WORKWEEK

A decade ago, when I left the media world to join tech as a content marketer, the internet was a different place. People frequented the homepages of their favorite publications––whether that was Mashable or a tech site’s blog like Shopify. 

Back then, blogging was what turned regular folks into influencers––and millionaires. Glossier went on to become a household brand name because of the blog that started it, Into the Gloss. Other bloggers, like Camille Styles, did similar work––and their sites are now full blown publications in their own right, often with ecommerce extensions. 

That began changing in 2015––as more and more folks landed on articles rather than homepages or category pages, thanks to Google’s search results. Thus followed the era of SEO, powered by what in hindsight seems best described as a Q&A philosophy. Someone asked a question on Google. Google served up the sites that it thought best answered said questions. 

On and on it went. 

Today, a blog feels antiquated in the face of social media prowess and the all mighty algorithm. A feed of reverse-chronologically published articles? Instagram could never. Audiences just don’t consume content that way anymore. 

While today people land on blogs to find answers to the questions they have, soon, they might not land on blogs at all as LLMs read and serve up summarized versions to audiences. Here’s a good tip from Deborah Carver on the importance of content marketers learning how NLP models read and categorize content to help prepare for this very near future. 

The truth is that very few people land on a blog to read a story anyway, which makes those AI summaries very effective for the end-user. For stories, folks are often looking to podcast platforms, email newsletters, or even social media itself. 

So, what can an editorially-inclined content marketer do to get their storytelling in front of an audience, where that audience is looking for it?

Right now, Substack looks to be a good bet. The platform feels like a mix between Medium and Tumblr, but more importantly, it’s where a lot of people go to read. 

Not to listen to a podcast. Not to watch a video. Not to scan a long LinkedIn post. 

People go to Substack to read stories with the expectation that the content may be longer form. 

Forerunner Ventures is doing a great job with theirs, and I don’t see many other brands taking advantage of the platform quite yet. There are fantastic influencers and thinkers on the platform that have built personal brands and publications––but companies could use this space in really cool ways, too. 

Even if it was to scrape through your content library, publish your best editorial pieces and grow an audience that becomes enamored with thet best of the best of your brand voice in a way that just doesn’t happen on blogs much anymore. 

Wrapping it all up 

Content marketing matured in a unique era in which content performed well on a company’s website. That wasn’t historically the case (as I discussed last week) and it might not be the case  moving forward. 

So, how are you using platforms to distribute your content, build adjacent audiences and grow your brand demand?