They say content is king. But anyone with a good Internet connection can publish content. In fact, the Internet allows anyone to market themselves as an expert. This funny video mocks just how easy it is. Warning: there are a few cuss words tossed in.

So, how do you separate the “wanna-be” experts from the real thing?

Do your homework. Get to know the person or the company. Read their content and understand their motivation.
Here are a few areas that experts tend to excel in:

• Blogs – Does the expert post content regularly—at least weekly? Is it full of buzzwords or does it actually say something that provokes your thinking? Jim Harris’s OCDQ Blog does just that, as does Ted Cuzillo with his Datadoodle blog.
• Websites – Does the expert offer helpful, educational content? Teradata has one of the largest resource libraries available on their site.
• Twitter – Does the expert stay top of mind with meaningful tweets? Kognitio, Initiate, Tableau, and Composite Software have discovered the power of Twitter.

Finally, you can feel pretty certain that you’re listening to an expert if they’ve published a book. Yes, anyone can self publish, but it takes quite a bit of discipline to produce a couple hundred pages of content. Some of my favorite experts who’ve published books are:

Jill Dyche (@jilldyche) “Customer Data Integration” “CRM Handbook” and a few others!
Phil Simon (@philsimon) “Why New Systems Fail” and “The Next Wave of Technologies”
Mike Stelzner (@mike_stelzner) “Writing White Papers”
Casey Hibbard (@casey_hibbard) “Stories that Sell”

Of course, anyone who does all of these things has raised their credibility as an expert—as all of the book authors do.

As a person or company that would like to be perceived as an expert, are you publishing content (big or small) on a regular basis? Is it quality content? Do you provide supporting facts to back up your opinion? Are you committed?

Love to hear who you think are good examples of experts who know how to use the Internet as a publishing medium to share their knowledge.

I recently came across a study done by IDG Research that looks at tech buyer’s satisfaction with vendor marketing information. Pay attention here–we’re not measuring up, and the bar is low.

IDG survey asked technologists and business buyers about their preferences for content as they move through the sales cycle.

The respondents were not very demanding as they said they would be satisfied if 56% of the marketing information was what they needed to become informed and create a shortlist of vendors from which to buy products and services.”

IDG goes on to describe the sale cycle and content requirements for each phase:

• General education – articles, advertisements
• Business case – case studies, articles
• Evaluation – case studies, tutorials, and demonstrations
• Shortlist creation/Final decision – case studies, tutorials, and demos

I suggest that white papers also belong in the mix, probably somewhere between general education and building a business case.

What was also interesting was that in the early stages, buyers preferred documents by more than 50%. This preference transitions to webcasts in the evaluation and shortlist creation, followed by documents again in the final decision phase.

What is still most important and has never changed is that buyers prefer peer-based content and independent reviews and not inaccurate or vendor-slanted information.

“Technology buyers are telling us that the days of randomly producing marketing materials without regard to what they want are coming to an end,” said Bob Johnson, Vice President, Engagement Optimization at IDG Communications. “As our research shows, vendors that get the right mix of content at the right time for influencers and decision makers will significantly increase their chances of making a sale.”

Bottom line here, make sure you have a content strategy that addresses each phase in the sales cycle with quality information buyers will find relevant and educational, in a format they prefer.