Stop Being Insignificant: Why You Should Have a Purpose With Your Content

The internet is filled with content. A vast amount of content, ranging from blog posts and podcasts to whitepapers and webinars. And with the dawn of AI tools, the onslaught of content only seems to get bigger and bigger. This means that there is a lot of noise and intense competition.

How do you break through this noise and competition and ensure that your content is actually seen, read, or listened to?

The answer is simple: Stop creating irrelevant, neutral content. You need to have an opinion.

For example, do you remember Nike's campaign from 2018 with Colin Kaepernick? He was the face of the movement of African-American athletes who knelt during the American national anthem. This led to Kaepernick becoming the centre of a boycott, with some going as far as burning their Nike shoes.

But Nike persisted. Perhaps they looked at the data for their target audience, perhaps they didn’t. But one must admire their perseverance. What appeared to outsiders as a gamble transformed into a soaring stock value, while loyalty within their target audience increased.

Of course, Nike's campaign is a very strong example and not a path every content creator can follow, but it illustrates the power (yes, my young padawan) of taking a stance or producing opinion-based content.

Why does it make sense to have an opinion?

The ultimate goal of your content marketing is to solve problems and challenges for your customers. If you genuinely want to help your customers overcome a challenge, it sometimes means you need to take a stand.

For instance, I've been bitten by the road cycling bug and am actually looking for the best road bike on the market. A quick Google search will reveal that most of the content on the topic are variations of:

• Here are the best road bikes
• The 7 best road bikes
• Ultimate road bike guide
• Compare 150 road bikes

In other words, search results are overflowing with content trying to offer the widest possible selection to the recipient. But an article like the 7 best road bikes is far from as useful as it first seems.

Most content does not convey an opinion or standpoint and actually suffers because of it. Good content marketing is based on opinions. Providing a list of seven bikes in a price range may seem useful because you're giving the reader a choice.

But that's a mistake.

The reader, viewer, or listener wants opinions. She's not interested in sifting through 10 similar products. She can only buy one, so she wants to know which product is the best. Period. And that requires an opinion from you.

But in the pursuit of traffic, many content creators fall into the trap of writing exactly the same thing as everyone else in almost the same way. Of course, you should write content that supports your SEO efforts. That's clear. SEO is a cornerstone in content marketing, but you don't create a loyal fanbase with that type of content.

Information in itself is rarely valuable. It's the interpretation of the information that matters. Great content often builds on the same information as everything else. The difference is that an opinion is added on top, helping the reader understand and use the information.

Some Will Strongly Disagree With You – And That's Okay

Producing content that takes a position or has a stance on a topic requires a skilled hand. You can easily come across as self-important.

Therefore, your content should not only present your opinions but also the insights that lead to that opinion or conclusion. For example, show how your perspective has helped customers solve their problems.

And yes, it's true that some will be (even very) disagreeable with you and your stance, but those who agree with you will start to see you as a thought leader – precisely because you dare to have an opinion. Among those who disagree, there will also be some who, despite their disagreement, gain more respect for you and return because opinions are intriguing – even when not shared – as long as they are well-supported.

Just be mindful not to fall into the trap of making yourself or your product the hero. Instead, make your customer the hero who, with your products or services, overcomes their challenges.

Requires More Resources, But Is Much More Valuable

Content that is easy to create is also easy to copy. Anyone can make a list of the best bikes in a price category – it's an easy format to work with, but it also means that most articles are based on the same information.

This is a common challenge in content marketing. Most content marketers are skilled at writing, but sometimes lack specific industry expertise. They often need to learn about the industry – acronyms, stakeholders, trends – and this sometimes reflects in the content produced. They simply don't have the expertise to formulate strong opinions.

Strong, well-founded opinions require more resources to formulate. They demand expertise, research, or in-depth interviews, and cannot just be effortlessly produced by the writer. Moreover, these opinions must naturally be connected to what your business works with and can genuinely be experts in.

You definitely have strong opinions about your own industry – or strong views on how your customers can solve their challenges. These opinions should be evident in the content you produce, like valuable advice that helps your customers solve their problems.

Let's use an obvious example:

If you were a doctor, you wouldn't be fulfilling your medical oath if you didn't recommend the best possible treatment based on your expertise. You would probably convey your opinion in an educational way, but you would be clear and direct.

The same applies no matter what industry you are in. Whether you're selling heat pumps, guitars, or accounting services, your customers will pay for your advice.

In other words: It takes a bit more time and a bit more work to write opinion-based content, but the content becomes much more valuable.

That's Why It Makes Sense to Have an Opinion

Content marketing can and should help drive your business. The point is to attract customers. How? By making people remember your brand and what you tell them.

Most content tries to reach the broadest possible audience and often fails to engage anyone. Content that presents a stance or has an opinion on a topic might speak to a smaller audience, but for those it reaches, it will be far more memorable.

In other words: Instead of trawling the internet's seabed and catching everything from crabs to cod in your net, you fish with a line and catch only the fish you actually need.

There was a time when sharing information through lists and guides was highly valuable in content marketing. Today, it's just part of the internet's vast background noise. In industries where content space is now limited, the task is not to present a buffet of options, but to be the expert that helps the customer navigate through all these options. Even a list should be opinion-based.

Good content helps the reader filter information through expertise and research. If you do this, you create something that is far more useful, more engaging, and harder to copy.

That's why it makes sense to have an opinion.