I love this post on slower content marketing creation from Nicola Brown. Nicola’s intro paragraphs calmed my heart rate with her story of an out-of-the-way, slow-moving UK village called Chipping.
She takes those lessons and asks the question: “Could a Slow Content Movement Be on the Horizon?”
“When it comes to planning an effective content marketing strategy, we are inevitably faced with the fact that we live in a world of severely reduced attention spans and instant gratification.”
This means that all our fast-produced content — blogs, newsletters, tweets, MORE MORE MORE — may be shooting us in the collective foot.
Instead of quantity, how about quality? Some of you will respond that content marketers should be doing both, and ideally yes. Perhaps. Certainly, you need to do enough so that your target market recognizes you. However, Nicola writes: “Marketers are constantly trying to come up with winning ideas that will make their content marketing strategies shine. They’re expected to deliver these continuous strokes of brilliance faster than they did before in shorter time periods. But what if we’re missing something here? What if the answer isn’t faster content? What if it’s just the opposite?”
She suggests that we start by making time for bigger, slower content ideas. Planning time is hard to come by when you’re looking at your dizzy content schedule. Give yourself a break and discuss longer-term content ideas, not just the daily grind. It’s harder to get to long-form because it takes more time and thought, but long-form may ultimately garner far more attention than a wagon load of weightless “content.”
Slow down, think deeply. Think in depth. What is the content’s significance? Why does it matter? Frankly, if “getting more page views” is your one and only goal, you’re missing the long game point.
Finally, she suggests that you knock off the multi-tasking. Personally, I have no idea how multi-tasking became a badge of honor. It’s OK for shallow one-off actions, not so good for thoughtful content that gets the world’s attention.