Authentic Marketing or Spam - What Makes the Difference?

by Paul Reimers
http://visionarynetworkmarketing.com/

Everyone who has been online for more than say 5 minutes has experienced spam. It can come in so many forms with so many different agendas, it can be difficult to see through all of it to find what's genuine and meaningful online.

There's something about the internet that breeds spam. A lot of people who are new to internet marketing make the basic mistakes that can turn a well intentioned campaign to a spam buffet! The problem with this is that with the prevalence of spam online, it can be easy for others to see your online marketing message and lump it in with all things spam.

That's the reason for this article. I wanted to take a good look at spam and use knowledge of what makes it spam to help marketers make their already good marketing better.

Here is my definition of spam:

It's a piece of marketing that has an agenda and provides no value in and of itself.

Content of this variety lacks depth. The only way it will impact the reader is if they take the action that the marketer wants them to take. The content itself lacks content of any depth.

What makes authentic marketing?

It must provide genuine value with no strings attached. This means that the piece of content should solve a problem, impart knowledge or be entertaining. There are a lot of people who are building their businesses through blogging and social media. The content they share is free and if it is great, it will get shared which drives more traffic back to their site. This sharing feature is one of the coolest things about Social Media. Content worthy of being read is allowed to be read more through sharing. This is actually the way that all great content is spread. How often do you recommend great books, movies or music to friends?

The reason why low quality content is spammed all over the place by the producer of it is that they are the only one who will spread it. No one else would ever want to share it.

In this way, the ways that people spam others is just imitating what happens naturally with great content.

I like to think of it this way. It's a matter of depth and span. The more depth or quality there is in a piece of content, the more it has the potential to spread through word of mouth. However, if there is no depth to the material the only way for there to be span is for the producer of it to wall paper the web through any means at their disposal.

I'm not saying that depth alone will make a piece of content go viral. It's important to study the ways that content can be spread ethically as well as creating something worthy of being syndicated by others. I love Seth Godin's stuff. He says that marketing is just the spreading of ideas. If you are in the process of spreading an idea, you are a marketer! He noted that there are a lot of great ideas that never catch on because of bad marketing.

So what is a simple principle to keep in mind to get our content seen initially and shared?

It comes down to span and depth. Content that's great gives the reader something and has quality. This will encourage others to share which leads naturally to span.

"The greatest depth over the greatest span."

Keeping this in mind will help to balance the three aspects of content based marketing.

1. Create great content that has depth.

2. Put it in front of a good number of people.

3. Make it very easy for them to share it with others - via social media syndication buttons/ plugins.

Balance is important in many different areas of life. In marketing online, it's important to balance depth and span to have great results.

To read more about authentic marketing, visit my blog.

I coach individuals in the areas of home business, online marketing and social meda. My main focus is helping part time entrepreneurs go full tine with their home based business.

Article submitted Sunday, May 08, 2011 & read 13 times.

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