Companies are producing content at an unsustainable rate.
This week’s guest and conversation is inspired by that very topic. Stephen Foskett, founder of Tech Field Day, joins us to talk about his recent post titled “Everybody’s On the Internet, and Nobody Cares.”
Inspired by talks of content and platform, we discuss its effect on us all as we unpack details of how Stephen approaches his business.
You’ll hear:
- About the age of distributed marketing
- How “Tech Field Day” originally got its name
- How content marketing is overhyped
- Us discuss whether marketers have to be natives to their audience
Taking our commentary to heart, we’d really love to hear your thoughts.
On a separate note, I found this image on Arjan Timmerman’s blog.
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Thanks for the mention
Love Foskett’s no-BS approach here and dismissal of un-authentic marketing tactics. One of the true OG’s in the industry. Respect.
Awesome episode – thanks.
Key takeaways:
Names and words have power.
Stephen pointed out how few people at his speaking events are on Twitter and have heard of him or his blog.
This is similar with my experience, both as a customer and during the time I worked for a VAR last year. I know very few of the technology professionals I’ve worked with are active on social media, at least as it relates to their jobs. Even the folks at my former and current jobs who are looked to for guidance on social media seem to actually use it very little (perhaps that speaks to the type of guidance they can offer) themselves.
I’m glad to see you guys are aware that there are still a great many customers not active on social media, even if there are stats showing customers tend to be a huge way through the buying decision (was it 70%?) before contacting a vendor. I think there is some Googling and some small circle networking, but my experience both as a peer of folks who make buying decisions in what I see as almost a vacuum and as someone who worked for a VAR trying to sell solutions and products to customers is that businesses are still spending a ton of money without availing themselves of the benefits of researching via blogs, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.
I don’t see that as a reason not to engage in social media (obviously) – I see it as a call to all of us who are engaged to do a bigger, better job of explaining its value to folks who haven’t caught on yet.
Good perspective Mike. And what about the content that does show up in those random google searches? Still a sobering concept as we try to battle the echo chamber.
Yep. Best way to combat crappy content is with good content, and you get that from real people.
Speaking of the echo chamber, it really is scary how much of it is perpetuated by old school marketing folks who don’t get social media. I know resellers and other companies that thing subscribing to some sort of federated auto-spew of content from their vendor partners is the way to have a successful social media presence. I would bet $1,000 none of those people read the feeds they’re auto-posting on Twitter – so why would their customers be interested in them?
[…] Geek Whisperers Ep 36 with Stephen Foskett: Overcoming Crappy Content with Real People […]