Content That Works from Rex Hammock

Flack Seeds - An essential source of public relations ideas and trends

Wednesday, March 24

Our friend Rex Hammock has a great series of posts he is calling Content That Works.

Rex should know. He is a veteran of the custom publishing industry and has been blogging for nearly a decade. Yes, 10 years. Rex has earned the authority badge.

The series is Rex's opinion about content that works on the Web and what content will help prospects make decisions. He puts content into two categories: chronological (e.g. news) and research (e.g. directories, information, etc.). To paraphrase, the big point is that most companies try to create chronological content to feed the what's-happening-now-yes-we're-hip monster when substance-over-style research content is more vital to decision-making that sells stuff.

Here are our biggest takeaways so far:

Creating context. This is vital for anyone who wants to become an authority.
Boring can be valuable. Rex's take on directories is spot on.

We appreciate good content as much as Rex. Here's are our thoughts on content to consider in the planning process.

Information. These are facts. They are concrete and indisputable.
Observation. What patterns you can see in the facts.
Application. How does someone use the information or observations to make a decision?
Explanation. What caused the information to happen or why a pattern exists.
Opinion. This is the author's assessment of the current. Is it good or bad? Right or wrong?
Prediction. The author's assessment of the future.

Any publication, whether it's a blog post or an article, is going to mix categories. The key is incorporating all six in the right balance for your company.

We look forward to future Content That Works posts. Thanks to Rex for his contributions.