Content Has No Home
Marketers’ considerations around content shouldn’t only focus on the creation of it. Marketers, more and more, need to seriously consider where that content lives, especially now because the choices are numerous.
This has been the case for some time with video, for example. We have Facebook Video, YouTube, Snapchat, Instagram and others. Marketers seem to get that and understand that they need to tailor their content to those platforms, but content that was traditionally meant for a brand website, such as blog posts and other long-form multimedia storytelling, may not be most effective on brand websites anymore.
When a brand talks about itself in long-form, that content typically finds itself living on a blog or business information page, but now brands have the option to let that content live natively on platforms with built-in audiences. And that option may be the best one.
So Many Homes
No company has pushed this further than LinkedIn, which launched its LinkedIn Influencer Network of thought leaders posting content that lives on the LinkedIn platform. It wasn’t long after that launch that LinkedIn allowed all users to publish long-form blog posts to its network where they could readily reach their connections and beyond.
Then there’s Tumblr and Medium, the latter of which changed the visual style people expect when consuming content online. It made storytelling beautiful with minimal design and maximum imagery. It didn’t take Facebook long to update its Notes feature, giving users more options to beautify their Notes and more reasons to create content on Facebook.
Is It Worth It?
Why would marketers sacrifice traffic and attention to their own properties by posting and sharing content on other platforms? Two words: Reach and engagement.
These platforms offer built-in audiences and platforms were people are in an engagement mindset. People are going to Facebook, LinkedIn and other platforms daily (or multiple times per day). They’re not going to brand websites that often. And because they’re visiting platforms like LinkedIn to engage, they’re more likely to share, increasing reach and exposure of content.
This, of course, creates a cycle of marketers feeding these platforms with content that feeds those platforms' goals of user traffic and engagement, while marketers must be happy with their content simply being seen. Still, the ultimate hope is people discover the content and find where they can get more and connect with brands there, but that’s a hope.
Platforms are going to continue to demand more content and reward those who feed it, but the cost is something all marketers should consider. I’m asking it myself about this blog. Would it be better to post to LinkedIn? Medium? I’m still not sure, and there won’t be a magic answer that applies to all. But it is a question that all will need to answer.