While there’s nothing wrong with the above description, the content you encounter online isn’t always valuable and useful. A simpler definition is offered by Social Triggers founder Derek Halpern: “Content comes in any form (audio, text, video). It informs, entertains, inspires, or educates those who consume it.”
American author Margot Carmichael Lester gives this definition:
" Content is information that is presented with a specific purpose and distributed to people in some form through some channel. "
Copywriter Camden Gaspar and content taiwan email list strategist Diane Burley rightly point out the importance of "context":
" Content is information that is relevant to a given context and whose form is shaped by the medium that conveys it. "
In the field of content marketing, content includes four basic elements :
1. Information – Factual, practical, entertaining, or a combination of all of these?
2. Context – Who is your target audience? Why are you publishing your content?
3. Medium – What channel will you publish your content on and how will this affect its overall message?
4. Content format – Will it be text, graphic, audiovisual, or interactive?