6 cardinal content marketing sins brands commit!

Kaushik Tiwari, Head Marketing at Matrimony.com, shares cardinal content marketing sins that brands tend to commit. Are you a sinner?

Social media is a good channel for marketers, but they could dilute their efforts if they don’t care for a few things. What’s on social must be an extension of the regular brand image and it can succeed when there’s a perfect fit between offline and online activities. The content strategy must align with business goals. Thoroughly researched content revolving around customer problems goes a long way in helping brands succeed on social media.

However, very few brands understand this and often end up committing cardinal content marketing sins that might actually work negatively for the brand. Take a look at these sins, and make sure you're not one of the sinners.

 1. Not enough researched content to befit the brand

Often we find that the herd mentality kicks in when a social experiment or campaign succeeds, and everyone rushes to replicate it. Many try to follow the most liked content and create similar posts. But well-researched content that fits the brand perfectly is the need of the hour. While daily posts to engage are fine, there needs to be a deeper engagement strategy.

2. Brand synergies between offline and online

The brand image created offline must be seamlessly carried forward online too through their content. Often on online, it’s diluted due to a lack of synergy and strategy.

3. Not creating content to resolve customer challenges

Most brands rely on free content and do not create content specific to challenges faced by the audience. Sticky content must be crafted or curated to connect with the users.

4. Not creating conversations through content

Social is not a one-way channel. Brands can’t just push occasional content pieces and hope to leverage social media. They have to create meaningful conversations through their campaigns and deeply engage their fans. Brands mush research into challenges faced by their customers and collaborate with fans to create meaningful conversations.

5. Brands are not responsive, but reactive

Content will invite reactions. Businesses must care for customers and engage with them to resolve issues if any. Listen to resolve challenges, not respond to queries or complaints that appear on a certain piece of contents. And treat fans as collaborators. That’s something missing in most places.

 6. Obsession with viral content

Every business we hear is looking to create viral content. The obsession is hard to understand. A brand must focus on creating good content all the time, there’s no agency that can guarantee virality on social media. Keep doing good stuff, build your follower base, network with influencers and engage and when your content is awesome, it’ll go viral.