Content marketing and Blogging are quite a trend these days. Everyone is talking about content marketing and how it can boost sales, looking at it, on the other hand, every Tom, Dick, and Harry has a blog and is promoting something on it. What comes to mind when we say content marketing vs Blogging? They sound so similar, does that give you the right to use them interchangeably? Or do they function differently? We have all the answers right here, but first, you need to have a general understanding of content marketing and Blogging.
What Is Content Marketing?
Content marketing is technically the strategy of distributing audience-friendly content (journalistic, helpful, and informative) which eventually results in customer acquisition. Every leading brand has a content marketing strategy tailored according to the scoop of their expertise. No business owner, either small or big, can not complete without bringing fresh exclusive content to the table. A few common questions might pop up in your mind: why everyone is doing it? Does it work? Or it’s just a fancy buzz phrase that fades after a year or two? Yes, it works, but you need a planned strategy before doing anything.
By producing informative and exclusive content you can reach the right audience directly and sell to them. What do we mean by exclusive content? The content you are sharing must be informative and user-friendly. You can write about a wide scale of topics like occupation, brand awareness, teaching business strategies, consumer loyalty, consumer risk, copycat products, and… many other related topics alongside highlighting your products.
In that light, you gain the trust of your buyers, which benefits sales. Even your audience is not planning on buying your products but visits your website regularly; they’ll be considering you as a reliable source.
What is Blogging?
A blog (shortened for weblog) is a personal webpage in which a person or group post a variety of content regularly. Bloggers share their thoughts, ideas, memories and etc, for public reading. Since a blog is published on the Internet it can also be referred to as a personal internet journal. And sometimes, some go even further and call the blog an internet medium. So in short, blogging is the act of updating the content of a blog regularly.
People blog for different reasons; for example, some want to connect with like-minded people, improve their writing skills, expand their knowledge or maintain a source of income (which is quite popular these days).
Now that you have read two brief explanations of content marketing and Blogging, we can move on to explaining the difference between content marketing and Blogging:
The Difference Between Content Marketing and Blogging
It is true that the difference between content marketing and Blogging is quite noticeable, and they both are different in certain ways and can not be used interchangeably, but they have some similarities, which make them comparable. First, we will discuss what content marketing and Blogging have in common and after that, we’ll look through their differences.
How Content Marketing and Blogging are Different
The Content
In general, the difference between content marketing and Blogging is that they offer separate ideas to the audience, let us explain, Blogging provides useful content that represents your business. The content blogs share regularly is engaging on a very personal level, Putting regular posts in your blog conveys a particular message that you want to make sure your customers understand that you care. On the contrary, content marketing is all about providing valuable content that engages their target audience through the buying stages which eventually drives traffic to their website. Content marketing is beyond a small post, the content is designed to target a specific audience and convert that audience into valuable leads who visit their landing page.
Sharing Strategies
Some bloggers may post random topics on their blogs without any future planning. Many bloggers, do not analyze the content that their competitors post, or don’t have any clue about trending topics in addition to who is posting what. Opposite of that content marketing is beyond a small post, they have time and energy-consuming strategies planned to target a specific audience.
Content marketers plan their content sharing strategy months prior to putting any content on their website or social media. Marketing and editorial calendars are utilized to determine how content should be shared. An obvious difference between content marketing and Blogging is that, before generating any content, content marketers study their competitor brands in order to set right the deficiencies in their content.
How Content Marketing and Blogging are Similar?
Now that we’ve reviewed the differences between content marketing and Blogging. It’s time to understand what these have in common. They both communicate through valuable and user-friendly that build trust. Well, I can not tell how many bloggers use SEO tactics to optimize their articles but many of them are using it so as content markers. SEO is a fundamental backbone for receiving website traffic and getting better rankings so it is a must for content marketers.
Conclusion
In general of the things, content marketing is the bigger picture and Blogging is a small part of it. Any well-known brand knows that Blogging and generating content carries a considerable chunk in successful marketing. So if you intend to set the ball rolling as soon as possible, definitely consider a content marketing strategy for the sake of your business and set out to grasp the differences between content marketing and Blogging. Remember, targeted Blogging is a necessity for any successful content marketing strategy.
In other words, blogging aims to communicate with the audience by dint of sharing engaging content to layout the personality of a brand; conversely, content marketing has an end goal to get their audience in front of a product, connect with it, and believe it can solve their problems.
