10 content marketing myths to avoid

In every field there is herd mentality simply because it is much easier to follow a herd rather than chart your own path. Besides, we think that whatever the herd is doing might be the right way hence why not go that way? The problem is, when one of the sheep of the herd starts jumping over the cliff, sometimes all the sheep follow, including you. The same sort of mentality sometimes manifests in content marketing.

It is surprising that we are ready to put in more effort towards doing what others are doing whether they are doing it right or wrong rather than making an effort to understand exactly what our business requires. Every business has a unique content marketing requirement. So does your business. But are you losing the game simply because you are following the myths created or established by others? If this is the case, you might be wasting lots of money, time and worse, business.

This Business2Community blog post lists 10 content marketing myths that you can avoid and stay on the proper path. In brief, these myths are:

1. The more content you have the better it is: Well, sometimes it is true and sometimes it is not. Provided you can produce lots of targeted high-quality content and provided you have the budget, more content can certainly give you an edge, but if you are publishing content just for the sake of quantity, it does more harm than good.
2. Anybody can write content: Again, it depends on your ability to write, your experience as a professional writer and the time you have at hand. Content marketing is a full-time job better left to professionals. Simply because people can write a few sentences or a few paragraphs and sometimes a few blog posts, they get trapped in this notion that they can carry out the entire job of content writing and content marketing on their own.
3. Content marketing and content writing is the same thing: Just because you publish a blog doesn’t mean you’re doing content marketing. As the world goes, you need to market the content and just as you need to do multiple things in order to market something, the same is applicable to content marketing.
4. Content should be cheap: Why? It’s a business asset, just like your website. In fact your content is the most precious thing you have because people do business with you after they are exposed to your content. Getting cheap content means considering your business a cheap proposition.
5. It’s just about creating great content: Although having great content on your website is the topmost requirement if you want to execute an effective content marketing strategy, marketing per se, as already mentioned in bullet 3, is a lot more than that.
6. Content marketing is just a fad: Well, you think that? All the best with your business, really.
7. Content marketing isn’t for every business: It is a very potent tool and it depends on individuals and businesses how they use it. It isn’t about whether content marketing is for your business or not, it’s about whether you can use content marketing for your business or not.
8. You can use automated tools to carry out content marketing: I’m not totally against using automation tools like scheduling when your message is broadcast or scheduling when your email marketing campaign is triggered, but if you’re using automated tools to generate content for your content marketing, this is a sure shot way to fail. Content is all about human beings because it is produced for human beings.
9. Content marketing is a separate, unrelated business operation: It is not. Everybody needs to get involved otherwise it becomes difficult to create valuable content.
10. Content marketing needs to generate sales otherwise it’s a flop: The purpose of content marketing is of course to enhance your business presence but it rarely happens that it contributes towards an increase in sales directly. It solidifies your presence and it helps people engage with you. It increases your brand presence. It helps you get more leads.