What Is Intelligent Content?
I recently returned from the American Water Works Association’s Annual Convention and Exhibition (ACE). Historically the ACE Exhibition Hall housed numerous vendors of pipes, fittings, tanks, and the rest of the hardware that our water distribution systems rely on.
The show floor dominance of these infrastructure staples changed in 2017. Last year at the ACE show in Philadelphia, the Water Talk online radio broadcast sat down and spoke with over 50 vendors and industry experts who were attending the conference. And the vast majority spoke to the development of, execution of, and application of intelligence, Big Data and the Internet of Things (IOT). And in Las Vegas, two weeks ago the trend continued.
For a traditionally cautious-to-adopt-high-tech market, this change is HUGE. The most important data point I took away from those interviews is that the collection, management, construction and intelligence of these systems is going to become the norm over the next decade. That’s right, it’s a burgeoning market based on demand. The reason for that is simple. These systems are efficient and help municipalities save money.
Sound familiar? It should. We here at B2BrandWater think of content and brand publishing the same way.
Content marketing is the backbone of any brand publishing marketing plan. Without content, presentment and tracking become irrelevant. Much like the application of IoT and Big Data for utilities, Intelligent Content should be applied to improve the efficiency and application of resources in your marketing efforts.
To put a definition to it:
Manufacturers in the water and wastewater market should see intelligent content as another piece or component of content marketing. Ann Rockley, President of the Wrangler Group, defines intelligent content as, “content which is not limited to one purpose, technology or output. It’s content that is structurally rich and semantically aware, and is therefore discoverable, reusable, reconfigurable and adaptable. It’s content that helps you and your customers get the job done. It’s content that works for you and it’s limited only by your imagination.” She goes on to add these components to further add specific action items to the definition. According to her, Intelligent Content needs to be Structurally Rich (format must be outlined), Semantically Aware (has relevant meaning), Discoverable (can it be found), Reusable (should be able to multi-use piece), and Adaptable (can be reconfigured).
Content marketing is about creating content and developing an audience. What intelligent content does is streamline that content to make sure it is impactful and efficient. It’s the supervisory element within your content marketing department that ensures everything is how it should be in terms of quality, pace and effectiveness.
Image credit: "DSCF0025_pp," Walter © 2018, used under an Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/