Comments on: News flash: Social media won’t fix your content problems

By: lizmassey68

lizmassey68 — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 02:10:01 +0000

This post “speaks to my condition,” as the Quakers would say. Thank you for being a breath of pure oxygen in a room filled with laughing gas–or worse.

By: lizmassey68

lizmassey68 — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 01:58:58 +0000

As the Quakers would say, this post “speaks to my condition.” Many companies in many industries certainly do need to utilize social media, but if your website has very little to offer them in terms of user/customer-centric content, adding social media tools isn't going make people want to interact with you.

Thank you for being the breath of pure oxygen in a room filled with laughing gas. (Or worse.)

By: BlueFerret

BlueFerret — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 02:03:08 +0000

As a content writer (and someone who pushes for content strategy with clients), I'm saying "Thank you very much!" for highlighting the importance of content relevance. I wind up arguing with too many clients (not everyone, mercifully) on content and (now) on social media. Specifically, on lack of strategy and the little importance they place on relevance.

I tend to encounter two types of "canned response" to the social media/content intermix:
1. "Oh, our clients wouldn't find us with social media. It's a waste of time to try."
2. "We need to be on every social media channel, updating all the time! They'll love hearing about us!"

Strategy? What's that?

Sigh.

How about this for a writer's "jump in" point, as Jeremiah illustrated..."It's all about what the customer wants solved!"

P.S. - I think I'll start using "And then the world blew up" as my witty rejoinder.

By: DanHaley

DanHaley — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 04:10:56 +0000

In the spirit of working more closely with our social technologies colleagues, here's a similar challenge content profs. share with them: effective social media work demands a long-term relationship, just like good content strategy. We can help each other by stressing this point to clients and supervisors/execs.

Neither communities nor good content appear overnight.

By: ChristineHeller

ChristineHeller — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 23:30:34 +0000

Great post, Kristina. So many folks I talk to nowadays want so much to jump on the social media bandwagon without doing the necessary analysis and justification. Without a content strategy, these “shiny objects” just create more noise.

By: farfromfearless

farfromfearless — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 21:50:22 +0000

I read Owyang's recent and past post and it saddens me to see the dramatic departure–things change. I get that. But honestly, Owyang's recent post sounded more like pandering that postulating.

In any case, I think this discussion also serves to highlight another issue, and that's the seeming disconnect between what is tactical vs. strategic. In my experience, the marketing/communications world rarely sees content as being anything other than tactical–an asset or resource to fulfill a strategy. Communicating that distinction has been difficult, especially with folks (CMOs, mar/comm. teams, agencies) who are primarily interested in the quick hits/high-return (e.g. short term gains).

@farfromfearless

By: Luis Antezana (luckylou)

Luis Antezana (luckylou) — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 13:41:53 +0000

Great post, and great comments. I was going to add mine about both social media and content strategy each being important, and, when done well on their own, and done well in consideration of the other, amplifying each other's effectiveness, but you and Jeremiah pretty much covered that here!

By: Erica

Erica — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 06:32:31 +0000

In times of trouble, the ancient Romans—a democratic republic— elected a dictator to oversee the solution. Later this office morphed into Emperor. They saw the wisdom of turning complex situations over to one person to get the job done

By: fmachs

fmachs — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 04:23:33 +0000

“Just because you put a forum there, does not mean that people will start new threads there”. I read that but don't remember where.
Also, it is always about the inventors. QQ

By: kiddredd

kiddredd — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 04:06:10 +0000

Well spoken. Until clients (and online marketing agencies) start (at the very least) creating a line item in budgets for content strategy and creative, what they'll have is more unfocused babble posing as content.