Content outsourcing – How demand is raising the bar for content quality
“Content is King” may be creating a lot of demand, but not much attention seems to be being given to the fact that content quality is now a major issue. The days when semi-coherent, gushy babble were new are long gone. A requirement for technical and conceptual levels of interest is now the key to content value. Try writing a piece about how cute a business mobile is, and listen to the wind wailing in the silent blog responses.
Content outsourcing issues
Content outsourcers don’t outsource for the sheer intellectual stimulus of the process. They need content value, and they above all need traffic generated by content. The net and other media are now primarily information sources, and non-information isn’t exactly welcome.
Content is really commercial product in multiple forms:
- Site content
- Business content
- User information
- Technical information
- Reviews and commentary on products
- Consumer issues content
- Entertainment value
These are the things on which all commercial products are based. In marketing terms, they cover all elements of the primary needs of marketing and promotion. They also allow invaluable feedback, something that’s never happened before on anything like the modern scale.
The unintentional democratization of the markets by the internet has also created a value for things which previously didn’t have values- Opinions. Microsoft’s Vista debacle, for example, proved that the net could vote down a major product overnight.
Content values
The big cultural shift is based on a new standard of quality control, driven by users. To connect at all, content must engage, but it also has to engage on a meaningful level. People cannot be forced to look at anything online. So it’s a buyer’s market, in terms of content values.
The demand issues are further qualified by demand for another type of value- Expertise. The net audience is now defined by core specializations as much as the markets themselves. Core users are experts. They want expert level content, and the equations are inevitable- If you want users, you provide the right content for these people. If you want a dead blog or commercial site on your hands, don’t provide value to users.
The content value changes are visible. If you look at early web content, it’s almost farcical, amateurish, common knowledge dressed up as content. You couldn’t do with that on a modern site. This type of content would be avoided at gunpoint.
The apparent superficiality of some web content is very misleading. The dress-up presentation is still there, but the emphases have changed beyond all recognition. You might have a flashy video, etc, but it’s expected to be worth looking at. If not, YouTube can fill the gaps. You might have a celebrity blog, but so does every media outlet on Earth. You want readers, you better provide good content.
The advertising industry, an unlikely savior of anything, has been partly responsible for this uncharacteristic flight to relevance. If you’re trying to sell business mobile phones, forget about “whiter and brighter” as a sales angle. Users want and need information. The old advertising saying, “Who needs it?” has provided an unequivocal answer to web content issues.
Go looking for good outsource content, and you’ll get good results.
colin
January 17, 2011 at 4:47 pm //
l like hard sell on the internet,-always the bottom line please. l have to say that every internet contact l have ever had that resulted in me parting with my cash was based on value for money and some of my largest purchases came from sites with hardly any content except the hard facts.