What Taylor Swift Can Teach Us About Content Marketing

When good content marketing isn't enough.

Taylor Swift is without a doubt one of the greatest artists of her generation. She has more than 11 albums to her name, all of them probably very good. But at the end of the day, only about 20% of her songs are the ones we’ll still be replaying on loop 20 years from now.

In fact, on The Eras Tour, she performs 46 songs out of a catalogue of roughly 243. So the 20% math checks out.

What can Taylor teach us about content marketing?

I picked up several lessons from Taylor:

It takes years, experience, practice, and talent to produce a hit (with a few exceptions).
It’s impossible to produce a hit without producing a substantial volume of work. As a result, not everything you make will be a success.
Your content, however good and unique it may be, might not be good enough yet to become a must-read. You need to do better than your best.

As it turns out, several well-known marketers have already thought this through, and the most eloquent piece on the subject is Rand Fishkin’s 2015 essay: “Why Good Unique Content Needs to Die.”

Rand Fishkin’s 10x approach

In that article, Fishkin lays out his 10x content strategy. His definition of 10x content: “Content that is 10 times better than the best content currently available on the same topic.” Nothing less!

Think about your usual research process: you search on Google or ask friends on Facebook, you curate the topic yourself and filter what you find. Along the way, you’ll come across plenty of thin articles that are little more than filler. Often, these pieces exist only to feed search engine traffic.

Fishkin gives us the recipe that, in his view, produces 10x content:

Deliver a positive user experience
Provide substantial content that’s high-quality, reliable, useful, and interesting
Stand out by being different from content in a similar niche
Have a fast-loading site
Create a genuine emotional response — surprise, joy, or admiration
Be able to achieve a certain amount of social success
Solve your reader’s problem or answer their questions

The steps to a 10x article

In a follow-up article, Rand Fishkin lays out the steps for creating 10x content. Here’s my take on it:

Gather information on the topic

You need to find the subject you’re best positioned to talk about. To do that, don’t look far. It’s easier — and highly recommended — to talk about what you already know, for instance by documenting what you do and how you do it.

Many people hesitate to do this because they think these things are uninteresting or already well documented. That’s false — it’s a perception that only you hold. People who don’t live your reality will likely be interested in it.

Find something unique to say

A 10x article is even more compelling if you have exclusive data or privileged information, since you’ll be the only one able to reveal it. Otherwise, you’ll need to stand out with a unique opinion, a fresh angle, and so on.

What do you have to say that’s different or interesting on the topic? There are so many articles out there that another one without your unique personality would be pretty much useless. You definitely have something different to offer, a unique point of view worth hearing. Put your personality and your opinions front and center.

Find a powerful way to deliver answers

To get there, you need to cover the topic from every angle. Try to think through every possible angle and every question that could come up. Write a first draft, let it sit for a few days, and come back to it.

If you don’t have exclusive data or privileged information, you may need to think about ways to get some so your article can become a must-read.

Find a unique and powerful way to present the answer

Today, articles come in different formats, and format greatly affects how they’re read. What form will your article take, and how will you carry the reader toward an answer that makes sense for both of you? There are different article formats, which I list further down in the “What kinds of articles can become 10x” section.

Repeat

You won’t land a hit with your first 10x article. Just like Taylor, you’ll need to put out about ten albums to reach the kind of incredible success where a handful of songs get sung along to in cars years later. According to Fishkin, expect to repeat this exercise 5 to 10 times before landing a hit!

Tips and tricks

Update your content regularly. There are what’s called evergreen articles: foundational pieces that build up over time. Every once in a while, go back and improve and amend them.
Write longer articles. According to Medium, the ideal article length is 1,600 words, or a 7-minute read (which happens to be exactly the length of this article, booyah ;)).
Offer exclusive content: data only you have, or an exclusive interview with an expert.
Have a unique angle that strikes a chord — like, say, quoting Taylor Swift.
Prioritize quality and relevance above everything else.
Ask the questions that only the true diehards on the topic would think to ask.
Take it step by step. Start with research, then an outline, then a first draft, and so on. A 10x article can take several days or weeks to produce.
Add visual elements to support your words. Nothing beats images and graphics to back up what you’re saying.

What kinds of articles can become 10x?

Writing a 10x article can be a long and demanding process. And that’s a good thing — if it were easy, everyone would do it. So it’s a good challenge for you to take on. That said, the pros have their tricks and never start from a blank page!

Here are a few 10x article ideas to inspire you:

The ultimate, definitive guide

Take a seemingly simple topic and do the 101 for beginners. Describe how things work. Be precise and thorough.

Tell the process

If you’ve established processes in your company for certain operations and documented them, it could be worthwhile to share your expertise through an article. Otherwise, writing the article itself could be the very thing that pushes you to document your processes.

A case study

You pulled off a project (or even failed one) — why not tell the whole story, from ideation to completion? On top of getting a piece that showcases your expertise, this exercise will also let you do a post-mortem.

A full interview

There’s nothing easier than getting experts to talk about specific topics. Do your research, write your questions, and then interview a colleague or an expert on the subject. All that’s left is to record the conversation and have it transcribed. With a bit of editing, the text will be ready for publication.

A research report

This very article is one. If you read up on your industry to learn more and grow your expertise, it’s a great practice to rephrase what you’ve learned for the benefit of others. This exercise is especially useful when the information is more readily available in a language other than French.

Rules to follow or best practices

If you have experience in your field, you can write up the rules to follow or the best practices in your industry. This kind of article can then become an authority piece and confirm your leadership on the topic.

A list or collection

There’s nothing better than providing dozens of examples with context to teach a topic or demonstrate know-how. Speaking of examples, if you need more, Rand Fishkin gives us a whole slew of them: 119 Examples of 10X Content