Why is Digital Marketing Content Crazy?

The other day I saw a quote a lot of corporate brand marketing teams could learn from.

“Speak only if it improves upon the silence.”

In modern marketing, content gets thrown across websites, Social Media channels and generally anywhere people think it may stick!

Why?

Some say it will help to improve your audience reach and ensure your brand is in the forefront of consumer minds during the buying phase. It could even boost the vital SEO rankings! 

But no one ever sees what harm this is doing to your brand image in the eyes of a social user. While silence is never a good thing, and I am not encouraging silence on Social Media, too much noise is also a negative, as with so many things - it’s about finding a balance.

If you post highly relevant pieces of content less frequently that is designed specifically for the intended target audience the platform it is published on it will probably be more effective than sending out 15 pieces of generic, vanilla and over used content with no specific audience in mind.

Then, instead of going to your client or Director with great figures on reach and impressions on social, you can give them real conversion and engagement figures that will mean something to their bottom line and impact the ROI. They will be a lot more interested in that conversation.

If all we needed was higher impressions count I would attach a hashtag about One Direction into every post I published. Unfortunately 13 year old girls don’t fit my target demographic!

In my experience of using Social Media for personal use, I find that if I see an account showing up on my feed too often, I become disengaged and bored with the brand, especially when I have no interest in their content. I then usually end up hitting the unfollow button, hardly ideal for selling purposes.

But how did we get to this point? A lot of this started due to Twitter in my opinion however, other platforms are now being used in the same way. I like Twitter and use it on a frequent basis but, hashtags on pointless subjects that some brands feel compelled to use to “gain exposure” can be highly harmful. These can be irrelevant to the target audience, and become annoying.  Who even cares about #MouldyCheeseDay anyway!!

Rant Over!

While it is true that the use of hashtags can generate a higher rate of engagement for a tweet and probably a higher rate of impressions as a result, brands really need to concentrate their efforts and pour their energy in to who they’re trying to target, and what they are trying to achieve. There is far more to marketing than being a high volume content pusher.  

Many brands need to revert to planned content marketing with the messages they wish to promote through social, and then proceed to surround this with supportive content themed towards their target audience and what they will find interesting.

There lies the difference between doing social, and being social!

Am I right or am I wrong? Let me know.

James Bellamy

UYR Group