What is Content Marketing? Is it Different than Blogging?

What is content marketing? What is blogging for your business? Are they different, and if so, how? As a business owner, if you have an online presence, which if you are reading this, we are sure you do, you have most likely heard the buzz words, “content marketing” and “blogging”. Many people tend to use these interchangeably, but should they? Are these two things the same or different, and if different, how, and which one is right for your business? Keep reading to find out.

What is Content Marketing?

To start, we will answer one of the more pressing questions, “Are content marketing and blogging the same?” No, they are not. Blogging can be a part of content marketing, but they are not the same thing.

According to Oxford Languages, content marketing is: “a type of marketing that involves the creation and sharing of online material (such as videos, blogs, and social media posts) that does not explicitly promote a brand but is intended to stimulate interest in its products or services”. Basically, content marketing is an overall marketing strategy that involves creating and sharing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience, and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.

The content created can take various forms, such as blog posts, videos, podcasts, infographics, social media posts, and more. The key is to create content that is helpful, informative, and entertaining to your target audience, rather than simply promoting a product or service. By providing valuable content, businesses aim to build a relationship with their target audience and establish themselves as a trusted source of information. This can lead to increased brand awareness, website traffic, engagement, and ultimately, sales.

What is Blogging?

Now we know that blogging can be a part of content marketing; however, content marketing is the overall strategy of communicating with your ideal audience, but let’s take a bit deeper look as to what exactly blogging is and if it should be a part of your marketing plans.

Blogging is the act of writing and publishing content on a blog, which is a website or a section of a website that contains written articles, also known as blog posts. Blogging has become a popular way for businesses to share their knowledge, promote their brand, and build an online presence. It can be used as a platform for thought leadership, marketing, or simply as a creative outlet. Blogging can also help drive traffic to a website, improve search engine rankings, and establish the business as an authority in their industry or niche.

When it comes to your business and blogging, blogs can be more clearly defined. A business blog will usually be featured on a company’s website and will always be related to a particular business topic, product, or service that connects to that business in some way. Blogging for business is a marketing tactic designed not only to inform readers, but to increase visibility of your organization and, ultimately, to push readers towards buying your products or services.

Should Your Business Focus More on Content Marketing or Blogging?

As we said above, while blogging is one aspect of content marketing, the two terms are not interchangeable. When you are creating your business’s marketing strategy, the first thing you should think about and implement is a content marketing plan. Having blogging be a part of that strategy can help catapult your efforts and be extremely beneficial.

While blogging is an effective way to create content and build a relationship with your audience, content marketing involves a more comprehensive approach that includes creating different types of content such as videos, infographics, social media posts, whitepapers, podcasts, webinars, and more, depending on the target audience, platform, and marketing goals.

Overall, blogging is a subset of this form of marketing, but content marketing includes a wider range of content formats and marketing strategies beyond just blogging and should be a part of your marketing plan.

If you are looking to up your marketing game or just your overall digital marketing strategy, Water Bear Marketing can help. Water Bear Marketing offers a wide variety of advertising solutions to help your business get more business. Request a free advertising consultation today.

Water Bear Marketing logo full

Categories

Subscribe to Advertising Insights

Name(Required)
This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.