6 Reasons Why Content Marketing Can Fail

Blogging on behalf of a CEO, or other senior executives, is never easy. Many in the communications industry question whether ‘ghost-blogging’ is even ethical or desirable. But if you are managing a team that is creating content for senior executives then there are several well-worn pitfalls that can certainly derail your project and need to be avoided at all cost.

In the corporate blogging and content marketing programs that I have managed, I have seen the same distinct problems repeated time and again. In some cases they have been fatal and caused the closure of the entire social project, but usually the project can be turned around - if the desire is there to save it.

I would summarize the six key issues that can derail your content program as:

1. Scope creep. There is some initial success and the client asks the support team to add another Twitter account, or add an extra blog a week, or add an emergency blog because something important happened. You keep adding requirements, but never add the support to make it work properly.
2. Executives too busy to be involved. The support team needs guidance. They need the CEO or the executive team to be indicating the topics they want blogged. They need the CEO to dial in for those status meetings so everyone is on the same page.
3. Hubris. An assumption that if a blog is published then an audience will automatically come and find it – then disappointment when the CEO realizes that this is harder than expected. Try telling a CEO with an ego the size of Jupiter than only his or her mother retweeted the last witty comment on Twitter.
4. Bureaucracy. The communications team wants to approve every individual word published in the name of the company and are therefore tied up in layers of bureaucratic approval every time the support team wants to send out any public message.
5. Technophobia. The CEO wants to be seen online as a blogger and tweeter, but doesn’t bother installing any social media tools on his or her phone. The CEO takes no real interest in using the tools and assumes that the team can manage it all. They can’t.
6. Inadequate commitment. The communications team know they have to do something, but don’t have much time or budget to make it happen, so they agree to publish one blog a month, without any promotion or engagement.

Any of these issues can lead to project cancellation, but perhaps the most urgent requirement is to get the executives on board. If they believe that the content marketing team can blog, tweet, and manage their LinkedIn presence without any real engagement from themselves then the project is almost certainly doomed to failure.

This is an edited extract from my new book ‘Customer Engagement Officer (CEO): Content Marketing and the Realities of Executive Blogging’. Photo by Cathrine Idsoe licensed under Creative Commons.