Across the merging kingdoms of search and social, content is more than king, it's rule is divine! The optimised gauntlet has been thrown down to online marketing and the savvy jousters of social networking who tilt and thrust on Twitter and Facebook, blog and forum.
Social networking, social media, social signals and social content ... all the smart talk is on brands stepping up the daily journalism to keep newly minted algorithms buying into valuable published content and humans to engage and share the search gold. Not static website pages with no reason for visitors to ever visit again!
Some website owners have dipped their toes into the microblogging waters. Why not, they say, its doesn't cost anything and somebody in sales can tweet the latest company deal or related news item once every few weeks. Except this is neither a social media policy nor a social conversation starter.
On the reverse side of the coin, site owners often simply consider social media as buying into a new type of publicity package, haggling over the number of tweets to the pound or blogs to the acre. As long as the SEO keywords are firmly planted in neat rows to guide search engines in to land and take off with guaranteed sitepage ascent to Google No.1.
Neither attitude shows much real understanding of today's savvy search and social follower / site visitor. Niche community audiences thrive on enthralling original content, and not just the once in a blue moon cheesy tweet, e.g. five reasons why Acme widgets are good for you!
Contrary to the well circulated and long embedded myth, visitors do read the longer blog or developed article if it's interesting, informative or entertaining - and easy to read. Website copy needs to be short, clear and to the point for fast eye scanning and skim reading by impatient visitors or prequalified prospects on a mission. Social, shareable content should be thought-provoking and making a point rather than obviously selling or shining up the brand identity.
The infrequent tweet or uploaded pic on Facebook which does share another site's interesting content tends to be viewed more as a link to the far more interesting source. While this might shore up perception as a trusted provider of information, it's not likely to position the brand as an original thought leader in the way a consistent production of blogs and articles can build credibility.
Ultimately, to ramp up a brand's quality content publishing needs a firm commitment to time and resources, which is notoriously difficult for SME and midsized enterprise, alike. It's a challenge that's not going away any time soon as the social web continues to change the shape of future eCommerce and how audiences find and interact online, on mobile and via social networks.
Content is more than king, it's emperor elect of user search and social!