What’s the Best Content?

What’s the best content? Content the viewer Shares, Likes, Follows, Subscribes to, and Comments on is the best content. Picture this. Year’s ago the United States Coast Guard might post an ad in a newspaper to enlist and serve because the nation, our home, needs people to protect and defend the coastline. Today’s marketing efforts may blog a post with a similar message. Perhaps that message will resonate with the website visitor who already wants to serve. But what about the person who loves the sea and would consider but never thought about serving. How do we convert that person?

The Coast Guard has a proud and distinguished history. And along with it thousands of stories, images, and videos. Archives that could serve as the backbone for decades of content. Imagine a story line about the history of lifeboats, lifeboat technology, the men and women of the US Coast Guard involved in lifeboats, and the evolution of the role of the US Coast Guard over time. These story lines with accompanied images and videos turn the US Coast Guard blog into channels that live on the blog, RSS feeds, and social media networks like Facebook, Twitter, Linked In, and YouTube. By romanticizing the people and the mission these posts create reasons to stay on the website, revisit, and subscribe for updates.

Like all businesses and groups that have been around awhile, the US Coast Guard has a story to tell and the more graphically and colorfully they tell the story the more it comes to life. This type of approach creates stickiness, (people staying on the website longer), organic SEO, (as the authority on the history of the US Coast Guard), and referrals, (as visitors share with others they think will be interested.)

Content that elicits a response is the best content and that content is the content that tells the most compelling story.