QUALITY DEFINES CHAMPIONSHIP BASKETBALL TEAMS AND CONTENT AGENCIES
“Failing to prepare is preparing to fail” – John Wooden
At first glance, there may not be many similarities between NCAA’s March Madness and creating quality content. The March Madness tournament is college basketball’s tournament to crown a champion. Content creation is, well, about storytelling through original and engaging ideas.
However, upon closer examination, the two entities actually have a lot more in common than expected. An NCAA basketball champion and a quality content creation model both operate from a place of setting goals and driving results.
CHAMPIONS IMPROVE EVERY DAY THROUGH LITTLE DETAILS
“We try to stress the little things because little things lead to big things” – Steve Alford
You’ve heard of Malcolm Gladwell’s theory that it takes 10 years of deliberate practice to master a skill?
Preparing to be the best doesn’t happen overnight. In fact, if a basketball team begins practicing in November when the season starts, even that’s too late.
The road to being a championship basketball team begins years in advance. The players that make up the teams have been putting in hours since they were kids, traveling across the country and sacrificing summers to improve their skills.
Likewise, creating quality content is a craft that must be honed through years of experimenting, trial and error and writing for a variety audiences. And the differences are in the details – from writing engaging headlines, to telling better stories, to sharing your content, creating content and building a brand is made up of smaller moving parts.
Yes, that’s a lot to keep track of. But it also means more opportunities to get better as a content creator.
With the amount of writing and distribution platforms combined with the immediate critiques through social media, there’s never been a better time than now to develop a strong, unique content voice. And it starts now.
CHAMPIONS FIND NEW WAYS TO SOLVE PROBLEMS
“There are kids who don’t want to do something because they’re afraid of looking stupid to their peers. There comes a time when they start protecting themselves, instead of extending. I want to make sure they’re always trying to extend themselves” – Mike Krzyzewski
Kentucky basketball coach John Calipari was presented with a unique situation at the start of this 2014 college season. He had a roster of 10 players who were highly rated high school players and NBA prospects. In hindsight, it may be the most talented basketball roster in college basketball history. It’s every coach’s dream, right?
Not so fast. In the wrong hands, a collection of teen agers this talented could self destruct under the weight of expectations and egos. But Calipari took this as an opportunity and put in an unprecedented system by dividing the team into two rosters of five players, and playing them each five minutes at a time.
Unique situations require outside the box solutions, and creating quality content is no different. Each client has their own vision for how your content fits into the larger picture – a startup needing publicity will have a different content game plan than an established business making the digital move.
As Calipari showed, every situation has its own answers that you must solve through quality content. And the more distinct the digital branding campaign, the more your content must rise to meet the needs of your client.
CHAMPIONS BEAT ADVERSITY
“I need people who look at adversity as a challenge and failure as a learning opportunity” – John Calipari
The road to being a championship team is about how teams handle, and overcome adversity. Every team has gone through periods where they’re down late in the game, the momentum is against them, and they have to pull themselves up.
Beating adversity is about staying mentally tough and pushing forward even when you don’t see the end.
Content is an ever changing world, and it’s the creators and individuals who are willing to change and develop their skills to fit technological and sociological innovations who survive. Look at where content creation was just a couple years ago, when social media was creating new rules for marketing and brand building. Today, we’re in the age of mobile marketing. And tomorrow? It might be virtual reality. It might be artificial intelligence. Regardless, you will have to adapt.
At Nao Media, we take pride in creating quality content for a diverse range . From developing our clients’ businesses to learning new platforms for future success, our growing team is driven to continually improve to give our clients the best digital experience. Contact Nao Media – the road to a winning seasons starts today!
