4 Outdated Ways to Market Your Business Online

Just how fast is the internet changing? Well, not only will 75% of the world’s population have internet access by 2015…

So will roughly 6 billion devices.

It’s called “The Internet of Things,” (IoT) an idea that started at MIT and is picking up traction with Bosch Software Innovations (above statistics), Procter & Gamble, and the Harvard Business Review.

While IoT is a fascinating subject, it’s not my primary interest today. I mention it here as one way in which rapid and profound developments are taking place in the web world and the way it’s used.

Today we’re talking about content marketing. Or – more specifically – how there are far too many companies who think they can continue to get business conversions using outdated online marketing techniques. Here are the top four mistakes, as I see them:

Digital Sharecropping

Copyblogger calls digital sharecropping, “The most dangerous threat to your online marketing efforts.” Whoa!

… what is it?

According to Nicholas Carr – who coined the term and who Copyblogger also cites:

“One of the fundamental economic characteristics of Web 2.0 is the distribution of production into the hands of the many and the concentration of the economic rewards into the hands of the few.”

Digital sharecropping is the practice of creating your “own” content on a platform that somebody else owns. Who’s to say that Tumblr won’t one day claim ownership of your articles? Or that Vine won’t sell your videos? Facebook already has the right to use any content you create on its platform – any way they want. And perhaps you remember the digital marketing (and creative) brouhaha that surrounded Instagram’s claim to photo ownership last December?

While I’m not advocating that we all need to build every single piece of content from scratch, I am advocating that you’d be smart to create your very best pieces of content marketing on a platform that you own.

Avoiding Analytics & Digital Marketing ROI Figures

Five or six years ago free website analytics software was for the nerds. And you couldn’t glean much information from it anyways. Today, that’s no longer the case. There are no more excuses for avoiding website analytics. To put it bluntly, it’s stupid to try and sell something online without also tracking those efforts. If you want/can afford to hire an analytics firm, great. If not, check out my Non-Tech Guide to Content Marketing ROI for help with monitoring business conversions.

“We’re pretty established on MySpace.”

Guys, MySpace was so great in 2004. So was Xanga. I loved them both.

But now it’s 2013.

If MySpace didn’t kick you out the other day, then you might need to do yourself a favor and shut down shop yourself. In all seriousness, I’m not really saying that MySpace is some awful social network. The point is relevancy. Just because you achieved success in the past on a particular social network or content channel, it doesn’t follow that you should continue to hold onto that profile. Limit yourself to 2-3 high-powered channels and invest in them with quality content.

Mass-to-Mass Mentality

This past February, Seth Godin authored one of my all-time favorite content marketing blog posts, Why do we care about football?. Godin discusses how football rose to the entertainment-packed-revenue-grossing complex it is today, arguing that the phenomenon could never again happen in the post-mass content era of the 21^st century.

“The new media giants of our age (Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc.),” writes Godin, “don’t point everyone to one bit of content, don’t trade in mass. Instead, they splinter, connecting many to many, not many to one.”

Godin’s advice: don’t think that your content can (or should) reach everyone. Now, more than ever, it’s important to segment your content to connect with a particular community – not the masses. Be sure to check out his post!

What online marketing strategies do you see as seriously outdated? What changes will you be making in your content marketing efforts?