Holy sh*t, I’ve diagnosed an epidemic

Holy sh*t, I’ve diagnosed an epidemic sweeping through content marketing: Best-Practicitis.

Symptoms include:

– Post-itis: “Post 3–5 times a week.” Why? No clue. Just do it.
– Word-bloat: every blog post must hit 1,500 words. Google said so. Or Bob on LinkedIn did.
– Video fever: every brand needs short-form video. Right now.
– Copycat flu: your rival starts a podcast. Quick. Buy a mic.

It’s highly contagious and mostly found in marketers who would rather copy an answer than find out what’s true.

The good news? I’m immune because I quarantine best practices until the results give them a clean bill of health.

On one ecommerce blog, following the data instead of generic content advice helped me increase blog revenue 4.7× in six months.

My rule:

A best practice is a guess. 

Test it. Keep it if it works. Kill it if it doesn’t.

What “best practice” do you wish would die?


First published on Eva Domijan Linkedin

By Eva Domijan

Content Strategist for E-commerce Discovery and Revenue