In 2008 I shared a post outlining the (not so) secret of the social web: passion. It’s one of the reasons most marketers still don’t understand how to build a community or create stuff that passes the “so what” test of digital content.
I was reminded of this when reading my friend Mitch Joel’s post today about the key to successful content — that without passion, it doesn’t really exist:
Most marketers who are creating content are worried about things like the type of content they’re writing (text, images, audio, video)? Where that content should reside (Facebook,Twitter, blog, YouTube, Pinterest)? How frequently to post (hourly, daily, weekly)? Who is going to create it (an intern, the communications team, a freelance journalist, the CEO)? It turns out that Seth, myself and many other people who create content that seems to garner some semblance of an audience and attention are inspired to create the content. Pushing beyond that, we are inspired consistently.
It struck me, it’s not really about content in the first place and hasn’t been in years. Content is commoditized, we can literally get it anywhere and we probably don’t need it from you or your brand. The trick is to have people on your team so interested, curious and activated in your category that they can’t help but create consistently and have it be remarkable. It’s just what they do (read Mitch’s whole post linked above to get more of a sense of what I mean).
Of course you have to be interesting too, you have to write well (or be articulate on video, or creative in visualizations). But that’s still not enough. Without actually caring — something you can’t fake, and without legitimate passion — something you can’t outsource, you’re not going to succeed.
If you’re thinking that’s a difficult problem to solve, you’re right. But that’s the path to becoming a premium brand, forming trust with users and leading your category. If it was so easy everyone would do it and have consistent growth in organic marketing KPIs. But it’s not, and that’s the reality we live in (and your challenge). Build a team with passion for your products, the web and marketing overall. Content is simply a byproduct.