The 27 Biggest Mistakes Companies Make When Publishing Content

1. They hire a content person and have no real understanding of what a content strategy should look like, how long it takes to create certain deliverables or why different platforms need different forms of content.
2. They don't allow the head of content to put together a strategy or refuse to stick to it.
3. They expect results in a short period of time (less than 3 months), and if they don't get them, they assume the strategy is not working. They don't take the time to create a mission statement, style guide, align on tone of voice.
4. They sell by telling the reader about their product instead of highlighting how they fix their problems.
5. They don't align teams and create a process that allows the head of content to get information from product, marketing, leadership teams, etc. and funnel it but instead allow non-content professionals to make off-the-cuff content decisions.
6. They don't pay attention to what their competitors are putting out and what the market is saying about them.
7. They don't pay attention to analytics.
8. They don't repurpose old content to keep it fresh and up-to-date.
9. They speak like a corporation and not like a human being.
10. They don't publish consistently.
11. They rely solely on data or solely on instinct. Great content is a mix of both. Extra points off for allowing a bunch of random opinions to influence design or strategy.
12. They only focus on creating one or two forms of content.
13. They don't use video (huge mistake).
14. They don't publish original research.
15. They put out old school press releases that no one outside of the organisation reads.
16. They don't work on creating partnerships.
17. They don't engage employees and encourage brand ambassadorships.
18. They don't do a quarterly UX assessment.
19. They don't foster an inclusive culture and when customers go to their website and platforms, it shows (i.e, everyone in senior management looks the same).
20. They use bad photographs, overused stock photos, badly cropped, published with poor resolution or all of the above.
21. They don't bother with following proper SEO practices (Keywords in the 1st 100 words, font at least 16 pixels, links, ALT tags, Title Tags, etc). Bonus mistake: following the 'rules' so closely content sounds like it was written by a robot.
22. They hand over the social media platform to the intern or whomever has time to do it.
23. They send Newsletters, email marketing out on Fridays.
24. They don't respond to comments within a few hours (or worse, days).
25. They don't think of websites like Yelp, Glassdoor and Trustpilot as content platforms so they don't pay attention to what is said there.
26. They rush to have employees write 'good comments' after a bad review instead of addressing it head on so the public can see how you handle that kind of feedback.
27. Their email titles are more than 35 characters.

What are the biggest content mistakes you have seen?