In these content marketing heavy times, it is important that companies don’t just ‘add to the noise’.

It’s easy to do.

Take the company that talks about itself all the time. On twitter it can’t stop updating with news about its latest clients, office gossip, and anything else that makes it’s loyal fans happy. Does that sound like good content marketing to you?

Or the company that has a blog that only ever updates with news about itself. This can mean anything from client case studies to pictures of its new office furniture (I’ve seen this happen a lot. It can get pretty ugly).

This has to stop.

Companies do indeed need to add content to their sites and other platforms on a daily basis. And there is a legitimate reason for every single company to do so. But you can’t just ‘talk about you’ all the time.

Been to a party recently? Remember those guys who just talked about their work, their latest purchase, the new phones they bought?

Is this what you are doing with content marketing?

Deliver value with content marketing, not noise

As professionals, we need to give people reason to think about us, and consider us when making purchases, but we also need to be nice to them. We need to create value.

When looking at the next phase of your content marketing strategy, consider the ratio of valuable, newsworthy content compared to content that is solely about you and your amazing company.

The news and industry content (or any other content that your market research has shown to be relevant to your customers) must far outweigh the ‘look at me’ content. I’m talking 80:20, and no more.

Is that possible? Definitely. There is a ton of stuff out there that you can be writing, tweeting and making videos about. It’s called the news.

Give your audience a break. Become a ‘media company’ and deliver the important news that your audience wants. Then add your own content about you, but sparingly.

Not convinced? Try this scenario.

At a party, whom would you rather talk to? The annoying, self-obsessed bore or the smiling, listening intelligent person who is genuinely interested in what you have to say?