Now That's What I Call Content Volume 1

Content, content, content. It's all anyone ever seems to talk about these days. And yet, while everyone knows they want content, you'll rarely find anyone able to succinctly explain what it is.

As someone who’s been a paid, professional writer for almost a decade, and who’s also picked up some passable skills with video and design here and there during that time too, I've sat back and watched the world of online - in particular SEO - become increasingly obsessed with all things creative... Handily combining all those things and more into one easy-to-digest category, ‘content’.

What frustrates the creative in me though, is that ten years ago many of the people banging the drum loudest about content today couldn’t have cared less about the quality of the design, copy and video being produced by the specialists in their teams. All they wanted was keyword-stuffed copy and tagged-up images to blast off to whatever sites were willing to post the links, leaving them free to craft ugly spreadsheets to further bewilder their clients on the subject of SEO – a subject, it was silently implied, no mere mortal could possibly understand.

I’ve sat perplexed in meeting rooms where SEOs with no writing experience talked about ‘spun content’ and new techniques for perfectly-optimised sentences. I’ve read articles claiming to offer easy SEO fixes and ways to implement paid links without getting penalised by Google. I’ve seen blogs about SEO being dead, content being king and enough subsequent killings and crownings to fill six seasons of Game of Thrones. I’ve watched House SEO look to House Marketing for familial alliances, House Marketing tackle House PR over old unresolved grudges and House PR challenge House SEO for sovereign client territory – while all three attempted to win the marital hand of Lady Social Media.

And the problem I’ve noticed, is that while many of the people involved in this battle for client budget are often fuelled by enthusiasm, they rarely go into the field equipped with the expertise needed to cross over into each different specialism. And that’s what all these things are. SEO is a specialism, marketing is a specialism, PR is a specialism. Likewise, writing is a specialism, and so too is design, video and audio production. And it's my opinion that every one of these things should be respected as a craft, rather than bundled together into one phrase used to push words and pictures as some sort of hot new marketing tool for 2016.

This week I lectured to a room full of first year students at Manchester Metropolitan University about blogging, social media and content of all shapes and sizes and how each has been ‘adopted and adapted’ by brands to serve their commercial needs. I talked about those that have done it well, those that have done it badly and tried to advise on the skills they might want to turn into specialisms one day if they want a worthwhile media career. And how did I summarise that advice about mastering the craft of art and copy? With some shiny new buzzword-infused 'thought leadership' piece? Some insightful interactive 'micro moment'? No. I did it with a quote from legendary 1950s and 60s ad man Howard Gossage, which was uttered decades ago and is somehow more relevant today than it has ever been.

"People don't read ads. They read what interests them and sometimes that's an ad."

Good copy and good design will never go out of fashion, but words like ‘content’ will disappear once the spreadsheet pushers need to a sexy new buzzword to sell to their jaded clients. And I know what you’re thinking… my job title? Well unfortunately, our industry has done such a good job of condensing the various parts of my role into one word, that I’ve just had to go with it. But, when they let me call myself ‘Head Of Writing, Digital Bits, Social Stuff and Working Closely With People Better at Design Than Me’, I’ll gladly change my email signature.