Growing up in a Polish family, healthy eating was part of my upbringing. My parents swore by garlic and hot tea as the remedy for every flu-like symptom. Think back to the meaning of Windex in “My Big Fat Greek Wedding,” and you’ll understand what I’m talking about.
Now, I avoid unnatural, processed foods as often as possible — and for good reason. They’ve become a visible threat to the population. Just as organic, unmanufactured elements matter in our food supply and overall well-being, they’re essential in the health of your content.
Once you've experienced the taste of granola bars made from scratch with just five ingredients or read a savory, educational article that hooked you from start to finish, you'll understand the difference. It's quality.
This might be difficult to hear, but if you’re too focused on sugarcoated headlines and salty promotional plugs, it’s time for a detox, my friends. So scoop yourself a bowl of homemade kale chips, and take a seat.
When Quality Meets Trust
During my morning routine of checking my Techmeme and Prismatic dashboards, I’m always impressed with the content I receive. I trust that it will challenge my thinking and teach me something new, and that’s exactly why I continue to use these resources.
One way I know that I’ve found high-quality content is when I subscribe to a blog or site and actually open the emails. I’m happy to admit that after signing up to receive Mark Manson’s articles, I open his emails 100 percent of the time, without fail.
If this doesn’t surprise you, it should. Consider your own inbox. It’s likely cluttered with content you’ve subscribed to but have chosen not to read (or worse, deleted).
Mark’s emails stand out because I know that each time I open one, it will instantly draw me in and provide unmatched value. And most of the time, the article he links to is just as good. Attracting subscribers and advocates is all about building trust and consistently delivering insightful content.
Figure out what quality you can provide, and share it through your content.
Build Influence With Fresh Content
I’m not saying that high-quality content is easy to produce. I’ll admit that I struggle with it myself, just as I do with clean eating (it takes much longer to make a cauliflower-crust pizza than to buy a frozen one). But there’s no sense in churning out useless information that no one’s going to find valuable.
That’s at the heart of what building influence is all about. Just look at the influencers leading your space and other industries. My guess is they’re inciting conversations with their community through educational, thought-provoking content. They’re listening, but they’re also teaching.
Here are a few actionable tricks our team uses to keep our content fresh and engaging:
1. Read something interesting.
I’m completely aware that this is an obvious answer, but it’s easy to forget amid a full day of work, fitness classes, pets to tend to, and good ole relaxation. Reading articles or books that reveal new or exciting ideas can instantly inspire new topics.
After I started reading “The Art of Thinking Clearly” by Rolf Dobelli, my mind began racing with ideas. I highly recommend reading it if you’re stuck in a writing rut. In fact, one concept that sparked my interest was the sunk cost fallacy. So I decided to write “The Sunk Cost Fallacy and Why Marketers Are Getting Duped” to share what I learned. And this has been my most successful post on the Influence & Co. blog yet.
I can’t attribute all of my article’s success to the concept, but it’s a marketing angle that hasn’t been written on before, which is always an advantage. So start consuming new content, and apply the ideas to your own industry or profession. You’ll likely come up with some pretty creative stuff.
2. Find ways to make research fun.
Finding time to read is difficult. If you struggle with this as much as I do, consider podcasts or audio books. If you typically commute more than 30 minutes a day, this is a great way to maximize that time.
I recently published an article on native advertising. While developing that post, I spent an entire morning listening to various podcasts and clips about the debate. Rather than reading 20 or more articles on the topic, I mixed in other media, which made the research process more enjoyable and the information much easier to consume and understand.
But it doesn’t have to be podcasts. You can watch TED Talks online (the Influence & Co. team loves a good TED Talk), consume your news via video (my No. 1 source is Newsy), or discover other forms of media that your go-to thought leaders publish on.
3. Dig into data, or go get your own.
Looking to relevant, quality data is one of the best ways to get ideas flowing. A solid statistic is practically a topic in itself — you can use it to support or refute an argument. Consistently doing research will force you to educate yourself and actively think through the state of your industry.
If you’re ambitious, consider conducting your own research and turning it into a report or survey that your readers will find valuable.
After considering our audience, we decided to tap into our publication relationships to help readers understand what editors are looking for in article submissions. We surveyed more than 150 editors to get their exclusive insights on the dos and don’ts of pitching contributed content. To read the full report, click here.
4. Encourage others to contribute.
I manage all internal content for the Influence & Co. blog, and I would be lost without my awesome co-workers who get excited to contribute. I actually wrote about this in one of my posts, “Content Isn’t a One-Woman Show,” if you want more tips on encouraging your team to write.
Getting your team to publish content is a powerful branding tactic and a great way to boost employee engagement, whether it’s on your blog or external publications. Together, you can harness far more insights than any one employee alone. Plus, it takes the burden off of one person’s shoulders (I’m raising my glass, if you couldn’t tell) and ensures that the content you publish is original.
Quality will never steer you wrong. Whether you’re shopping for groceries or planning your company’s content strategy, make quality a priority. Skip the processed foods, and add more veggies. Nix the useless promotional material, and opt for sharing insights on a topic that will awe your readers. Give your audience a reason to subscribe or bookmark because that’s what builds trust and sets your company up for long-term success.
