Content: Too Much of a Good Thing?

Imagine: it's a cold November morning, circa 1997. You just got up, put on your robe, slipped into your slippers, made yourself a nice, steaming mug of coffee and shuffled your way to the front door, bracing yourself for the brief cold that will great you as you duck quickly to pick up the morning newspaper.

Fast forward a year or to later. You open the door and pick up two newspapers. Then three. Then four. Then six. Then seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. Twenty. Thirty. Forty. Fifty.

You see where I'm going?

Today consumers are deluged by a flood - not a stream, but a flood - of information, everywhere we go, on every device we use, and on every topic imaginable. "Personalized" or curated for the consumer's interests or needs. You don't go to pick the information; the information comes to you. Everywhere. It's like each one carries a massive library in his pocket, with a seemingly infinite amount of knowledge.

This is a factor that should be considered when planning your content schedule: As much as there is the need to have content "out there," the generous amount of information is becoming overwhelming, there is just too much to read. Too much to absorb, Too much "advice," "must-read" this, "discover how" that, "Ultimate guide to ABC," "5 ways to avoid XYZ," "watch for these signs if you want to: be rich/avoid being poor/be healthy/avoid an early demise, be strong/be agile/" and so forth and so forth. How are people supposed to absorb all this material?

Today, content marketers have content schedules, which help them decide when and where to send offers, emails, blogs, social media posts and more to customers. Imagine every company has marketers doing just that. Quadruple that by thousands and thousands. That comes out to a serious amount of content to skim, read, share and get feedback for.

With how much content to be content with?

When it comes to content creation, saying there's plenty of resources online is like saying there's plenty of drops in the water. I frequent sites like Copyblogger, HubSpot, The Content Market Institute, to name a few...and I haven't even mentioned all the experts you can follow on Twitter. Every website you visit is like one of those boxes you open and inside you discover another box that leads to another and another and another...Even looking for something simple such as Top 10 social media sites will bring you nearly 80 million results.

We go through all this effort to get consumers to leave their details, their email address in the opt-in box, and it's a guarantee that sooner or later these users will simply click on "unsurbscirbe" or automatically delete the emails/newsletters without even opening them. Why? because they simply do not have the time.

How does one decide which webpage, blog (besides mine, of course...), column, email, webinar (don't miss: tomorrow at 5pm! register today) and link do you open and read without it disrupting your work?

The following are just few examples of actual emails I got:

Advertising on Facebook vs. Google. Content marketing tactics Which social network is most influential and engaging for your business... Marketing and the power of presentation Can you guess the brand behind these slogans? 18 of the best email subject lines you've ever read 10 overused words to remove from your LinkedIn profile  7 ways to speed up your content creation Think I had time to read all of those? I managed to skim, but between sending and receiving emails and actual work one needs to get done, there's no way I can read all of that. So you can imagine your average Internet user, or consumer, is.

And these are just the tip of the iceberg (Google Content Marketing and you'll get nearly 2.5 billion results). Each time I log into LinkedIn, I see a long list of blogs, articles and links. Many of them are interesting and useful (like mine...) But there is just so much that you can read. If one opens up every email and every article, when do we get to actual work? There's sites devoted to web marketing; social media, content creation, etc., etc. And we haven't event touched the ubiquitous eBooks. You only need to type in your email in the opt-in box so that you can get even more eBooks with the precious little free time you have.

As a content marketer, you want to grab the reader's attention; the more readers, the better. As content creator, you want your presence felt. As a reader, you don't want to feel bombarded. As a reader, with all the vast accumulation of information, you're left inundated with so much, he's almost like "drowning" in the content.

And because space and attention span is at a premium, we need to choose what we publish wisely. People are much more likely to click on how to cut shopping costs by at least 40% over hidden crimes of celebrities or 10 Reasons Beverly Hills is a great place to live in. The benefit for people's wallet as well as valuing their time supersedes the entertainment and intrigue value of the article.

SO...

At what point do you say "enough is enough? When do we say, "you know what, let's interact in a different way: a meetup at the mall, a live event, a lecture on a relevant topic (Orchestrate Christmas Like a Pro, live Q&A session with...).

When do we scale back "just a bit?" or keep up the relentless push of content: one a week? twice, three times? Do we continue until the users start clicking the unsubscribe buttons? because once they do, we've lost them. Content marketers have all these analytical tools to tell what works, when to send and what, but in the end, we must think about the reader and adapt to their lifestyle and schedule. We can't force material down their throat, or they'll just get sick of the product, service or blog writers.

We need to provide value, not bombard relentlessly.