2 Reasons Why Content Matters
As a senior Organizational Communication student, I have lost count on how many times our professors drilled into our minds the importance of stakeholder analysis. Across our many different subjects, the emphasis placed on understanding stakeholders never faltered - whether it be in our public relations class or in our latest lectures about communication trends and styles.
In the simplest terms, stakeholder analysis is engaging the right people in the right way in a certain project. Who are your stakeholders? What do they want? What do they like? What do they dislike? What makes them tick? Asking such questions and getting the right answers can go a long way. It can serve as a strong foundation for your project - be it as a communications plan, a public relations plan, or even a simple newsletter.
With a well-understood stakeholder analysis comes great content.
Among the benefits of knowing your stakeholders, the best thing it can provide you is an unshakable basis for your content. Powerful substance can only be formed through understanding your stakeholders. Knowing their attitudes and characteristics will enable you to come up with a content tailor-fitted for them. And when the message you try to communicate is in the same league as their interests, then it can only go uphill from there.
Some people believe that, "It doesn't matter what you're saying - it's whether you can sell it."
I beg to disagree. This article is written to disprove this misconception, and to establish the importance of good content. Let me take you to two main reasons why you should mind your content more than anything else.
1) Compelling content drives engagement.
Communication is a two-way process. Exchange of ideas should be done both ways - from the organization to the stakeholders and vice versa. Messages shouldn't be coming from the sender only. There has to be interaction. An atmosphere that allows both parties to express their opinion, feelings, and ideas should be fostered.
Compelling content can help you with that.
This is something I have just proved recently. I am fortunate to be a part of a team that qualified for the 2014 PR Students' Grand Prix finals. It is a competition which requires the contestants to come up with a PR plan for a certain entity. This year's theme is doing PR for the Public Relations Society of the Philippines (PRSP).
Among our tasks is to create social media accounts in line with our PR plan. Through our week-long experiment in Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, our team was able to discover one thing: compelling content drives engagement.
People responded to our accounts eagerly because we strive to keep our posts, tweets, and video grounded with substance. We aimed to send across messages that they would like and learn from. Their responses were overwhelming. All because we valued content.
And, let's be honest. Engagement is one of the most sought-after things of communicators. Establishing a relevant connection with your stakeholders is a key to success.
2) Substance increases the reliability of the organization/brand.
Good substance increases your credibility. If you work hard to put high importance to the content you bring to your stakeholders, it is no question that their trust in your organization/brand will shoot sky-high.
Using the same experience, in handling our team's Twitter account, we kept our tweets all about public relations. We tweet about tips, things to keep mindful of, and things to avoid. We were open to questions, and we replied to our mentions. We engaged with our audience while valuing substance at the same time.
To our surprise, international PR professional started following us. People start to trust our campaign handle as proved by the surge of followers.
Our team's reliability increased because we were consistent. We clearly expressed to our audience who we are, what we aim to do, and what we want while considering their needs and interests. That's substance.
Compelling content brings about two of the most important things communicators value: engagement and reliability.
As Bill Gates would say, "Content is king."











