When it comes to marketing content, especially on social media, there is a line between the right balance and ‘white noise’ that must not be crossed.
When it comes to marketing in the digital age, content is king…and queen…actually, it’s the whole royal court. The one member of the royal court you do not want your content to become is the court jester. Anyone who has watched movies based in medieval times knows who the court jester is. He is the official fool, meant to entertain and distract in times of stress. More often than not, the court jester is white noise that the monarch tolerates until he yells, ‘Off with his head.’
When it comes to online content for marketing your business, in this instance, I am talking about voice over talent, but this could apply to any small business or entrepreneur. Seeking more eyes on your business is the goal. However, bombarding your channel and followers with content can have a negative effect. The online world’s versions of ‘Off with his head’ are unfollows, un-likes, unsubscribes, and blocks. So, while you will get to keep your noggin right where it belongs, the eyes that were on your content are now avoiding your ‘white noise’ and gazing longingly at others, especially your competitors. Additionally, splashing your content on sites that your target audience does not frequent is white noise without a purpose.
This is not a new concept for me. Having spent 25 years of my professional life working in marketing, the last 15 focused on digital marketing and content creation, this is how I have always approached content marketing. I am writing this piece because of an ad for a marketing service hoping to gain traction based on Marketing Guru & Entrepreneurial coach Gary Vaynerchuk’s advice that small businesses and entrepreneurs need to generate 64 pieces of content a day to promote their business in social media. I will address my disagreements with Gary Vee’s philosophy in an upcoming video.
But….64 pieces of content every day! Let that sink in for a moment, especially if you struggle to create 2-3 pieces of new content a week for your marketing. Again, I will address that in the upcoming video, but I want to focus on the marketing service in question, AmpiFire. The ad post I saw on FB is below.
The service is currently in ‘invitation only Beta’ status, meaning that they are limiting who they work with while they work out all the bugs in preparation for the official launch. As they are in Beta, not a lot is known beyond their social media ads, and their website that quotes a price of $349 and offers a request for demo form. There is not much beyond that on their website. Their Facebook and LinkedIn presences have little more than marketing copy and ‘We’re Hiring’ Banners. Their Twitter feed shows no activity and appears to have been set up in November 2019 like their other presences.
I mention all of this because they refer to themselves as the ‘first and only Content Amplification Tool,’ offering campaigns that will get your business on over 400+ sites including high traffic blogs, video sites, podcast sites, SlideShare, news sites like USA Today and Google News and more. As there is little info about how all this works, this could be a monthly fee. Like many sites offering all-in-one marketing automation services for businesses without the bandwidth (Marketo, HubSpot, etc.), they probably will be wanting a commitment of at least six months.
Sounds great, but do they know your business? Do they know your target audience and where to reach them? Do they know who your competition is? The answer to these is no. They will probably make educated assumptions based on data models, but they are trying to use a one-size-fits-all model that will not serve all equally. All while claiming you will get ’50x more traffic with their longtail headlines’ (longtail is a topic for another post). I have worked with small businesses that have bought into sales pitches like this. And if I am correct about a six-month commitment, you better hope on a healthy ROI for a $2k+ cost for what is essentially a content authoring and sharing tool with probably only basic knowledge of your business.
The all-knowing, all-seeing entrepreneurial gurus who make bold claims about what they can do to help you grow your business with a general knowledge of your business are numerous. What they do know well is their business, which is to separate you from your money with the hopes of giving you a boost in your results. Their solution is to bombard the digital marketplace, regardless of if the sites they post to will reach your target market, with a massive amount of content. But who will consume that content, and how will they view it? As valuable info or white noise?
Caveat emptor, my friends, caveat emptor!
