What Would A Content Marketing Degree Look Like

What Would A Content Marketing Degree Look Like What would a content marketing degree look like? Obviously, you dont need a degree to take part in content marketing. But if it were going to be your profession, what would you need to know?  Ive been stumbling onto blog posts and articles that try to pin down whether universities ought to offer actual degrees (or at least classes) in online content marketing, or whether there are certain types of courses someone ought to take in order to prepare for a career in content marketing. A Content Marketing Degree Im an art major, and while people often joke about the usefulness of that particular degree, I would point out that it is a degree that taught me important core creative principles that easily translate into other fields. It wasnt limited to the mechanics of drawing and painting, but included learning to give and receive critique, solving problems with my own ideas, working through a problem–good stuff to be able to do. In other words, some college degrees are about more than just their official title, building skills and qualities that translate well into other careers. Should universities offer specific content marketing degrees? #discussRather than worry about universities offering degrees for content marketing specifically, though, two better questions might be: What skills and knowledge would someone look for in hiring a content marketer? What kind of a training should you have if you want to pursue content marketing on your own? There are things every content marketer should know, and it doesnt take a university degree to learn them. What Every Content Marketer Should Know Content marketing is about writing, creativity, marketing, sales, data, and being socially engaging. Thats a lot of skills. How do you approach getting them? There are six core areas of knowledge that a content marketer should have a fair working grasp of, and if there were a content marketing degree, it might look a bit like this. 1. Psychology, Sociology, And Anthropology Psychology is the study of how we behave, and what motivates us to take action (or non-action).  Sociology  is the study of human social behavior, organization, and institutions.  Anthropology  is the study of people using social, biological, and natural sciences, as well as the  humanities  (studying human culture through a speculative and critical lens).  A special focus on  cultural anthropology  will give you insight into the customs, culture, politics, laws, religions, and language of a particular people group, which helps you understand a bit better why and how they react to things that other cultures perceive differently. Whew. All of that to say this:  You need to understand why people do what they do.  You need to know how to motivate or convince them to behave in the way that you want them to. If you are creating content that you want people to notice and share, take action on, and engage with in some way, you must know what causes them to do so. As a content marketer, youll need to know about: Pinging their emotions. Lets say there really are four basic emotions (happy, sad, afraid/surprised, angry/disgusted). Do you know which emotions encourage sharing? Which emotions get people to buy? Which emotions create loyalty? (Psychology) Pinging their motivations. Do you know what motivates people to take action? What verbal cues they look for? What visual cues they want? What turns them off right away? (Psychology) Banking on the group. Understanding how people act in groups or packs is important because that is exactly what social media is. It gets the individual to instigate something to the group. We talked about social proof, and how important it is to build that for your content marketing. Do you know how to leverage the group? (Sociology) Offending their sensibilities. Understanding your audiences culture is paramount. We all view the world through different cultural lenses. What might be offensive or crass in one culture might be admirable in another. Additionally, cultures arent purely based on geopolitical boundaries. They might be startup culture, mommy blogger culture, Star Trek culture–or all of the above. You should know your audiences culture well if you have a niche blog. (Anthropology) Culture affects marketing. Know the zeitgeist you are operating in. Culture determines so much about how content marketing works. Whats trending? Whats old news? Whats hot and what has become passà ©? (Anthropology) Youll see a lot of content marketing blog posts with a psychological or physiological (how our brain responds to stimuli) bent these days, but Ive always felt that, until recently, anthropology was lacking in mention despite having a very large role in how people groups act. The outcome of psychology and sociology sometimes gets altered when filtered through anthropology. Suggested Reading Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert B. Cialdini The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg How We Decide by Jonah Lehrer Any of Dan Arielys books on behavior and rationality. Anthropology, Inc. by Graeme Wood The Atlantic, Feb 20, 2013. Anthropologys Contributions To Marketing by Charles Winick, Journal of Marketing, July 1961. Cultural Anthropology In Marketing by Marketing Profs 3 Things Marketers Could (And Should) Learn From Anthropologists by Mitchell Osak, Financial Post, March 4, 2014. Psychology for Marketer: 9 Revealing Principles of Human Behavior by Ginny Soskey, Hubspot Blog 2. Creativity And Problem Solving The need to create content of all types, for all occasions, means that youll need to be on your creative toes. A how-to guide on creativity is a bit hard to nail down, since we all approach it differently with habits, systems, preferences, and experiences. As a content marketer, youll need to know how to: Develop a system. Creativity and problem solving are concrete concepts in that they actually do tend to happen in the same way in each of us. We often get the idea that creativity is accidental, on a whim, and not predictable, but this is not the case. Will your system use brainstorming? Will you schedule creative time? Do you understand how creativity works? Do you know how to approach a problem that needs solving? Work through blocks. Sooner or later, youll face a dead-end when it comes to ideas, and this is when youll be glad you took the time to learn techniques to help you get past that. Maybe you have writers block, or cant think of absolutely anything to do for the next video. Really, when you think about it, problem solving  is  creativity. Suggested Reading: Inside the Box: A Proven System of Creativity for Breakthrough Results by Drew Boyd Ogilvy On Advertising by David Ogilvy Scientific Advertising by Claude C. Hopkins Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration by Ed Catmull Orbiting the Giant Hairball: A Corporate Fools Guide to Surviving with Grace by Gordon MacKenzie An Easy Way To Increase Creativity  By Oren Shapira and Nira Liberman, Scientific American, July 21, 2009 3. Journalism And Creative Writing Journalism and creative writing both have a place in content marketing. The journalist approach–getting the important facts and presenting the data with impartiality–mixes well with creative writing, the telling of a good story. As a content marketer, youll need: Research skills. When you approach your blog posts like a journalist, youll start to make use of serious research tools to collect necessary data. The New York Times has compiled a great list of resources you could use to do this kind of research, as has Poynter. Interview skills. Even if you are not doing an outright interview post, you still need to know the art of interviewing because that is really just the art of asking the right questions. Sometimes, when doing research, you are interviewing yourself, asking yourself the questions so that you know what answers to find. Storytelling skills. Do take the time to practice the art of storytelling, which mixes in many of the elements of psychology that motivate readers to keep reading: suspense, emotion, connection, and curiosity. In a sense, both journalists and creative writers are storytellers; one just has tangible facts that must be included with a goal of informing and educating the reader, while creative writing approaches the same goal through a more winding path. In the end, all great writing, no matter what form or style it takes, tells the truth to and about the reader.