Hello, Dear Blogworms,
Trust your month has gone well, mine has, thankyouverymuch!
I’ve been doing a lot of writing this past month and if there is one thing I would like to say is that the at the heart of any business is its products and services.
Communication is important, content is important too. But by no means is content ‘king’!
It’s all I hear these days, you know by marketing know-it-alls, social media busybodies, advertising whizzes, etcetera, etcetera…They might as well be wearing placards and ring bells, chanting “Content is King!” “Content is King!”…the way they’re going on!
I just look at them (maybe blankly, come to think of it) and wonder – “Do they know what they mean?”
Also, since when did a non-living object, such as content, become personified? And while we’re on personification, who decided that content is “king” and not “queen”?
I’m not the one to buy this (rather warped) logic that if a man produces content, it’s “king” and if a woman produces it, it’s “queen”!
Is it just me or does this really make sense to you? Okay, let’s try to work it out:-
Firstly, content is not gender-specific, could we just make that clear from the start please (cue rolling eyeballs, if you must). No, content is just that…content. Text, images, videos, pages, links and graphics – all these things can be created by anyone so inclined. Let’s remind ourselves that all these forms of content are material manifestations of our ideas, thoughts, musings, perceptions and ruminations. Capiche? Good.
Secondly, at the end of the day, the core of any business is its product/(s) and service/(s). You can call me traditional, or conventional (and since when does such labels induce raised eyebrows, I don’t know), but if a product/service has strong USPs (i.e. Unique Selling Points to me and you) and features that are credible as they are practicable, this should be the driving force, the crux on which any business thrives and succeeds on. Therefore, any content generated – be it websites, signboards, etc, or be it in the form of marketing collateral (i.e. brochures, leaflets, pamphlets, pens, pads, carrier bags, etc.) these all orbit around the products and services of a business.
Thirdly, as far as consumers and customers are concerned – products and services are classified into two broad categories: a) what can I afford (therefore need)? and b) what can I not afford (therefore want)? Similarly, investors also have two broad categories when it comes to deciding whether or not to put their money on a product/service/business: a) Will this work? Does the public need this? b) Will this not work? Does the public want this?
Yes it can be as simple as that and I’ll tell you something else – the mass media do enough commercial promoting than we could keep up with and traditional forms of advertising still work – otherwise they wouldn’t cost the roof!
Mind you, websites have caught on quite a bit…and so have the ‘Likes’ (pun intended) of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc.
But does this mean that the content we create takes centre-stage when promoting something? Surely, as common sense would dictate, the promotional content created is to focus on the product/service/business – and not the other way round? Because that would mean we would be buying into the content and not the product/service/business per se?
Well, not always anyway….depending on how intellectually engaging and psychologically stimulating the content is, right?
If I sound naïve here, I do not apologise, because the way I see it, consumers and investors would want to know what the deal is with a product and service before they loosen their purse strings. They would prefer the straightforward, up front approach, because nobody has the time for waffle!
While, I’m not advocating forceful, hard-selling here, I am going to champion the cause of cutting the waffle down to the bare minimum and getting – logically – straight to the point.
I therefore argue that content is NOT king!
Rant Over.