I Hate the Word "Content"

Calling the output of writers, musicians, moviemakers and even the artisans of branding's dark arts "content" is like referencing the substance of every meal "food," or labeling the specific events of human experience "life."

It has slipped into common usage due to the prevalence of technology and, since qualitative attributes don't necessarily register on site architectures or CRM flowcharts, it replaces substantive description with referential convenience. Content is a box that needs to be filled, and it doesn’t matter that the entire contents of the Library of Congress could thus be called "data." The POV negates any recognition beyond format. We talk of content instead of ideas or meaning because we choose to base those conversations on process in lieu of purpose.

Or at least that's my conclusion when I read about the "content farms" that have emerged over the past few years (like this one). The premise is simple in a VC-funding sort of way: behavioral modeling can allow web sites to gauge topics in which site visitors are interested, which will then prompt content services to reach out to freelancers to produce stuff on said topics. Sites will then tee-up these prequalified articles and videos (or whatever) along with the targeted ads that are based on similar audience research. So visitors are happy because the site gives them what they want, just as sponsors are thrilled to know why the visitors are there in the first place. It's a perfect win-win exchange.

Or is it a blueprint for a perpetual motion machine? 

It's not reasonable to expect consumers to know what they want to know before they know it; conversation isn't a self-referential do-loop but rather an amorphous, porous system that requires newness. People need to acquire novel insights somewhere and somehow but it won't be through a mechanism that presumes to guess what they’re already seeking. In this sense the content farm approach is no different than Google's "last click" approach to selling: since the qualitative steps of experience are so hard to control and monetize they're literally outsourced to other providers.

In other words, let some stupid mainstream publisher go broke promoting something more unexpected or unique. Content is effectively generic and the only reason its has any value is because someone else paid for the privilege of educating or inspiring consumers to ask for it.

It gets worse. Many of the for-profit creators of art and/or information are on commercial deathwatches because they're competing with entities who are happy to give things away for free (they make money via other aspects of their business models) and individuals who are just plain disinterested in making any money whatsoever.

So while technology frees the unlimited creation and distribution of digital bits -- I'm a fan and beneficiary of it -- the result is that the Internet is flooded not with insight or awareness or knowledge, but rather...yup, you guessed it...content. Agnostic, without distinctions of authority or reliability and thus equally tolerated, online content is supposed to be vetted by the invisible, magical hand of The Crowd. Only it doesn't work all that well, despite the advocates who claim otherwise, because most subjects or issues can't be reduced to a simple thumbs up or down conclusion. 

The Crowd rates content on its content-ness but it doesn't regularly originate net-new substance. Think less library card file and more agitated audience at a daily bear bating or gladiator duel. The parties or individuals who do otherwise are more the exception to this rule and I'd wager that few if any consider themselves in the content business.

And then we get to brands, most of which have wholly embraced the content idea. 

When the substance of marketing communications is seen as content, we see the true realization of form without function as brands spend money to effectively waste consumers' time. Conversation has an absolutely value, as does entertainment, humor, and any behavior that prompts people to prompt any such behaviors in others. Content is a box that appears on PowerPoint presentations between charts on users and metrics; it's more what than why and most of the latest marketing campaigns value its frequent dissemination over what it qualitatively communicates.

I'd wager that we could track the decline in corporate reputation and price premiums with the use of the world "content" as a descriptive for what gets created by brands. So brands create content, the net regurgitates and propagates it, and then content farms respond to it by producing more of the same. This just seems like such an incidental or partial perspective on how people learn and interact. 

Since my interest is with marketers primarily, I wonder what would happen if we simply stopped using the word entirely and instead referenced the substance of our efforts by our qualitative (what we are hoping to communicate) and quantitative (what we want people to do with it) purposes? Would we create better ads and more tangibly useful social campaigns? Aren't we less "content creators" and more "sales enablers?"

Calling the guts of what we create “content,” whether as marketers or artists, imprisons our hopes and limits our efficacy. I hate the word.

Comments

[Jeff Molander]

People, people. You are so January 2010. The new term is "social commerce." Get on the stick!

Jim, I'm hoping you don't mind if I quote you on that. Brilliantly stated.

Right -- not all content is created equal. The good stuff is "gamed out of the system" by "affiliate marketing" and the like. Many thanks to Google -- or our incessant reliance on it. Nick Carr's The Great Unread (http://budurl.com/3u7x) is essential reading.

There is simply no cultural value placed on quality content. While tempted to conjure Andrew Keen (The Great Seduction) I'll pass :)

There is value in mass. Period. Until that changes this all remains the same... and is essentially gamed. A kind of digital social engineering for profit. Relying on the most base of reliable human instincts. Love, hate, fear, etc.

[Jonathan]

So true, Jim, and yes, I can't stand the term "content marketing." It seems that the only people who 'get' the buzz phrase implicitly are those who've had no explicit experience selling anything (other than selling their own implicit understanding of what "content marketing" might mean, which is explicit as an expletive deleted).

[Jim Novo]

Jonathan, based on above I'm sure you went insane when you heard the new buzz phrase "content marketing". Kind of like social marketing needs to be taught to people lacking any experience in Marketing, content marketing has to be taught to people with no experience in creating insight.

You know, people who have to be told that if you publish irrelevant crap, then people won't like it.

And that is really insightful!

[Jonathan]

Jeff, you make really good points and I love your distinction between aggregating and curating. Not all content is created equal?

[Jonathan]

Love it!

[Jonathan]

I don't know. I'll have to check your Twitter followers to determine whether you actually have any content worth contentifying.

[Steve Kirstein]

is it a blueprint for a perpetual motion machine?

Yes. A new unclothed emperor has emerged: social media. You're not supposed to observe that 85% of the CONTENT (ha!) is either blatant self-promotion or recycled noise that's supposed to substitute for your own insight. Since it's growing, there's VC funding to be had, buyouts to pimp and attention to be gotten, earned or not.

If I cite Kawasaki, Brogan or TED here, does it make me look even more insightful?

[Carson]

I've always liked this house ad from Harper's:

http://www.backstagebasics.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/harpers-nocontent.jpg

[Jeff Molander]

"We talk of content instead of ideas or meaning because we choose to base those conversations on process in lieu of purpose."

Yup. Because there's no money in purpose. Advertising forbids it, as you know Jonathan.

Traffic replaces visitor or even (gasp!) customer. We blast email; we don't target the message. Oh -- I'm sorry we do that. But that's a lie we're willing to tell our boss. Among ourselves we use these words freely and gleefully.

The replacement of substantive descriptions, Jonathan, is purposeful. It insures that "the experts" have the ability to take the money of woeful, dumbed-down marketers. The folks who really DO have the answers but who are being constantly convinced that they do not.

Spot-on but forget about Google's "last click." This is the marketing industry's bastard child that it refuses to give up. It's easy to blame Google but the demand for "last click" is one that plays to the "simplicity factor."

The "network effect" (across all digital strategies) has convinced most marketers the Web makes marketing inherently easy or easier. This lie is perpetuated by the agencies, "experts" and consultants to the detriment of marketers themselves -- who are all too willing to believe this bunk.

But Jonathan...
"The Crowd rates content on its content-ness but it doesn't regularly originate net-new substance."

Yes. But this is the difference between aggregating content (low value) and curating it (high value) and is, thus, the key to creating content-based value.

If we stopped using the words "traffic" and "content" we would be forced to look into a very ugly mirror. We have lost our way as marketers.