It’s official. The push for “content” has pervaded society so completely that I had this actual conversation with my 10 year old the other day:
10 Yr Old: “Mom, no-one is visiting my website.”
Me: “I visited it just yesterday.”
10 Yr Old: “I think I need to make more content.”
Boom. Throw down the microphone and walk off stage.
There has been a robust conversation surrounding the sheer amount of “content” debris (go read Mark Schaefer’s original Content Shock post), but I think the larger issue has to do with the attitude of the “content” creator.
I propose that we just stop calling it “content,” and whip out some Barron’s vocabulary words to describe what we’re doing instead.
- Research paper
- Investigative journalism
- Marketing video
- Customer photos
- Online brochure or catalog
- Case studies
- Interviews
- Company news item
See where I’m going with this?
One result will be that we ourselves recognize when we’re writing sales copy vs telling a story. If you call it “content,” it could be anything.
If you call it what it is, maybe it shifts your point of view as a creator. You are no longer a robot on the assembly line, you are an artist, a designer, a writer.
It’s the difference between mass-produced frozen fish sticks and fresh-caught grilled trout.
Your homework today, should you choose to accept it, is to go through your marketing plan, campaign strategy, and/or social media plan and highlight everywhere it says “content.” Replace that word with phrases and words that mean something to your customers.
Are you content with “content?”