The Daily Carnage

While you’re waiting around for AI to be smart enough to create all of your blogs, infographics, and ebooks for you… there’s always time to adjust your approach to content marketing. Here are 9 content marketing myths for a quick gut-check:

1. Producing content doesn’t make you an authority on your industry. To rank as a thought leader, your publishing schedule must be consistent, and your content must be high-quality enough to be cited by other reliable sources.
2. A simple blog is not enough. Your blog is just one of the pillars holding up your brand, and it should be fortified with keyword research and analysis, customer support, and original content that ladders back up to your brand purpose.
3. More is not more. Instead of struggling to produce an unsustainable volume of content, focus on offering genuinely helpful, well-researched content at regular intervals to boost your reputation and increase conversions.
4. Not everything should be automated. Know when to delegate tasks to automation platforms and AI, and know when to show up and be available for spontaneous engagement and viral opportunities.
5. Keep tweaking. “If it’s not broke, don’t fix it” doesn’t apply. What worked well for your business or brand in Q1 may be tired strategy by next Q2.
6. Content marketing is not advertising. This is not the channel for hard selling, but for building relationships. You can create a conversion funnel from your content, but it is going to be a longer funnel.
7. Don’t focus on link building alone. Your first priority should be to create content with depth, interest, and relevance to your audience. From there comes authority, search engine prominence, and backlinks.
8. Virality isn’t everything. Simply put: your content isn’t a failure if it doesn’t go viral.
9. This work isn’t easy. It’s a tall order to be an expert, a creative, and a strategist in one. Don’t underestimate the challenge, and keep yourself sharp with resources and training.

Check out the full scoop on Search Engine Watch.

Content marketing — the creating and sharing of relevant and entertaining text-based, video, and audio content to attract and retain a defined audience — is an indispensable part of any digital marketing and SEO strategy for businesses big and small. By now, everyone knows it. But we love data around here. So what’s the math behind the strategy? Here are some top stats to consider:

• Everyone’s doing it. 73% of B2B marketers and 70% of B2C marketers use content marketing as part of their overall marketing strategy.
• Shooting from the hip? Just 40% of B2B marketers have a documented content marketing strategy; 33% have an undocumented strategy, and 27% have no strategy at all.
• It’s hard to keep up. Half of all marketers say they outsource some content marketing.
• Take your time. 83% of marketers believe it’s more effective to create higher quality content less often.
• Word count counts. Short content (300–900 words) attracts 21% less traffic and 75% fewer backlinks than articles of average length (900–1200 words).
• Distill your message. Buyers are willing to spend 5 minutes or less consuming most content formats.
• More for less. Content marketing generates 3x as many leads as traditional outbound marketing but costs 62% less.
• What’s your budget? 22% of B2B marketers said they spent 50% or more of their total marketing dollars on content marketing.

So, how do you stack up? When you build a documented strategy, produce high-quality content, distribute it on the right channels, and provide consistent value to your customers, you can triple your returns.

Check out 22 more content marketing statitics at Search Engine Journal.