Content Marketing

As a content marketer, it’s vital to know what your customers like and what’s likely to impress them. Quality of content is equally important as timeliness and quantity of content. As a business, you should strive to present information in an attractive format in which the reader wants to engage.

Rule #4 – Pictures

A picture is worth a thousand words – content marketing is no exception to that rule. An image can say a lot without needing any words. Therefore, make it a point to use pictures wherever appropriate. Images add a wow factor to content marketing campaigns so you shouldn’t be shy of using them. On the contrary, a content marketing campaign with an optimal mix of text and images usually appeals the most.

Rule #5 – Videos

If a picture is worth a thousand words, a video is worth a million words. Videos are a great way to present content in an intuitive manner. For example, a product demo can be best illustrated using a video rather than plain text. YouTube channels are a great way to supplement your marketing campaigns with crisp videos.

Rule #6 – Tone

I’ve seen a number of content marketing campaigns go awry simply because they chose an inappropriate tone. No one likes to read pushy and overly promotional content. Blatant sales pitches will never do any good to your campaign so be mindful of the tone used in your content.

Rule #7 – Interactivity

Content marketing is meant to establish a dialog between the customer and your business. If it’s one-way communication from your business and no response from your customer, it isn’t going to work. Engage your customers in meaningful communication in order to arouse a genuine interest in your products and services. Remember – content marketing is a two way street and if traffic gets blocked in either direction, the other lane gets choked automatically.

Would you like to add any content marketing rules to the above list? Please share your opinion by leaving a comment below this post.