Is Content Dead?
(Photo by karl muscat on Unsplash)
It's been a sobering, energising, and sad last 18 months all mixed up. In the market research world, we've seen an accelerateion of existing trends - digital adoption, the advance of automation, DIY and more.
Sometimes it feels like the industry is non-recognisable - take a look at the 2020 GRIT list of most inovative suppliers, see how it feels.
One thing that's struck me is the shift in the world of marketing - the value of content has plummeted.
Many conferences dropped their attendance fees radically - whilst raising the economic bar to speakers. Put more bluntly - pay to get on stage.
Plus there's been an absolute deluge of people with advice on everything, and all overlaid with a dose of emotive stuff. LinkedIn is no longer the channel I recognise from a few years ago, it's a bit more like a business version of Facebook - from what I remember of FB.
And ironically, despite the overload of posts, blogs, there is a huge dearth of stuff that is actually well researched, original, not self-selling, or even provocative. We have a lack of breadth of intellectual ideas, despite the huge push to diversity.
So is content really dethroned?
Today the penny dropped - channel is everything now. Content, fine - to help someone build a channel.
And then once the channel becomes a portal with reach, play contributors off against one another.
So how should content creators the world over respond? My take:
1. Build your own channel.
Journalists have to do it, so do we - personally, and so do the companies we work for.
2. Charge for your ideas.
The idea of the gig economy in a service world is real. But why should we give away experience, expertise, for nothing? Just so others can copy it?
3. Inspiration will re-emerge.
Qualify that with I hope. Looking back at a paper I co-authored on semiotics about five years ago, I was startled by the contrast with much current stuff on offer: actually wanting to add to a fundus of knowledge, not overtly salesy, and only marginally about efficiencies.
One day the efficiency pips will all have disappeared - whatever fruit is left will be valued even more.
The gig economy is not an attractive prospect - nor is a world where MR is reduced to a mix of IT and sales, which in some sectors it seems to be.
So - next time I will write about more inspring stuff again.
Curious, as ever, as to others' views.