Summary: It used to be that “content was king” but today it’s “too much content, written by people who are clueless” may be more appropriate. The reality is that people just don’t have the time to read all the content you publish because it’s too long, boring, and written by someone who, more than likely, is better at writing rather than understanding human behavior.
Category Archive: Content
You have to hand it to the so called “experts”. We were promised that social media would be the magic carpet on which our legions of brand advocates would go to spread the word about the marvelousness of our brands, and would free us from the terrible, wasteful expense of advertising. When that went down the drain they trying to tell us that content marketing is the key to consumer engagement. Pure garbage.
Recently on LinkedIn, there was a story aimed at marketers written by someone at HubSpot. When I looked into the author’s profile I found that she had never worked in a marketing role at any consumer brand yet she is trying to tell us how to apply marketing principles?
Time is the new currency and while the hype machine may indicate that you should produce a lot of content your audience just doesn’t have the time to read most of it.
Marketers have always been taught to go where consumers are but what happens when consumers don’t want you to be part of their online experience?
Facebook is in trouble despite what you read about “time spent” on the social site. It seems that more, and in depth, research is indicating that users aren’t reading the content they are sharing. They read headlines and skim content and then share it if it looks like something that aligns with their beliefs or that they feel their followers would be interested in.
There is a lot of great marketing information available online on everything from demographics to social media marketing. However, marketers should be careful to ensure that any content on marketing is actually written by someone who has worked in marketing, not a journalist.
Content marketing topics abound online, but is content marketing really essential for online marketers? The answer to that is no. Content, for the sake of content, is a waste of time and money. Your content should be designed to support one objective; turning prospects into customers.