Bill Gates definitely struck gold when he famously quoted ‘Content is King’ in 1996. What he and also the world couldn’t fathom was the rise of the humble content to being highly regarded as one of the best ways to build a brand. The power of words has surely surpassed the mere scale of imagination to reach an apogee of creation in mankind as we remain awestruck in its power to gather leads, drive sales and in turn, empower lives. The advent of the internet has certainly spurred it, although content marketing is as old as time itself. So, if we had to build a timeline, it would probably look like the one below:
1993 – The birth of e-book
One of the first pieces digitized content to surface in the periphery of our vision was an e-book published by O’Reilly & Associates, who had also created the first ever commercial website. This book was lapped up by organizations at a frenzied pace, as a novelty had come to town. Look at the irony of life- their e-book was a how-to-guide of the internet, showing companies how to publish content online.
1998 – The upsurge of bloggers
Blogging has provided a necessary boost to take content marketing into contention. Initially used as a leisurely tool of self expression, the world of blogging witnessed a shocker as journalists started using it as a tool to report stories, instantaneously. In 1999, blogging got a MVP status as Blogger came into inception, urging people to blog left and right. As result by 2001, people were creating building their own revolution and credibility of blogger’s opinion was carved on limestone.
2003 – Social paid us a visit
Oh- things get interesting as me reminiscence the birth of Myspace and Orkut. MySpace kicked off the social media boom as kids and adults worth their cool got into the idea of “going online”. Orkut was launched by Google and social media reached a new jumpstart as “scraps” and “testimonials” gathered a new meaning. Then came the big daddy of all- Facebook and it soon took over as the top social media site and it is still regarded as the most successful social platform to date. Twitter and Linkedin followed a few years later and marketers’ dawn on the idea of utilizing these sites could be to push out their content, capitalizing on reach.
2005 – The year of the video
Radio gaga has reached its descent as YouTube came into the picture, giving a rise to video-based stories. The demand for visual content has grown immensely since then and marketers have harnessed this greatly to push the envelope.
2012 – Hello, infographics!
The era of infographic came into being as Google released the penguin algorithm, marketing it as one of the fundamental rules that businesses needed to adhere to if they wanted to come out on top. Infographics are now viewed as a valuable business tool as they have the power to enhance the capabilities of content to newer levels. With a high demand for bite-sized digestible chunks of information, companies have a great opportunity to garner wider appeal.
Present day content
Phew- we have come a long way in actualizing the “content is king” adage, where content makes up 90% of marketer’s plans. We hope to see greater evolutions on how content is perceived, giving rise to seamless dissemination that has the power to incite and inspire.
