I may not be a football fan, but I like a good football game and goals. I especially love it when top football stars like Lionel Messi are playing.
I like him because of his dedication and commitment to the game of Football.
Lionel Messi is an Angetina footballer. Over the years, he has proved himself to be the best. Some football lovers see him as a good player, some know him as a god, but to me, he is the best thing to happen to sport.
There are lots of lessons to learn from Lion Messi, and the applications of these lessons goes beyond football and sport.
Below are five (5) incredible lessons content marketers can learn from this football legend.
1. Speed counts
One very important aspect of football is speed. It is very essential when you need to score a goal. One of the things that makes Lionel Messi a success in football is His speed. He is able to score incredible goals because of his speed.
As a Content marketer, you can’t afford to write content haphazardly and expect to get good results. It will not happen!
According to Neil Patel, the more you write, the more traffic you attract. When Neil started his blog, he was writing 1 post per week. He had a goal to reach 100,000 monthly visitors, so he increased his posting frequency to 2 posts/week. Mind you, these are high quality, long form content of 2,000 – 3,500 words. Within a year, his monthly traffic increased from 46,134 to 123,867.
The fact is, search engines love frequent updates, which also affect your search engine rankings.
So, if you need organic traffic, you will have to increase your posting frequency.
2. Calculate and plan strategically
If you are a football fan, you will agree with me that it takes calculation to score a goal. You have to calculate how to hit the ball, what to do, when to run, when to score etc. This is what Lionel Messi does very well in order to score goals.
Football is a game and so is Content marketing, you want to play it well to generate likes, tweets, shares, etc.
As a Content marketer, you have to be calculative enough to know what to post, when to post and how to post. You have to know the content that will score with your audience. To create content that converts/scores like a goal, you need to know your audience and what resonates with them. You can start with Buzzumo. Type in your topic and see current articles and the number of likes and share on twitter, Linkedin, Facebook and Pinterest.
Chances are that, if you can create similar content to the ones with the greatest number of Likes, tweets and shares, you can also expect same to happen to your content.
Your topic must be relevant and useful to your target audience. The more useful your content is, the more your audience will engage and share it.
Your headline must be captivating. According to a research, 8 out of 10 people will read your headline, but only two out of 10 will read the rest of the content. Your headline should resonate and captivate your readers into the content for maximum result.
3. Identify with the right team
One of Lionel Messi’s advantages is that he joined the right team. Statistics has it that he is the best player to play football. He won 5 Balon D’or awards. This would not have been possible without the help of his team members. It is safe to say that Barcelona has done more for Messi, than he has done for Barcelona.
As a Content marketer, the people you move with determine how far you go in life. You need to identify with influencers, if you want to go far in the industry. Influencer marketing is the next big thing. It is targettable, trackable and helps your SEO.
4. Keep developing your skill
Lionel Messi came into lime light in 2005. During the FIFA world U-20 competition, he was voted as the Best player in the world U-20 cup. He was named the world’s best young player in that same year. In 2006, he was named the world’s third best player. He won the FIFA best player of the year award for four times in a row.
This did not happen overnight. He continued to develop himself year after year and try to set new goals every time.
Content marketing is like that too. You don’t write content once and stop. You continue to write and hone your skills. The more you write, the better you become. Content takes time to rank in search engines. Sometimes it takes about 6 months for you to start seeing tangible results. You must not give up even after you reached your goal, keep setting new ones, each time.
5. Don’t be disappointed with a bad game
Lion Messi has lost a couple of games in his career. You cannot win all the time. It will come to a point where you will not win. Disappointment is like bad games, as a Content marketer, you cannot avoid them. They will always come.
It is not all the time that your content will score with your audience or rank in the first position on Google. You don’t have to be disappointed when you don’t get what you expect from your content marketing efforts. Learn from your performing posts, and build on them. If you allow it to weigh you down, creating more content will eventually be a mirage.
Conclusion
The five lessons about shows that as a content marketer,writer, blogger or small business owner, you should write content consistently, calculate and plan your content marketing strategically, identify with content marketing influencers, hone your skills and don’t be disappointed when you don’t get what you expect from your efforts.
What other lessons can you think of? Share it in the comment section below.