Content Marketing: Think Like a Publisher—How to Use Content to Market Online and in Social Media

6. Content That Informs and Educates

Information is power, and the Internet is where consumers turn for information. Providing valuable, credible information can be the foundation of a sound business model—something the earliest online businesses learned in a hurry.

Take Autobytel, for example. Autobytel, which was launched in 1995, was the web’s first car-buying website that supplied consumers with information they’d never had access to before—how much automotive dealers paid for new cars. “The dealers hated it,” recalls Thomas Heshion, a former executive.

Sure, Autobytel will always be remembered as the first dot-com to advertise during the Super Bowl, but it’s thriving more than a decade later because it supplies information that helps car ...