Content marketing versus social media purism

Working with the staff at the Texas Bar Association on Monday I pulled up on the big screen a post by author and business strategist, Euan Semple (@Euan), which I thought captured the spirt of social media.

Euan, who loves blogging, says blogging is partly how he gets his work. The more people who read his posts, the more they know how he can help them, the more work he’s likely to get.

But the idea that what he’s doing is “content marketing” fills him with dread.

We all have a desire to have people read our stuff and respond to our posts but writing just to maximise SEO or liking our own posts here and on LinkedIn to push them up other people’s newsfeeds feels like cheating.

Call me old fashioned but I’d rather maintain my genuine intent to connect with others through ideas and conversations than start chasing work by trying too hard – even if it costs me work. I watch so many organisations and marketers get this wrong. Their intent is to game people into paying attention to them. They use words like “drive” and “capture” that makes readers feel like cattle. I understand why they do it, and often they are under pressure from their organisations to increase numbers, but it feels wrong.

Euan took it as a compliment when a marketing professional focused on driving traffic and numbers called him a “social media purist.” I’d take it as a compliment too.

I explained to the Texas Bar staff that social media and blogging was indeed about connecting with others through ideas and conversations. Social media was not about broadcasting content to draw attention to yourself.

Social media and blogging is about establishing trust, relationships, and a strong word of mouth reputation through engagement.

Content marketing, through ebooks, white papers, videos, infographics, case studies, and how-to guides may accomplish these things, but it comes up short of engagement with people.

Shoot for the higher ground with social media purism. Rather than driving traffic and capturing names and emails, measure success in relationships and word of mouth developed through connecting with people.

Nothing wrong with content marketing, you’re just selling yourself short of where you could go as a social media purist.

Image courtesy of Flickr via wolfB1958