The long tail of content

"In world of infinite choice, context, not the content is the king."
 - Chris Anderson


My group does over a thousand events a year. Some are small 10x10s. Some are large user conferences. Some are internal events. For most of them we reinvent the wheel as though we had no idea this event was even on the radar. But this year we're getting smart and creating a true content hub. It's the only way to keep up with the speed of our event lives. Create once, execute multiple times. The "Rinse and Repeat" model.

But as Chris Anderson points out, all content all the time, anywhere you want it provides little by way of direction or usefulness to your customers.


We must take a cautious approach to our event portfolio's content. Categorize the audiences so we can categorize the content, or we risk the wrong message for the wrong audience at the wrong time. It feels good to have strategic direction again, and it will be such a lifesaver to have a hub of content to draw upon for an event anytime it's needed, and have the right content available to audiences online who missed an event or who are seeking more information. What a great feeling!  

The secret to creating a thriving Long Tail business can be summarized in two imperitives:

• Make everything available
• Help me find it.

I believe this works internally as well as externally. If we create the content and make it easy for the internal teams to find and use, we will get much more use out of it. If we get it to the attendees when and where they need it, we will have a much greater insight.