The internet is wonderful but it’s also full of crap. This applies especially to marketing blogs, which are often over-simplified and bogus, including the many blogs which promise to double sales with these super easy tips!
The past few years have seen an increased number of marketing blogs, which can be attributed to their search engine optimization contributions, but also simply because blogs are hip–companies without them are considered old-fashioned. But having a blog means nothing unless you write interesting content.
Would I read this? is the most important question a blogger must ask about their work, because if it’s not worth their own attention it’s probably not worth the public’s either.
Howard Rheingold, a technology writer and Stanford lecturer, advocates infotention, which is the process of detecting valuable information and ignoring useless information. In his book, Net Smart, Rheingold writes, “I’ve established the habit of asking myself: Is this information or opportunity to communicate worth my attention at all, given my goal for today?”
Even though I haven’t discovered the definition until recently, I’ve been practicing Rheingold’s infotention since my introduction to the internet. I strive to spend my time online wisely, and that has meant being able to discern quality content from not-as-valuable content, or even crap.
A Google search for “easy marketing tips” reveals the crap that I reference. The majority of results provide over-simplified strategies to make “tons of money easily.” I wonder what the authors of these websites think of their content. Do they actually believe in it? Is it something that they actually respect? My hunch is probably not.
I’m not saying that company and marketing blogs are dead, but I am saying that our audience is getting better at infotention in this space. The super-easy marketing tips are fast-approaching extinction.
Internet users are busy folk. Let’s not waste their time by producing crap content.
Reed Immer is a Digital Marketing Specialist at Response. His Twitter is @reedimmer