#Infographic of the Week: The Gold Standard of Content Marketing

In my ongoing quest for quality infographics, I love it when I come across one that simplifies a process many before have over complicated. Content marketing is a hot topic these days and with 3 in 5 content marketers spending more on content marketing in 2012, as highlighted by this infographic, it’s clear that if you want your content to get found, read and shared online, you need to be thinking about this stuff too.

As the team at NewsReach point out, “Content Marketing is about the most effective way to harness content’s ubiquity and power. Individual pieces of content work to attract and engage web users, but when the pieces are combined, the effect can be dramatic.”

I also like this infographic because it relates to all content. For example, let’s look at this from the point of writing press releases:

Original, Insightful, Comprehensive and Interesting ­– Hopefully a bit of a no-brainer. If you are writing press releases, you need to make sure that they are interesting and original. You don’t want to be copying from others, and you want to try to avoid the stale corporate speak. Think about storytelling.

In-depth, Rich & Accurate – When writing a press release, you want to provide enough information to prove useful, but you don’t want to over do it. Think about 400 or so words, and make sure your content is truthful. Don’t exaggerate or lie. Readers aren’t stupid, and you’ll pay for it in the long run.

Edited Well & No Spelling Errors – Journalists definitely won’t be interested if your press releases are filled with spelling and grammar errors, and neither will the general consumer. My team has made thousands of grammar and spelling catches this year, which is a great kudos for my team, but a worrying sign for those producing the content initially.

Unique & Well Presented – While there is only so much you can do with a press release, you can still ensure that your announcement is both unique and well presented. A great way to do this is by adding multimedia content, which increases the chance of your press releases being shared. Ever wondered what a well presented release looks like? Check these sexy examples from adidas, Reebok and Johnnie Walker. I bet even though many of you don’t read Chinese, you’ll all agree that these are unique and definitely well presented. Needless to say, the content was very popular across a variety of social media platforms.

Track Consumption & How it was Shared – One of the great things we are doing at PR Newswire now is helping clients monitor and track how their press releases are being consumed and shared. ROI is a big part of what we do here now, and that’s because we understand it’s a very serious part of your job too. That said, irrelevant of whether or not you use PR Newswire, you need to be able to track and monitor across a number of platforms.

It’s for these reasons that the below is my #Infographic of the Week: