My wife, a long time rabid e-newsletter subscriber recently “discovered” RSS Feeds. Of course, I believe I had casually mentioned “you should read some of those via RSS” about 400 times over the last few years, but people are habitual creatures.
Naturally she loves the idea now, but commented, “there’s just so much content!”
With the advent of Twitter and massive surge in brands on Facebook, it seems our information overload has not only increased, but it’s coming at us from all angles. Brands, who would formerly just create a pretty microsite and call it a day are finding they actually have to come up with good things to say on a regular, if not daily basis. Imagine that, you have an opportunity to have a conversation with your brand loyalists at the Social Media Party of the Century, and you’re swaying back and forth, 2/3rds empty drink in hand, searching for something good to say to someone who might potentially pass your good thoughts onto others.
Not long ago, Wired ran an article basically encouraging people to forget about starting a blog. The land rush was over, the biggest blogs had the mindshare. Pack up the car, the pool is full-up.
It makes sense—smart brands have known for sometime now that relevant, valued content, not pushing an ad in people’s faces, is the path to the hearts and minds of consumers online, and to those that have embraced this idea, consumers have reacted in-kind. The by-product, unfortunately, is a glut of content, and much of it mediocre at best. It seems the battle cry is now, “Stay top of mind! Stay top of mind!” so we’re just pushing out content for the sake of pushing content.
So what you should be saying and how often should you be saying it? I can’t answer that in a single blog post. What I can say is follow some basic rules:
- When the industry finally figured out email marketing (I’m guessing 1999), the mantra was “relevancy.” Yes, that still holds true for all the new media—Twitter, Facebook, Blogs, Mobile, etc. Duh.
- Invest in truly good content that speaks to your target audiences. License it, sponsor it, buy it, or create it. Online content can have a long tail and can be repurposed when done cleverly. Think all media: text, video, games, apps. Then talk about it. Use it to drive awareness, and ultimately brand loyalty.
- If you have no truly relevant content, and aren’t willing to invest in any, don’t say anything, or say very little. Hire an agency (like us—shameless plug) or just don’t play. You’re hurting more than helping by posting meaningless content that is just an intrusion of someone’s day because the CMO wants the Facebook Page up-to-date (read: people on Facebook will hide your posts)
Did I eat my own dog food here? Did I actually say anything meaningful and relevant? God I hope so…let me know.
