What is content marketing? You can read 20 different blogs and get 20 different interpretations, so in this weeks post we thought we’d lay out our definition.
Recently we’ve discussed at some length the confusion that exists around content marketing and the question we hear a lot, what is content marketing and what does it mean. We certainly know what it means to us. I’ve blogged about this before, just as I’ve also blogged about the many companies out there peddling other content marketing solutions and given some advice on how to pick one, which I hope has been useful.
For today’s post, however, I thought I’d look at how the confusion about the specifics of content marketing is being perpetuated and have a gentle dig at the industry conferences that have tacked a content marketing or blogger outreach panel on to their annual events.
What really winds me up is how much the notion of expert speaker and panel reminds me of this quote from Alan Shepard, the first American in space. “It’s a very sobering feeling to be up in space and realise that one’s safety factor was determined by the lowest bidder on a government contract,” he said. Only in our business, perhaps it’s often the highest bidder.
Why do I say this? Well, because I have been inundated with invitations to speak at events that have been closely tied to sponsorship requests.
Now, I’m not naïve, but in a relatively new sector it’s a sobering thought to know that the brands attending these events are being advised by the person who paid the most to get their attention. You might think then that these panels are dominated by the big agencies but I’ve rarely seen their people speak in this environment. Almost invariably it’s a software provider and this just makes matters worse.
I genuinely feel this is confusing the content marketing agenda and I intend to make it my mission to expose this and pick holes wherever I can.
What are we going to do about it? One thought was to do some content marketing that really gets to the nub of the issue. This would be totally in line with our belief in educating and informing our audience. But our audience also includes some of our competitors and I prefer not to educate them at all.
So we’ve settled on a new approach. It’s based on Facebook’s talent for newsfeed manipulation, interwoven with a hint of subliminal messaging. You may see it, you may not. But one thing you’ll definitely be compelled to do is contact DVO to find out more. Doing that is easy. Call us on 020 3771 2461, drop an email to [email protected] or tweet us. We’re @DVOagency. Oh and then there’s Facebook too https://www.facebook.com/dvoagency.
