Strike a Personal/Professional Balance in Content Marketing?

Professional writing may be one of the most underappreciated skills in the business community today. While people consume more content than ever before, the quality of the work is declining while the quantity rises exponentially. Many factors are driving those changes.

AI should receive much of the blame, especially in the IT industry with all the online resources and communities available to feed the algorithms that can create a virtually endless stream of content. Anyone with a subscription to Copilot or ChatGPT can whip up a rough draft of a 650-word (or more) article in five minutes or less. The more detailed your query, the greater the amount of information these tools should identify and share in an organized story format.?????

Of course, the obvious AI-generated text patterns and lack of personal insight contained in those lines may be of questionable value to readers with expertise in that specific topic. Tech-related marketers must be particularly careful not to underestimate the experience and knowledge level of their target audience. Over-reliance on AI tools will weaken your message, cause a disconnect with followers and current and potential customers and compromise your team’s branding efforts.????

Quality content requires knowledge and heart. Inflecting personal observations and ideas into articles and reports augments the technical and business-related details, creating a more engaging and meaningful experience for the reader. AI has no experiences to share. While it can be a useful tool for identifying and organizing the written (or verbal) thoughts of the experts, professional writers understand the value of the individual words and phrases that appeal most to their readers. Successful technology marketing leaders understand that higher-caliber work creates a more impactful thought leadership experience and generates greater engagement and awareness opportunities for their companies.????????

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Balancing Demand and Production?

The rush to create more resources often compromises the quality of the content produced. Quantity demands should never infringe on your company’s brand standards, and ensuring that the output is valuable and engaging for the focus audiences is just as essential.

The most difficult thing is inflecting the voice of the organization and its key thought leaders into that content without compromising your corporate integrity or marketing objectives. Highlighting industry and community support helps ensure a positive and professional tone. Avoiding politics and controversial topics (unless they are key to the mission or values of key stakeholders) will keep your audience more focused on the messaging that matters.???

Effective marketing requires effective conversation with prospective audiences. How can your team catch the interest of prospects and industry thought leaders? Which stories will connect the dots and get readers to take some type of action, such as attending a webinar, filling out a lead form or visiting your booth at an industry trade show???

Here are a few ideas to increase your chances of making one or more of those things happen:???

• Provide personal examples.?Sharing individual stories and case studies helps illustrate points and make content more practical, actionable and engaging. Allowing readers to envision how a?product, service or program could work for their businesses can strengthen their?consideration of?your offerings. ?
• Share individual observations and ideas: Writing from a thought leadership perspective adds value to your content marketing plans. For example, professionals with firsthand experience of a technology or concept have?greater credibility?than less accomplished authors and can?better describe the impact of the solution on the organization.?
• Promote quality over quantity: When launching a new product or service, tech companies often create a variety of content, including press releases, contributed articles, blogs and social media posts. Attempting to produce too many pieces with too few resources is certain to compromise quality, so prioritizing and focusing on the most important content is essential. Stories that highlight features, benefits and use cases are of greater value to readers than pieces that just add to the noise.
• Emphasize company values: When writing about achievements or milestones, it's important to maintain a consistent tone that reflects the company's values and mission. For instance, if your tech company prides itself on innovation and customer-centricity, the content should highlight these aspects through stories and examples demonstrating how the business lives?up to these values.?
• Leverage industry and community relationships/ activities: Highlighting partnerships or collaborations with other tech?leaders adds depth to your content. For example, if the organization recently partnered with a respected peer to develop a new solution, emphasizing the relationship will drive reader interest and enhance credibility.?
• Inject fun and humor: A?little levity makes the content more engaging and enjoyable to read. For instance, a blog post about common IT challenges could include light-hearted anecdotes or humorous but respectful observations about the quirks of working in the tech industry. This approach can make the content more relatable and memorable.?

Proficient writing requires a purpose and plan. Incorporating the personal element into your content development strategy will help drive interest and engagement and ensure the information resonates with the intended audience.