How to use Content Shock to win in business

A few weeks ago I received this question from a reader:

“It’s been many years since you wrote the blog post about Content Shock. I wonder if after this time there are any updates or new thoughts about it since you first wrote the article?”

This question is remarkable in that

a) somebody still remembered it, and

b) the person is still curious about the topic

Indeed, “Content Shock” — was probably the most impactful post I’ve published. It is still regularly referenced at conferences, in books, and on dozens of blog posts every month. See the photo here of an entire chapter about Content Shock in Master Content Strategy by Pamela Wilson.

The term has become a neat, short-hand description for the problems we face marketing against an unbelievable tsunami of new content.

I didn’t consider the piece exceptional or controversial when I wrote it. It’s common sense … simple economics. All you had to do was look at the trend of exploding volumes of content and predict that it was about to get very uncomfortable for anybody depending on content marketing as a key part of their business strategy.

The promise of easy and predictable results from content marketing is over. It has been for some time.