There’s nothing new. There’s nothing original.
If social media and micro-blogging are blessings, the curse they bring is of endlessly recycled mediocre ramblings. With the need to feed search engines and provide a continuous supply of articles and content, today’s marketing challenge is how to remain interesting, useful, relevant or entertaining when the option to unfollow, switch off or ignore is so easy to choose.
When every business is scratching around for something original to say, the only realistic option is to relax and find another approach. Most media content – from adverts on television to gags used by comedians – is not new, but to be successful it has to appear fresh. Simply repeating the same unchanged story again and again, as many are doing, is an instant turn-off. It’s like meeting someone at a party who always tells the same joke, which wasn’t that funny the first time round: someone we try to avoid.
Give three people the same speech to read and each one will deliver it differently. Some will read woodenly and make the audience sleepy, others will be mildly interesting, while a few will project the words with the energy and emotion to hold the audience spellbound. That’s what we have to aim for: spectacular delivery.
Technology, tools and content are important, but it’s the manner of delivery that bind them to work together successfully. I’m sure that occasionally the new and original can be found, but much of what we say and read is based on or inspired by what exists already. We can choose to discard it in boredom, trot it out again flatly without enthusiasm or use our creativity to refresh it and relaunch it in a format that enables successful communication.
How do we do that?
By using our personality and creativity to add relevance and interest. What are our customers interested in? What will they find attractive? What will they take notice of? Strip away unnecessary words and details, adapt the story to our clients, our sector, the current climate. Use the tone of voice, language, cultural references with which people identify. The result will be the same story but fresh, relevant, targeted and useful: with more chance of people listening, following and taking notice.
