Trawling through paper publications in a search for content seems like a memory from a distant time and the easy access we have today to blogs, minute-by-minute news feeds and social media specialists is certainly something to celebrate. The democratisation of information has given us unfettered access to first-person accounts and grassroots movements and taken the power of information out of the hands of Big Media. The world is just one click away.
But hand in hand with all this information is the increasingly complex issue of how to select the good from the merely available. From the barrage of available information, how do you choose what is good over what is only “different”. Which voice, which channel, which technology best suits you, your client and your preferred way of communicating?
Now that Content is chasing us rather than the other way around we have to hone our skills of selection and curation. Reaching out to other marketers can point us towards new sites; clients may well already be open to and active on social media and have their own preferred feeds and follows. Accurate client profiling will help us to understand where our audience is already getting their information from and how we can embrace and enhance this.
And we shouldn’t ignore print media; there has been a resurgence of specialised, localised and beautifully produced magazines which have taken the time to pinpoint their audience.
It’s a fast-changing environment and it can seem hard to keep up sometimes but keeping an open mind is essential. Great ideas and great thinking are readily available and finding them could open doors you didn’t know existed!