No Such Thing As A 3 Month Campaign Anymore – The New Content
Going back 10 years ago, this blog could be part of a ‘campaign’, now there is no such word.
Before the days of social, the world was a lot more straightforward, an ad campaign was agreed and you’d basically cut and paste the concept across all platforms, even to the point where information would be in a GIF for a thing called a banner ad. We then sat back and waited, a lot of the time it was with our fingers crossed for a response we could say worked.
Changing Our Thinking To A 365 Content Commitment
Today, there is no such thing as a three-week campaign, we all need to change our thinking to a 365-day campaign. By the way, if I hear of a business that says the ‘we tried social media for three months, but didn’t get anything out of it,’ then I’m going to cancel Christmas for my family in 2014.
The 365-day campaign now has its place with a mindset of producing content on a daily basis to deliver to an audience your take on the world via the various platforms (digital and offline) and establish your place with your own distinct voice. Ok, this means a greater commitment of time, but wouldn’t you rather have that as your predominant cost as opposed to an invoice from a media company requesting payment within seven days?
Velocity Partners’, Doug Kessler, commented on this site last month where the word ‘campaign’ can still be used, to test themes over a limited time span, but not to forget the long game that is content marketing.
Why ‘Dabbling’ Doesn’t Work
To those who dabble with content and the reason why ‘social media didn’t work after three months’ is because of the low quality of content and the even lower level of engagement and interactivity with others. The biggest reason people flirt and then leave is the complete lack of appreciation for what a commitment to a platform can deliver and also the fear of failure. Take a blog for example, to have a low frequency of articles where it is clear to everyone that the last entry was over six months ago, shows the lack of investment of time and effort to stand for something and say something different. To have access to these mediums is a privilege not a chore, to write-off and come back months later and praising how responsive and cutting edge the latest article was and share on every platform available is pretty embarrassing.
The opportunity we all have to take ownership and carve out our own personality that is recognisable and to build an audience who are willing to hear what you have to say, on your terms (no I’m not talking about the templated world of sending out your own news digest via paper.li) is one of the greatest possibilities to become recognised and respected.
Lets Embrace It
We have to embrace technology and not be afraid of it or think that we’re going to look silly. We have to get through this to accept and find our own voice. By the way, I still keep every article here to see, by clicking on the last page at the bottom you can read the rubbish content when I started for this site back in January 2012.
We now need to tune into our audiences because social and the channels we own (web, blog, email) is how we build the places for people to come to, not for a specific amount of time, but regularly. Goodby the defined campaign, hello to committed content.
