Unassisted Writing #6 - No More Rules
With the rise of AI, chatbots and predictive text on smartphones, I want to get back to writing, without the assistance of these tools. My weekly LinkedIn article talks about marketing, the world of work and anything else that I think may be relevant to this platform.
“There are no rules anymore.”
I find myself repeating this sentence to anyone who asks me about marketing. Most recently, I said it to a friend of mine who is launching an educational product. He was asking me for tips on content creation and how to create more.?
A recurring theme I’ve been seeing from non-marketers of late is an obsession with production value. I’m seeing a lot of people who believe that every piece of content they share has to be extremely polished and have a “professional” vibe.?
In an ideal world, with unlimited time and budgets, this would be a realistic and worthy goal. But if your time or budget is limited, it might be beneficial to get comfortable with the idea that your content may not be able to maintain those lofty standards. Even with the budget and time constraints removed, trying to ensure that every piece of content you produce is at an “elite” level, is going to almost certainly lead to burnout.
The good news is that there are virtually no rules anymore around production value or professionalism. Meta recently touched on this in their latest marketing guide for Reels. In the report they specifically referenced what they described as “Lo-Fi video.”
‘Lo-fi’ (short for ‘low fidelity’) is a term used to describe a style of video production that feels unpolished or ‘user generated’.
Yes there will always be exceptions, but for the majority of us mere mortals, it is far better to share a higher number of “lo-fi” content, than a limited amount of “high-quality” content.
How many horizontal photos do you snap per week?
In my case the answer is often ZERO. Taking the time to tilt your phone 90 degrees is now a radical act.?
I hadn’t really thought about this until I wrote about how new rectangular grids are being rolled out on Instagram.
I can recall when smartphones were in their early years, it was considered poor internet etiquette to shoot videos in vertical mode. In 2024, trillions of vertical videos are viewed weekly. What a crazy change.?
Threads has been a disappointment?
When Threads first launched, it had an upbeat, happy vibe. These days however, there seems to have been modifications to the algorithm that have changed what I see. Whenever I open the app, I’m greeted by a feed that consists mostly of low-value rage-bait or political punditry. The good vibes of the early days are all gone.
At least with X, I can open the app to my curated following tab. Threads seems to default to a suggested feed. This lack of control is hugely annoying.?
I suppose that Threads can still have some value from a brand-marketing perspective, but for a casual consumer, it doesn’t seem very interesting.?