10 ways to make your content stand out

In January, I wrote an article called “Content Shock” that explained how we are entering a new phase in the evolution of content marketing. Two dynamics are driving this change:

1. The amount of content on the Web is exploding. By 2020, the amount of information on the Web (most of it consumer-driven) is expected to increase by 600 percent. Think about that for a moment. Imagine the vastness of the Internet today. In six years we will have six of those.

2. Today, Americans spend about 10 hours a day consuming content-a number that has risen steadily year after year. But there is a threshold to the amount of attention we will be able to devote to content, and this will further challenge a marketer’s ability to get messages through to his audience and stakeholders.

I wrote about a third factor—the development of advanced content filters—as another issue that will make it harder for our content to emerge as signals instead of noise.

My conclusion was that these pressures are bound to thin the herd. Content marketing as we know it will not be a sustainable strategy for some businesses, and it will become more difficult and expensive for almost all of us.