Recently, I spent some time checking out marketing blogs, going through a few dozen slideshare presentations, “reading” a handful of white papers and watching way too much infographics. It wasn’t a fun job but what else can you do when you’re ill and just can’t rest?
The exercise was worthwhile though and made me reflect on how we are using content these days. As a matter of fact, what I mainly found was an endless mass of content, in which there rarely was something I hadn’t written, read or seen before.
For the record: I am talking about content regarding marketing, my “business”.
It is really kind of ironic in a way. For years, people like myself have been hammering on the fact that content was not a commodity. I’m talking about a time many of you probably were still wearing diapers or at school: the early years of the Internet, when the world bubble was not associated with the dotcom economy.
A time when businesses invested incredible amounts of money in web sites and overlooked what really mattered: goals, relevance, content, and a purpose, some value or even a reason to be online for people taking the trouble to visit these web sites.
Content in context: towards eternal repetition and fast food?
With the arrival of, among many others, online lead management, social media and what we still tend to call inbound marketing, content finally got the place it deserved, although the focus was and still is too often the content itself instead of the commercial, relational, personal, emotional and social context.
Today, businesses, bloggers and other individuals are producing masses of content. They produce it in many forms, depending on the stage of the customer journey, the medium and the context.
In the marketing industry we see video, papers, posts, infographics, slideshare presentations, etc. popping up in astonishing volumes and at a dazzling frequency.
Obviously, all this content has a business purpose and is (or, at least, should be) made with the customer, visitor, recipient, Internet user, social networker, prospect and whatnot in mind.
People are the center of the marketing and communication reality, right?
The new marketing truths and buzzwords: what’s really new?
However, we seem to have lost something in the process. Presentations very often contain the eternal same black and white buzzwords, videos, images and “new truths”.
Here is one such truth: “people don’t want to be interrupted by advertising anymore”. Sure, a lot has changed in media consumption and buying behavior but bluntly claiming such truth is absolute nonsense. People still like to be interrupted in many ways and are very capable of separating what matters from what doesn’t matter, thank you very much. As a matter of fact, they always did.
Other “new truths” I come across every day include “Email is dead”, “The consumer is in full control”, “Word of mouth rules in the social media age”, “Your employees are crucial brand advocates”. The list goes on.
If they aren’t exaggerated or utterly wrong, often these new truths are old truths, in reality. Word of mouth has always ruled. And it’s pretty obvious that employees are your brand in day-to-day interactions, regardless of where they happen.
The list of “new marketing” adagios is completed with numerous posts, papers and webinars that basically all repeat the same old stuff. It is very rare to come across an original piece of content or thinking these days when it boils down to marketing-related (and other?) content.
The impenetrable jungle of content in the sharing mania
Allow me to skip my thoughts on infographics and blogs that only contain those, completed with some slideshare presentations, cool videos or quick and dirty “x tips to whatever” posts.
Yes, it is quite ironic. The increasing attention for content is very often resulting in “me too” content and as such, commoditizing content, with lots of pieces that repeat what other pieces elsewhere contained.
Little original thinking, a lot of black and white, very SEO-optimized and all in all, a nearly impenetrable jungle of repetition in which no one can find a precious pearl anymore.
We are producing a lot of content. Easy bites and fast food with results in mind and very often zero to mediocre value. It’s Commoditization 2.0.
And in a way, we shouldn’t be surprised that we eternally repeat ourselves. Isn’t spreading and repeating the content, we produce our social dream? And isn’t repeating what seems to be spread and consumed in the end what we really do?
What do you stand for?
Where is the personality in this world of traffic, Klout and retweets? Where is the thinking? Where are the gems?
I guess we have commoditized ourselves somewhere along the road and focus mostly on getting found and noticed in an ocean of content and a sea of sharing where everyone hunts for tweets, retweets, likes and stumbles.
The question is what do we want to stand for when we get found? Do we want mass or do we want value? A bit of this and a bit of that is always best.
However, the way many bloggers and businesses are producing and sharing content right now, is often of little value, repetitive, boring and often overwhelming (no wonder search engines suffer).
As such, in a way, content has become not only a commodity but often very…interruptive. Where do you stand? And what do you stand for? Surprise me with an original piece of content and thinking. I beg you.
About J-P De Clerck
My entire guiding digital philosophy since 1998 and incidentally the quote on the cover of my MPhil in Publishing Studies dissertation from that year is a Frank Zappa quote that I am sure you will appreciate. The personality is missing – you are spot on above.
Take it away Frank:”The computer can’t tell you the emotional story. It can give you the exact mathematical design, but what’s missing is the eyebrows.”
Thoughts?
Thanks Al, love the Zappa quote! And I share the out of office Disqus rage ;) Cheers.
Thanks Frank. Love the Zappa quote – and dislike the out of office Disqus stuff as well ;)
One might indeed ask what is the emotional story as well. Although, simply a story or a bit of authenticity would be nice more often too.
Agreed. For me, ultimately, it’s all about authenticity, backstory, emptional connection, and so on. The eyebrows merely represent the ultimate human quality of communicating beyond raw data.
Thanks for a VERY interesting read. If I understand your point, that we’re blind to our standing in a blizzard of repetition, I agree with your assessment, but I’m less troubled by it. It’s nothing new in human history. In fact, I’m encouraged by the thought that there are more of us involved in all the conversations every day. By repeating and adding fresh perspectives here and there, our conversations grow and develop more quickly and broadly these days. It’s not ALL about just being found online, is it?
As far as I know, staggeringly new ideas have always been rare, but with more voices in the choir, we’re bound to get then more often.
Meanwhile, everything always gets co-opted and commoditized. Chuck Berry’s on Muzak, Lady Gaga will be there in a few years, but rock music continues growing, like it or not.
Hi Robbie, the musician is always right :) History tends to repeat itself and so do we. However, what remains is what mattered. Who are the musicians we tend to cover over and over again. This post was written from a frustration with the fast food society of blogging on topics such as social media with ever repeating tips and tricks and how to’s. Is it wrong to do that? Who am I to decide? Every day people and businesses still discover social media for instance and they wonder “what shall I do with this”? We so often serve them easy recipes and even get known for them. We obey the rules of SEO and blogging to be found among the millions of “advices”. However, what’s the use and how can one still find that extra little something that makes him go beyond the obvious? My posts are long, exactly the opposite of what I sometimes advice to people and the content tends to be different, at least tries. Is it a desire to be authentic or genuine? Maybe. It can lead to other debates on the freedom of the will and the limits of our creativity. However, isn’t trying to have another look in the end what we can strive for, knowing the basics of what we have all learned or maybe even growing beyond them?
Hi, J-P, Thanks for your interesting comment.
I agree with you: that “trying to have another look in the end is worth striving for”. Re-examining and repeating old ideas can lead to fresh insights and new ways to ask new questions. This can create new knowledge and clarify what we already understand.
One of my teachers once described 4 types of creativity:
- a new idea in a new format
- a new idea in an old format
- an old idea in a new format
- an old idea in an old format
So it seems to me we have these four ways to “find that extra little something that goes beyond the obvious”. Each way is equally good, depending on the circumstances.
Of course, repeating old ideas can also trivialize them, leading to such time-wasters as the celebrity industry, where people become famous for being famous, and nothing more.
Another benefit of repeating old ideas: They can always be available to people who need them. For example, these days there are always people who want to learn how to trouble-shoot a computer that doesn’t work. Repeating ideas gives us useful information, we might have a hard time finding otherwise.
Similarly, people new to social media and blogging are always looking for advice about “best practices”. Repeating the basics can continue making the information useful and help people stay up-to-date.
Isn’t this ultimately what you’re trying to do?
/Robbie
Very much agree with your line of thinking. One problem is simply that it’s actually quite hard to be original.
One of my criteria for any new blog post I write is to be different. The result? Publishing intervals get longer and longer (which is not necessarily bad, but that’s another debate) as I struggle to say something new.
Thanks Mark. Another question you might ask is WHY do we want to be original? I guess it has to do with looking behind the obvious, questioning what is accepted by most and a desire to unveil what we do not know and are eager to learn and teach? I know it gets harder then and maybe it’s just plain old narcissistic or even a-social. But then again, isn’t thinking and questioning the obvious what helps us all progress in the end? You could also put it simply: I’m often fed up with the eternal repetition and we are living in times of hype :)