Content marketing: welcome to the world of Fast-Moving Consumer Content (FMCC)

As more and more businesses, from multi-national brands to one-man-bands, continue to embrace content creation and content marketing as an effective tool to engage and embrace with their customers, we are now living in a world of Fast Moving Consumer Content (FMCC).

Those brands and businesses that understand, and adapt their marketing efforts to accommodate the continuing, insatiable consumer demand for content, the more successful they will become. 

What is Fast Moving Consumer Content (FMCC)

We all know the term Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCGs), that phrase used to describe retail goods that are sold and consumed in a relatively short period of time.

If you don't know what FMCG is, this is how it is commonly defined:

Fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) or consumer packaged goods (CPG) are products that are sold quickly and at relatively low cost. Examples include non-durable goods such as soft drinks, toiletries and grocery items. Though the absolute profit made on FMCG products is relatively small, they are generally sold in large quantities, and so the cumulative profit on such products can be substantial".

So, with this definition in mind, let us try to define Fast Moving Consumer Content:

Fast-moving consumer content (FMCC) is content that is created quickly. It is content primarily created for online consumption that can and is shared fast. Examples include online news content, blog posts, Tweets, Facebook updates, G+ posts, videos, infographics, photographs and audio.

Though the creation of such content can be done quickly the absolute reach of the content, when it is shared and promoted via online channels, can lead to the potential impact of an individual piece of content reaching global significance. The return on invest therefore from this type of content creation can far exceed any initial expectation and cost".

I'm sure this sounds familiar to you. For some time now, we have been living in a world dominated by fast moving consumer content.

Why is there such a demand for fast-moving consumer content?

Search and social are now entwined. For search success these days you need content. Why? Content helps you build an authority website, which, subsequently, consumers like.

And what do modern day consumers do when they like your content and website? They share it with their social circles on social media. Content is the currency on social media; social media likes and shares on Google+, Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, are all increasingly currency in search.

Content as a service is now key for online marketing success. We all know this on this blog already, of course.

But why is this case? It's not because Google says it is, because it knows from vast data streams that consumers are searching for content. Google wants us to create more of what consumers are looking for.

Likewise, Facebook and Twitter know that their users use their services to share and engage with content. Content is not what these tech giants say we must create, content is what these tech giants say we should create. 

Consumers don't want War and Peace either. Twitter shows us that consumers like concise, fast, forms of content. We like the flow, the sharing, and the interaction that each new and unique content allows and brings into our lives.

This is why there is such a demand for FMCC, and it is only going to increase.  

What forms does fast-moving consumer content currently take?

FMCC is all around us in multiple forms. It is being created by brands and agencies that have content at their core. Just some examples include:

• Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Linkedin updates/comments: this includes multiple strands within social media, including live Tweets during events and webinars. It is fast moving consumer content that we voraciously consume on social media, often oblivious to the brand behind the content message. 
• News content: brands are now publishers and the typical Google News user is after news. They do not care if they read about a breaking story on BBC News or a brand website. If the quality is there they consume that content wherever it is served to them fastest.
• Video content: video content is shared the most on social media. It can go viral and make your brand a star. Think 3's dancing ponies and Old Spice Man, brands that created videos that went viral and took their brands everywhere across the social web. 
• Infographics: Infographics are typically shared constantly via social media. They are a great way to engage and entertain via FMCC.

Fast Moving Consumer Content 1.0 (2005 to 2012)

Some of the best and most successful consumer content created to date has been created by consumers directly, often unconsciously. 

From YouTube's birth in February 2005 to last October's Red Bull/Felix Baumgartner launch from space, which demonstrated spectacularly the brand benefit of creating consumer content, this was what I call the age of FMCC 1.0. 

To look at the FMCG analogy it was kind of like the best deodorant or toothpaste in the market coming from a consumer, rather than a brand. 

Fast Moving Consumer Content 2.0

We are now in the age of FMCC 2.0. It's an exciting stage for consumer content creation and unlike in the early days it is driven by professional content creators working for or with brands and businesses to create branded content, rather than by keen amateurs looking to capitalise on trends and make their mates chuckle.

Fiat's The Motherhood is just one example of many. 

This is the future of marketing and advertising

It will be driven by content and ideas, by the voracious content appetites of online, by the need to produce fast and efficient content that can shine brightly before being replaced by the next piece of trending content.

It is fast content. It will increasingly be judged a success on the 'earned media' impact of a campaign: the social and sharing effect.

This is already happening of course. But we can all look forward to more and more of it in the future. Welcome to the world of Fast Moving Consumer Content.