It's Raining Content!


I had planned on calling this article ‘Feeding the Content Monster’ but when I checked Google, there were already many articles titled that. Conveniently, that conundrum leads right to the topic I want to discuss.

There are a lot of us now - content marketers, that is. According to an article titled ‘Content marketing goes mainstream’ (link is broken, sorry!), a whole heck of a lot more now than at this time last year.

Where is all that content coming from? Well, many of the ideas come from reading others’ content. In fact, that’s one of the top tips you’ll find content marketers sharing: search the web and see what other people are writing about.

When you think about it that way, doesn't it start to seem like a big machine feeding on itself? Much of the content we create is being read by other content creators, especially in the B2B world, and used for inspiration to create more content.

Surely the frenzy has to end somewhere. I find it hard to look forward and imagine the future of this big new endeavour that so many of us have embraced. I can’t help but think that capacity will become an issue but what form will it take? Will we run out of internet space? Will we max out on our ability to take it all in? Will the web simply become so saturated with information that value is too hard to find?


Whatever it is, it will happen sooner or later. We don’t know how long this content machine will last so we need to make the most of the opportunity. As content creators, we want to provide the very best value we can. As readers, with increased volume, we’ll need processes to recognize credibility.

photo by .sanden.

Comments

  1. Mary Jane CoppsNovember 24, 2013 at 4:45 PM

    Great post, Linda. And great match with the photo! Interesting to think about how content creators are borrowing from other content creators that are borrowing from other content creators. Mind you, this has always been the case. When I worked as a real estate journalist in Toronto in the '80s, I look for story ideas in other real estate magazines and journals. Of course, there wasn't nearly as much choice as there is today.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Linda DaleyNovember 24, 2013 at 9:27 PM

      Mary Jane, I guess it was more time consuming work without the internet. I haven't been in a library in ages.

      Delete

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