Maybe Grape Nuts were on sale or Wheaties decided to pack your favorite athlete. Either way, although you knew exactly which cereal brand you wanted to buy, several different boxes took your attention and took you off the track. Today's content-saturated world presents a similar scenario for marketers. For each article or video you toss to the world, thousands of others call for limited attention from consumers. WordPress alone sees 79.2 million new blog posts each month, and YouTube publishes new video content every minute for more than 400 hours.
The fact that new content must deal with older content that is already at the top of the SEO rankings makes matters even more difficult. Basically, it would be an understatement to call the content marketing arena "crowded "and "dismaying. " Material is overflowing, and only the strongest, most innovative content stands out.
Sing a special and unique song:
You can't just copy the top result of Google for your topic and assume you're going to wrestle the top spot. Moz, for instance, has already created the quintessential guide for SEO beginners. It would be a fool's mistake to give the same exact advice in the same way.
Instead, you need to put your unique spin on a topic. Go above and beyond to create different, better, more valuable content than whatever is already floating through cyberspace. Also, consider conveying your messages through mediums your competitors aren’t using. For example, if you operate within a whitepaper-heavy industry, start a video blog. Be the brand that deliberately goes against the grain in every possible area.
Rather than blend into the crowd, follow these three tips to ensure your content stands out:
Provide proprietary insights. Compiling and presenting original data is a surefire way to create unique content. Survey your customers, uncover a trend, and share it publicly.
After analyzing more than 6.3 million social media posts, we at CoSchedule shared our findings in this article. To date, it has been one of our best-performing pieces of content. It has garnered tons of shares, earned us several backlinks, and even spurred us to create a popular social message optimizer tool.
It might take weeks or months to assemble your data and frame it into helpful pieces of content, but it will be well worth the effort.
Share authentic, relatable stories. Tell helpful and entertaining stories in your content. Lift the curtain and get personal. Openly talk about embarrassing mistakes your company has made over the years, and help your readers avoid those same blunders. Or, on a more positive note, tell the world about your success stories. To see what a great success story looks like, read Groove’s piece about its journey from humble startup to a thriving business. Also, don't hesitate to get creative. Identify a fun simile or metaphor (such as "the cereal aisle") that paints your subject matter in a unique, relatable light. Beginning a piece of content with a bit of humor is a great way to engage readers.
Show your audience the next step. Too many marketers dole out advice without actually teaching the audience how to put it into practice. Don’t be like them. Outline clear, actionable steps your audience can take to resolve a pain point.
Even if you cover well-trodden ground, the difference that drives your piece to the top of search engines could be your helpful next step guidance. I call this the skyscraper technique, which is described here in depth. Stop accompanying the crowd. In your message and medium, be deliberately different. Be helpful, tell stories, make yourself personal and, above all, have fun. It's not easy to create unique content. It's a lot of work, frankly. But any additional grate of the elbow you put into your content strategy today will pay more than it will be tomorrow.
