And it’s official: the word ‘content’ is just too generic

So you’re watching a cooking show and the chef tells you, ‘Now, take some ingredients — you know, good ingredients — mix them together, bake at 350 degrees for an hour.  Viola!'

Or you go to a car dealership and tell the first person you meet, ‘I want to buy a car, a really good car… today.' You’d probably get lots of attention, but it’s doubtful you’re going to get what you need.

Let's face it, like the words 'ingredients' and 'car,' the word content has simply become too generic to be out there on its own.

Content can mean so many things, including: the words on a (digital or printed) page, a photograph, video, movie, story, poem, bumper sticker, billboard, text message, tweet, email, even some commandments carved out of a stone tablet.

It’s all content.

So talking about content alone — especially in the marketing world — just isn’t helpful anymore. But don’t despair, it’s not the end of the marketing world.

All you need to do is provide some context. Are you talking about marketing your brand with content? That’s Content Marketing. Are you talking about defining how your content will be used? That’s Content Strategy. Where and how your content is stored? Content Management. See how it works?

Here’s a handy-dandy chart designed to help:

Doing this?                                                                     Call it this!

Using content to market your brand	Content Marketing
Defining how your content is to be used	Content Strategy
Deciding where & how your content is stored	Content Management
Choosing how content will promote your brand	Content Marketing Strategy
Using others’ content to promote your brand	Content Curation
Allowing others to use your content	Content Syndication
Delivering your content to others	Content Distribution
Determining how your content will be delivered	Content Distribution Strategy

See? It’s easy. So the next time you’re using the word content, please give some thought to including context so your audience will know exactly what you mean.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m late for my cooking class. Ciao!