Good Content is the New Black

There's more to Content Marketing than Content and Marketing.

And how to explain to people that we are not a Graphic Design studio.

Netflix's Orange is the New Black is the perfect example of quality content that has driven people to use Netflix.

Image Source: https://plus.google.com/u/0/+OITNB/photos

Just the other day something happened again, it really shouldn't have happened in the first place, but in truth about once a week or so it happens.

And its always awkward at best.  But essentially what happens is, we get mistaken for graphic designers.  And when I step back, it's easy enough to see why it happens, especially when we are talking about infographics.  But the truth is, we are the new advertisers, we make pretty things, because people like pretty things, and we like people liking our work.

The new truth is, it is about them.  The customer, the net-izens, the groups, the targets of everything that we do, we care about them, we get to know what they want, we try to give it to them.

Netflix is a great example of this.  They have attained such a prominent position in media delivery and they wanted you to pay them to see it.  But they didn't ask you to, didn't pressure you, they gave you shows like Orange is the New Black and House of Cards, they made something that people wanted, without telling people to want them. Brilliant execution of content creation.

In our opinion Content Marketing isn't just giving people content, its about giving them content that they want.  And this is why what we do is so much more than graphic design. And why it is very awkward when clients ask us to make an infographic, use their corporate colors and really brand the tits off the thing, because we can do that, and we do do that all the time for projects that are to be used internally, or generally anywhere it would make sense to do so.  The problem is they want this piece of creative to go viral, a heavily branded piece of marketing collateral, and they want us to make it easily shareable, but without really thinking about why someone would share it.  Not going to touch the idea of what is 'share worthy' in this post, but let's suffice it to say that this wasn't.

The project quickly turned into why company A is better than company B, and again I think there is a way to make a viral infographic with that premise, but it would have to pit at least one big company that people knew about, or at least a company that people are polarized about, again it wasn't.

I think one of the biggest missteps that happens, is that companies are realizing that they need to be producing content, and that they want interactions on social media, and here is where it becomes a beast with two left feet, they think about what they want people to share, and try to make content that furthers their message.

But the idea is to give them something they want first, make them interested, give them something that they would want to give to their friends, think of that first, and then show them something that has your message.

And I'm not even positive about that last bit.

Brandon Rossen is the Chief Creative at Hot Butter Studio (@brandonrossen)