Newsflash: Google is changing things once again. In an unexpected twist last week, Google’s John Mueller announced that Google will no longer show author profile images and Google+ circle numbers in desktop and mobile search results, shocking marketers everywhere.
It’s also bad news for marketers and business owners. Let me tell you why.
Contrary to what many digital marketers think, the emergence of the Internet did not give birth to content marketing. It just enhanced its accessibility. The truth is content marketing has been around for a long time - since the late 19th century to be exact.
As I am sitting here thinking about what to write, all I can think about is how excited I am about this new experience with LocalTrifecta. The past three months I have experienced a lot of life changes such as graduating college, then understanding how it feels being an unemployed degree holder, moving out of my childhood house to a new part of town, and lastly - willingly starting CrossFit for the first time, where you basically sign on the dotted line to get your butt kicked on the daily basis. But then, all these series of events had led me to the office of LocalTrifecta.
I’ll finally get the chance to meet up with one of my marketing heroes, Marcus Sheridan (for the first time) at HubSpot’s Inbound 2014 Conference in Boston in September - and it’ll be a treat. Periodically, I’ll exchange emails with him, usually regarding something he’s blogged about.
I had an email exchange with Marcus a couple days ago and it prompted me to give a listen to one of Marcus’ old talks - on being transparent to your prospective customers with your content.
It’s really something that isn’t done. Content marketing is generally poorly done or not done at all. Personally, I’m starting to use the term “content marketing” less and less (forgive me when I use it later in this post) in favour of “education”. Because that’s what this is all about - educating your website visitors and your prospects about what you do and what you offer. This brings them closer to your brand and starts a positive relationship.
This is how it all works - but what I’ll talk about in this blog post is the importance of being honest and transparent in your content (blog posts, e-books, videos) - so that your prospects will be more comfortable doing business with you. Believe me - this is a post that you have to read because it’s vitally important to building your web presence online!
If there’s one thing I’ve learned about building a content strategy and actually doing content marketing, it’s that it takes time. If you’ve been sold on content marketing, you probably know that it’s an investment - of your time and creativity.
What is thought leadership? What does it mean to be a thought leader, how does it relate to content marketing and how can being one increase sales for your business?
