Content is king. Without quality content, you have nothing. But engagement crowns it king. Engagement makes the content powerful.
As a blogger, if I’m not engaging anyone else, my content will be out of touch. Engagement connects the content to the audience. Darren Rowse sparked this idea for me in his excellent post for bloggers about listening.
Engagement starts with listening. But it’s a different kind of listening than consuming. I wrote a few days ago about switching from consuming information to producing information. Consuming is different.
The listening to engage is not the same as the listening to consume. When I listen for myself, that’s consuming. But when I listen so I can engage with others, that’s really listening.
This’s an important lesson I’ve missed for the past – what? – year or so. Anyone who’s producing content for other people needs to engage way more than produce content. Try 10x more. Otherwise, no one will know about their content. Or even if they do, it won’t connect with them, so they won’t care.
- A painter who only paints pictures will fail.
- A cook who only cooks food will fail.
- A teacher who only teaches lectures will fail.
And by “fail” I mean no one will care about the artist or the art.
What about you? Are you only producing content, or are also engaging?
And by the way, engaging is closer to encouraging than producing content. Scarily closer.
