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Blogging and Content Creation 32  |  Add Yours

Social Media – Marketing Without a Shelf Life

social media marketing gift 300x209 Social Media Marketing Without a Shelf LifeIn marketing, social media is the gift that keeps on giving.

The trouble with traditional communication is that it’s ephemeral. Your print ad, TV spot, outdoor ad or press mention can have tremendous marketing value, but only while you’re paying to make it so. It’s like trying to communicate with rainbows – momentarily fantastic, but always fleeting.

Alternatively, if you find the essence of your expertise (personal or corporate) and create legitimately useful online content around your knowledge, you’ll have a marketing program that pays dividends every day, not just during the media buy.

As long as you’re even moderately thoughtful about search engine optimization, and devote some time to developing relationships and interacting with other folks in your genre, your content WILL get noticed and inbound inquiries will follow.

I wrote my post about the “6 Dangerous Fallacies of Social Media” more than seven months ago. I have written nearly 100 blog posts since then. But yet that post (and many others) get visits nearly every day. From Google. From links to them on other blogs. From Twitter. And the same is true with Webinars, slide decks on Slideshare.net and other content that I’ve atomized and distributed (read Todd Defren’s excellent ebook for more insight into atomizing content into bite-size pieces).

Social Media Marketing Success Story

My friend Kristen is a raw food guru. She’s been to raw food school, and is a consultant and speaker about the raw food movement. (she’s also probably 437% healthier than me, but me and cheeseburgers are great friends). Kristen and her husband Greg wrote several raw food cookbooks (initially as PDF ebooks, and more recently as actual paper volumes available at Amazon.com). With a little search engine know-how and some social network hob-knobbing, they’ve turned Kristen’s expertise into a thriving business.

Would running an ad in a food magazine have delivered the same results? I think not. Results would probably have been greater initially, and then tapered as soon as the advertising stopped. And doing it that way would have been a lot more expensive.

And this isn’t only viable for sole proprietors like Kristen and me. Inbound marketing software tool maker Hubspot creates massive amounts of useful digital marketing content in a variety of formats (Hubspot.TV is my favorite). My friends (client) at ExactTarget have something like 100 blogs, a Webinar series, and more. Even Ford is relying on a content creation strategy to launch the Ford Fiesta – and they’ve outsourced the content creation duties to their customers.

I’ve not foolish enough to suggest you should abandon traditional tactics. After all, offline marketing drives online demand. But, creating content around your expertise is a low cost, high satisfaction strategy that has the unique benefit of paying compounding dividends. It’s marketing that just keeps going, and going, and going.

What content are you creating for yourself or your business?

(photo by MonsterShaq2000)

pf button both Social Media Marketing Without a Shelf Life
About Jay Baer

Jay Baer is a hype-free social media and content strategist & speaker, and author of Youtility: Why Smart Marketing is About Help not Hype. Jay is the founder of http://convinceandconvert.com and host of the Social Pros podcast.

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  • http://loveourcity.com/ Stella

    This is a concise, well-worded article that has reminded me what to focus on for online content. Thank you.

  • http://loveourcity.com/ Stella

    This is a concise, well-worded article that has reminded me what to focus on for online content. Thank you.

  • http://loveourcity.com Stella

    This is a concise, well-worded article that has reminded me what to focus on for online content. Thank you.

  • http://www.tommartin.typepad.com/ Tom Martin

    Another great post. Ashamed to say while this is so obvious, it isn’t currently a point I make when discussing SM with our clients. But it will be after today. Thanks for the smart reminder.
    @TomMartin

  • http://www.tommartin.typepad.com/ Tom Martin

    Another great post. Ashamed to say while this is so obvious, it isn’t currently a point I make when discussing SM with our clients. But it will be after today. Thanks for the smart reminder.
    @TomMartin

  • http://www.tommartin.typepad.com Tom Martin

    Another great post. Ashamed to say while this is so obvious, it isn’t currently a point I make when discussing SM with our clients. But it will be after today. Thanks for the smart reminder.
    @TomMartin

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  • Ed Lee

    great point! social media marketing is marketing without a shelf life. @jaybaer http://tr.im/kxSj

  • http://dimensions-of-pr.blogspot.com/ Joe

    I also agree that a move should (and needs) to be made to social media but sacrificing traditional media marketing. What surprises me is the number of authors who publish in traditional media without providing, in their bio, some evidence of their participation in social media. They should feel obligated to give something more than an e-mail address but also a Twitter profile name or a blog URL. People will eventually start getting the message if all our traditional media writers represent themselves as social media-savvy as well.

    Joe’s last blog post..Renewable Energy: Not Just for our Wise Elders

  • http://dimensions-of-pr.blogspot.com/ Joe

    I also agree that a move should (and needs) to be made to social media but sacrificing traditional media marketing. What surprises me is the number of authors who publish in traditional media without providing, in their bio, some evidence of their participation in social media. They should feel obligated to give something more than an e-mail address but also a Twitter profile name or a blog URL. People will eventually start getting the message if all our traditional media writers represent themselves as social media-savvy as well.

    Joe’s last blog post..Renewable Energy: Not Just for our Wise Elders

  • http://dimensions-of-pr.blogspot.com/ Joe

    I also agree that a move should (and needs) to be made to social media but sacrificing traditional media marketing. What surprises me is the number of authors who publish in traditional media without providing, in their bio, some evidence of their participation in social media. They should feel obligated to give something more than an e-mail address but also a Twitter profile name or a blog URL. People will eventually start getting the message if all our traditional media writers represent themselves as social media-savvy as well.

    Joe’s last blog post..Renewable Energy: Not Just for our Wise Elders

  • http://twitter.com/monicamcpherrin/status/1710506493 Monica Mcpherrin

    RT @jaybaer: Does social media have an expiration date? http://bit.ly/zPqpt

  • http://twitter.com/speakeasy602/status/1710799509 Nick Norris

    RT @jaybaer: Does social media have an expiration date? http://bit.ly/zPqpt

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  • http://twitter.com/glasshalffullpr/status/1713247531 Jessica Griffin

    Convince and Convert Blog….Social Media: Marketing with a shelf life… http://bit.ly/lxFBB A MUST READ

  • http://twitter.com/patrickservino/status/1714049733 Patrick Servino

    RT @tweetmeme Social Media – Marketing Without a Shelf Life | Social Media Marketing | Social Media Consulting – Conv… http://bit.ly/f7xaJ

  • http://twitter.com/karenrubin/status/1715579961 Karen Rubin

    “Social media is the gift that keeps on giving.” http://bit.ly/lxFBB – I love it! Great post @jaybaer

  • http://twitter.com/glasshalffullpr/status/1719836182 Jessica Griffin

    RT @jaybaer: Does social media have an expiration date? http://bit.ly/zPqpt

  • http://twitter.com/tomredwine/status/1720242849 Tom Redwine

    RT @patrickservino, @tweetmeme Social Media – Marketing Without a Shelf Life -> http://bit.ly/f7xaJ

  • http://twitter.com/erikg1/status/1763909047 Erik Goldhar

    Social Media Is Marketing Without A Shelf Life – I Just Went To Subservient Chicken The Other Day – 3yrs Later – http://twurl.nl/c0xlg7

  • http://www.vistasad.com/ atul chatterjee

    Basically I think social media is centered around a person in most cases be it on Twitter or Facebook or where ever. Online content is not in the same genre. In effect in social media you are investing in a person who can repay you, not so when you put up offline ads etc where the content disappears. I’m a little unclear but what I am trying to say is the seed is different.

  • http://www.vistasad.com/ atul chatterjee

    Basically I think social media is centered around a person in most cases be it on Twitter or Facebook or where ever. Online content is not in the same genre. In effect in social media you are investing in a person who can repay you, not so when you put up offline ads etc where the content disappears. I’m a little unclear but what I am trying to say is the seed is different.

  • http://www.vistasad.com atul chatterjee

    Basically I think social media is centered around a person in most cases be it on Twitter or Facebook or where ever. Online content is not in the same genre. In effect in social media you are investing in a person who can repay you, not so when you put up offline ads etc where the content disappears. I’m a little unclear but what I am trying to say is the seed is different.

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