

The Rise of the Content Marketing Moron - slarvtrax
http://finchsells.com/2012/09/03/the-rise-of-the-content-marketing-moron/

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nwienert
Despite all his whining about people hustling to spread their content, in the
end he is doing the exact same thing. These people have existed forever,
there's nothing new here. Just the pot calling the kettle black.

~~~
dmix
The difference is that most other grey-hat SEO is now ineffective and the only
"scalable" SEO left to do is low-quality content marketing.

There was a podcast interviewing an SEO company on HN recently that was
getting upvotes: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4412907>

His whole recommendation was hiring cheaper content creators on fiverr or
elance for articles/videos to build links.

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GeneralMaximus
I've been on the receiving end of emails from content marketers and I
absolutely despise them. However, I'm currently in a situation where I need to
promote my business and make sure it ranks highly in search results and I've
seriously been considering doing some of what the OP is railing against.

Whenever I write a blog post or write a comment on HN, I always try to add
something valuable to the discussion (I don't always succeed, but that's a
discussion for a different day). This is why I'm not a promiscuous user of
HN/reddit/what-have-you, and this is why my blog postings are highly
infrequent. I take satisfaction in _giving back_ to the Internet instead of
banging out flamewar-inducing piles of words, and the kind of writing I want
to do takes time. However, "growth hackers" tell me that I should be posting
content often, that I should be compiling easy to consume top-10 lists, image
macros and videos. I've even seen some tutorials on crafting linkbait
headlines to generate more clicks. Some marketing advice out there actually
encourages people to start flamewars on HN and troll people to create
discussion and ensure that their story stays on the front-page for a longer
period.

Faced with this situation, what is a guy like me to do? I don't have an
advertizing budget of thousands of dollars per month. I can produce bullshit
lists that grab eyeballs, but I can't do that without feeling slightly guilty.
Plus, I feel it kind of ruins your "brand". (Note that it's not all bad. I
have some great ideas for quality content I can post on my company's blog,
some ideas for videos and pictures that are actually useful, etc.)

Does anyone have an opinion on this? How do you go from 5 to 500 users without
generating megabytes of fluff? How do you get word out on the Internet about
your startup without seeming like a complete sleazeball?

EDIT: fixed minor stylistic snafu.

~~~
duopixel
I've had a lot of success with web games, you can read about it here:
<http://blog.method.ac/advice/traction.html>

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duopixel
There is no guy customizing emails, it's just a SEO CRM where they have
metadata about your blog and it automatically e-mails you on the week if you
don't respond.

Just hit the spam button and move along.

~~~
slarvtrax
I'm sure that's true. But some content marketers have followed in those same
footsteps thinking it's the 'correct' way to do things! It's sad when a human
being can't do a better job - or be more creative - than the copy and paste
button.

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leephillips
I appreciated this, as I've heard the phrase "content marketing" but didn't
quite grasp what it was, aside from another form of spam, of course (because,
"marketing"). This is a good example of how opinionated writing can convey a
more objective understanding of a subject; the "neutral" explanations of this
spam technique that I'd encountered left me hazy about what it actually
entailed.

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slarvtrax
No problem with people hustling to spread their content. It's how they do it
that causes the irritation.

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sbierwagen
Related:
[http://www.howtospotapsychopath.com/2012/08/31/a-frequently-...](http://www.howtospotapsychopath.com/2012/08/31/a-frequently-
to-be-repeated-offer/)

