The single biggest risk to your content marketing “strategy”

For most small and medium-sized businesses, this one channel is usually a social media platform - typically Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn.

Their content marketing “strategy”, for want of a better term, is laser-focused on just one channel at the expense of others.

That’s not to say we don’t understand why. We get it - time, know-how and a multitude of other competing priorities that businesses face mean it can be hard enough to consistently use one channel well, let alone 2-3.

But having this one dimensional approach poses major risks for businesses because you’re essentially at the whim of these platforms. For example:

1. Some platforms have experienced extended outages, meaning businesses are cut off from their audiences if they don’t have another avenue of communication, such as email marketing or a second social media platform.

2. Some platforms have banned totally legitimate accounts - the most high profile example of this recently was when Australian news sites were blocked. Imagine, you’ve built an army of followers but then your account is blocked - we’ve seen it happen to all types of completely legitimate businesses!

3. As platforms evolve and change, you’re completely reliant on their rules and the type of content they want you to produce - not everyone is into dance routines!

Taking a sustainable approach

We’re all for sustainable content marketing, because the truth is if you can’t manage it over the medium-to-long term, you’re only setting yourself up for failure.

But ‘sustainable’ doesn’t mean you should just focus on one channel.

You should also be thinking about how you’re going to generate the most impact from the content you produce.

For example, how can you leverage your content across multiple channels with some fine tuning?

For a little bit of extra effort, you can repurpose your existing content on a completely different channel.

This will immediately derisk your reliance on just one channel - not to mention the benefits it might have in terms of reaching new customers!

Start small and grow from there

You don’t need to overcommit yourself and start using every single digital channel there is.

But start with one, and grow it from there.

You might want to incorporate a second social media channel; maybe you want to start building your email list and using email marketing; or perhaps you can better utilise your website and drive more traffic to it via SEO.

Whatever you do, don’t leave all your eggs in one basket - the risks of relying on a one-dimensional content strategy are too great.