A lot of marketers are sheep

Gary Vaynerchuk, on Linked In, is at it once again and, as usual, clueless marketers are praising his idiotic insight.  This one has to do with content.  Gary feels that brands HAVE to produce compelling content, regardless of the fact that people don’t have enough time to consume the content that’s already out there.

Gary Vaynerchuk had built quite a following but there are some smart people who understand that his success is more promotional than reality.

As a friend of mine recently said about Mr Vaynerchuk “Step 1: Have a family that has made a lot of money in the wine business. Step 2: Get a Twitter account. Step 3: Go out and promote yourself as a “thought-leader” who “works for the love, not for the money” because, you know, Step 1.

In an article in the NY Times Gary Vaynerchuk does a good job of promoting his books and states that social media is a great way to guilt people into buying stuff.  In fact, he is described as a tireless self-promoter.  There is little question that Mr. Vaynerchuk is a master at promoting himself.

[inlinetweet prefix=”” tweeter=”” suffix=””]Gary Vaynerchuk’s fame happened by design and by years of meticulous planning—and it has drawn vocal critics for a style that is loud, bombastic and blatantly self-promotional[/inlinetweet]. A common line of criticism against Vaynerchuk is that he is a snake-oil salesman, one of a growing number of Internet celebrity marketers who make their money telling marketers that they can get increase key brand metrics using social media.  His successes?  Hmmm…can’t name any.

[inlinetweet prefix=”” tweeter=”” suffix=””]The Wall Street Journal called him “continually overexposed.” The New York Times called him a “tireless self-promoter.”[/inlinetweet]

Now he expects brands to develop content in an environment when online users are already bombarded with too much content.  Let’s face it, most times when you get to a branded website you want information on the product, not someone telling you how to use it or how great it is.  Content marketing is perhaps the biggest sham since social media marketing.  Let’s not also forget that Gary was telling us a short time ago why we all had to be on Facebook.

The biggest obstacles in great marketing are marketers who are sheep and follow the noise of self-promotional experts as well as organizations that put more emphasis on “processes” rather than customers.  Will people ever learn?

About richmeyer

Rich is a passionate marketer who is able to quickly understand what turns a prospect into a customer. He challenges the status quo and always asks "what can we do better"? He knows how to take analytics and turn them into opportunities and he is a great communicator.

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