The hierarchy of marketing has just gained another level. It costs less money, but requires more effort. And in the new world it is starting to be the only way to effectively market some types of new product and service.
- BUY – advertising
- BEG – PR/media
- BUG – sales calls
- EARN – publish great content / “brand journalism”
What changes are we seeing?
The biggest change is EARN websites look more like newspapers with interesting articles to catch the attention…like this one…rather than product brochure-ware. Also, great content is free.
If you are a PR company then you are seeing an attrition as companies divert PR budget (BEG) to social media (EARN) initiatives.
If you are a salesman you need to think about how you EARN rather than BUG.
Finally, why would you pay for advertising, other than for brand awareness?
Solve for Interesting
Seth Godin Blog
Jeremiah Owyang
IT Redux
HBR Blog
Clay Shirky Blog
SocialMedia Today
Chris Dixon
Brian Solis
Chris Brogan
The TIBCO Blog
Venture Beat
Engadget
Wired
Lifehacker
Mashable
The Verge
GigaOM
TechCrunch
Producing content for a company site for free through computer algorithm generated news wires gets you exactly what you pay for: quantity vs quality. Over 10 years of experience in delivering content on a myrid subjects has demonstrated to me that EARN is connecting people to expert sources of trusted information. Bad information is free, good information wants to be paid for.