I post regularly, and with a real passion, about the importance of producing high quality content. It is certainly important to clients of our content marketing agency, who want their material to be shared (and of course, all absolutely do!), so it has to be good enough to rise above today’s digital din. It’s all about quality, quality, quality!
OR… maybe there’s another factor at work here.
What is a Heroic Brand?
As I’ve stated before, I’m a fan and follower of social media and content marketing expert Mark W. Schaefer. His book called The Content Code is never far from my desk, as it contains more inbound marketing insights than would seem possible to cram into 240 pages.
In flipping back through it recently I reread a section that struck me even more strongly than it had the first time. In it, Mark shares a story about a blogger named Chris Brogan who once received a ton of positive buzz from a little 37-word post that provided a very common sense tip about how to give presentations from a slide deck.
Mark explained that he was puzzled by the reaction to this piece of content that probably couldn’t be called “high quality” or even “very informative.” After thinking about it and discussing it with others, he settled on the explanation that Chris Brogan has a “heroic brand”—a persona that people respect and identify with, and consequently want to share pretty much anything he says.
Creating Your Heroic Brand
It seems that content marketing success is about more than just great content. While most marketers have a keen sense of what branding is, this notion of a “heroic brand” is new to many. So what is it, and how do you create a heroic brand? Well, Mark’s book goes into great detail, but I’ll summarize.
- Establish congruity. Make sure all the content you produce is an accurate reflection of who you (as a company) are and what you believe in. People share information most readily from people or organizations they trust.
- Be prepared to do the work. Our heroes, in any area of life, are people who have worked hard to master their craft. We respect that about them.
- Find your It Factor. What is it that sets your company apart? Something you do just a little differently than others? Find that thing and emphasize it so people see you as an original.
- Where’s the break? In addition to their own hard work, heroes almost always get a “break” somewhere along the line, often from their connection with a mentor or influencer. Don’t be afraid to look for people like that who can give your brand a boost.
- Become a servant leader. You want to know the quickest way to make people like and respect you? It’s not “impress them with our accomplishments.” The answer is to serve them. Help ‘em out anyway you can, as often as you can, without expecting anything in return. And the returns will come.
- Market yourself. Of course you’re marketing yourself, but are you doing it the right way. If you’re talking about demonstrable facts (we’ve been in business for 25 years and have more than 75 FDA-certified offerings in our product line) rather than arguable attributes (we’re the best/fastest/most cost-effective), you’re on the right track.
- Connect in a human way. No question about it, we’re all pretty tired of being sold to by faceless entities. We want the organizations we do business with to be more approachable and more human-like.
Let’s Make You a Hero!
When you’re ready to take your brand and your business to new, heroic levels, we can help. We’ve been doing that for companies for more than two decades. We’re an inbound marketing agency with clients nationwide and staff in Colorado Springs, CO, Olympia, WA, and Springfield, MO. Let’s talk about your marketing goals and how we can help you achieve them.
