Do you think anyone knew who Elvis Presley was before 1954? Nope. At least, no one outside of Memphis, Tennessee knew of him. But, as soon as he plugged his sound into Sun Records and radio stations began playing “That’s All Right,” he was heard. Elvis had the content, but he still needed a path to being heard.
You can bet he sang and performed before then. Just like you can publish all the content you want on your blog or website. But it wasn’t until the communications mechanisms of the day went to work that anyone heardElvis. The same it true for content marketing.
A non-profit executive recently posed the question, “Why social media?” We regularly heard that type of skepticism from brands 5-6 years ago, but when I hear it today it surprises me. Thankfully, brands have matured to the point that, according to Gartner, social marketing is now the second biggest expense for digital marketers behind online advertising. However with this question coming from a non-profit executive, I understood the lingering skepticism.
My answer was short and simple, I asked, “where are people spending their time in today’s fractured media landscape? Television? Newspapers? Radio? The park? The mall? The answer is yes. But it’s also yes … and … Because they’re doing all that – arguably less than 10 years ago – but they’re doing so while also on a mobile device and on the web.”
And people aren’t not just hanging out on AOL’s homepage anymore. They’re on sites that allow them to take the offline social connections we remember from childhood days of playing outside into the online space.
Why Social Media? It’s The Conduit For Content Marketing Existence
