Blog » The Dangers of Content Marketing on Autopilot
The Dangers of Content Marketing on Autopilot
This morning, at 4:14, my husband left for work turning the lock behind him. A typical engineer, he wouldn’t dream of leaving his sleeping family exposed with an unlocked door. You can argue it’s nature or training or experience but one thing’s for sure. He doesn’t take risks when it comes to his work or his family. While content marketing doesn’t present health and safety issues, I see evidence of risky behaviour all the time and am guilty myself.
Going on autopilot
The content marketing recipe for success is simple – develop original content, make it findable for Google and distribute it through social media. Early on, we talked about how it’s all free of charge, too. But here's the problem; to implement a content marketing system successfully takes:
- Time
- Writing talent
- Networking capability
- Decent idea about how Web 2.0 works
- Content aggregators
Not long ago I saw an update on LinkedIn perfectly illustrating the problem. A book publisher I know writes about literacy and curates excellent content on the topic. The post in question was talking about literacy in tarot card reading. I knew immediately it was an example of content marketing by autopilot. I read the post and, sure enough, it was a low quality, SPAMMY article scraped from several sources and loaded with prime keywords. It also had the ability to levy brand damage if the reader didn’t know the business as well as I do. When I alerted the publisher, they admitted to using a service to provide content and didn’t know what was being posted. - Not doing your homework
I’ve been caught in the same trap myself. I volunteer with Women in Technology, WA (WITWA). Part of my work involves running their social media activity. During a deadline crunch, I posted an article on Twitter from Fast Company titled, How come there aren’t more women in technology? It’s a good publication and the title reflected our mission of getting more women into science, technology and math careers. I didn’t read the article. It was full of pseudo-science concluding women just weren’t up to it due to their “hormones, brain anatomy, and mirror neurons”. Believe me when I say I was called on the carpet in the biggest way. - Social Media integration
Social media tools pitch the ability to integrate with other products. Appealing to the harassed and harried content marketer, they seduce us with “post once to all your profiles”. The problem is you don’t have the same audience on every channel. If you did, there wouldn’t be any point in having more than one channel. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve tried to engage with someone on Twitter only to find out it’s a ‘bot version of their Facebook stream. - Auto posting
Auto posting can be useful when you’re away from your desk for certain periods or have something that benefits from repetition - like conference details. You can appear to be active even when you’re not. Herein lies the problem; you’re not really there. When abused, auto posting turns you into a full-fledged ‘bot and all the work you’ve done to build a community is quickly erased.
Despite early claims, content marketing isn’t free. It’s not a particularly difficult practice to grasp but it takes dedication and persistence to deploy. While tempting to take shortcuts, the risks to your business and your brand are significant. At the very least, make sure you read every word you post. Only distribute your content to channels where you plan to be active. Avoid the lure of autopilot content marketing and you’ll save your brand from a crash and burn.
Have you ever been embarrassed by something you did on autopilot?
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Image credit: cockpit by gcfairch, on Flickr
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Comments
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Thank you for your affirmation. It's not always popular to write about the reasons to do something less efficiently. Still, one dedicated reader is worth more than dozens of disengaged 'connections'.
Posted by San Jose airport transportations, 28/02/2012 8:53am (3 months ago)
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Hi Nancy,
Thank you for your affirmation. It's not always popular to write about the reasons to do something less efficiently. Still, one dedicated reader is worth more than dozens of disengaged 'connections'.Posted by Sarah Mitchell, 15/09/2011 1:22pm (8 months ago)
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Readers seek new, unique and interesting contents that's updated frequently. Once a blog falls in the trap of stale posts, its quite difficult establishing the same level of trust it shared with previous readers. Going autopilot with content writing is a sure step toward internet oblivion. Yet there are a few benefits, as you've spotted quite well Gina, but they are not worth the risk of losing out on dedicated and expectant readers.
Insightful post, as always.Posted by Nancy @ Logo Design, 15/09/2011 3:58am (8 months ago)
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Hi Gina,
Yesterday someone told me they had active social media profiles on nearly every tool around. I doubt it's true but I know if they do there's not much quality to their activity. I snooped around a bit and discovered I was right. It was a steady stream of repostings from other people and it was the same on ever channel. BORING and useless. There's no getting around it, maintaining an active social media presence takes time and hard work.
Thank you for sharing your experience and the wisdom gleaned.Posted by Sarah Mitchell, 09/09/2011 3:52pm (8 months ago)
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I too found myself making the mistake of taking advantage of social media tools and posting the same message to all of them. When I realized how dumb I had been, I immediately shifted my messages to more specifically address each audience. It takes more time, but I actually feel a sort of burden released because I know I'm staying on target with offering information those individual audiences need. Thanks for the reminder!
Posted by gina kellogg, 09/09/2011 8:04am (8 months ago)
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Thank you, Nick. It's so tempting to go down the path of scheduled updating. I bet the people who rely on it as their sole way of communication don't get the quality of followers they want.
Cheers,
SarahPosted by Sarah Mitchell, 08/09/2011 2:49am (9 months ago)
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Great points. While auto posting can be beneficial at times, it's important not to rely too heavily on it. The human element still needs to be there. I also agree that you need to really read, and understand everything that you post. While it's tempting to just browse before sharing, it could come back to haunt you.
Posted by Nick Stamoulis, 07/09/2011 6:31am (9 months ago)
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Hi Joseph,
I've never had anyone leave a blog post in my comment section before but I think you've achieved that. Thank you so much for your passionate insight into what has become a scourge for legitimate content marketers - the quick and dirty approach to marketing.
One thing I find very encouraging is Google's new Panda release. By putting stakes in quality content and working to reward the people producing original work, it's only going to discourage the SPAMMY attempts we currently see all over the place.
The thing I find surprising is how many people think there's an easy solution to all of this. As you so rightly point out, it's a big undertaking to produce remarkable content.
Thanks again.
Posted by Sarah Mitchell, 30/08/2011 7:11pm (9 months ago)
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Hi, Sarah,
Agreed, allowing poorly curated or non-curated "content" to be distributed to represent your business is foolhardy. Who would let someone say something completely unmoderated about them or their interests in such a widely public forum? Someone who doesn't want to either do the work or pay the cost to become a genuine thought leader and publish REAL expert content -- something not only relevant by way of matching some keywords but also meaningful and useful, and well composed.
There's a self-destructive syndrome that involves this terminology "content marketing" and how it combines with greed and sloth in a particularly insidious way. If someone falls prey to the notion that they can market by just assuring any sort of "content" goes into some sort of distribution system, they should closely examine their motives and method.
It's still true that you can never really get something for nothing. If you want to harvest in Fall you have to get behind the mule and plow in Spring. Your audience is listening until you show them that you're just using them. Then they go away.
I avoid using the terminology "content marketing" because it's so dangerously misleading. It plays on the human tendency to take the easy path, with uniformly poor results. Let's talk about Thought Leadership Marketing, Expert Content Marketing, or something that doesn't reduce the notion of marketing via valuable info distribution to a commodity called "content." If all you need is "content" a random character generator will do. Even search engines care about your "info."
Marketing with content means there has to be someone accountable for quality, whatever that is to the audience in question, assuring each transmission is compelling and magnetic. Otherwise the whole thing is just the Emperor with no clothes.
I see expert content done at times by intelligent and creative business people who can also communicate. More often, I see people who are over-motivated but under-endowed trying to do it themselves because they want to succeed but don't have marketing production talent or the means to hire good talent to market with "content."
Lastly, it's critical to avoid confusing the distribution system with what's inside it. Keep in mind the container can very well be completely free. This makes the greed and sloth syndrome especially insidious. Anyone can configure a blog that feeds to social media in 20 minutes. It's what's inside that matters and pulls the weight.
Maybe "Curated Content Marketing" would be the right term. . .
Posted by Joseph Riden, 30/08/2011 3:18pm (9 months ago)
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Hi Susan,
It's so important to read - read, not skim - every word of any article you're posting. It's so easy to rush through though and I'm continually counselling myself to slow down and do things properly. It's just not worth it to embarrass yourself because you're in a hurry.
Thanks for your observation. How cool is it to be a pilot?Posted by Sarah Mitchell, 30/08/2011 2:24am (9 months ago)
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