Do not vague up your content

Over the years, I've read countless corporate blogs, seen a bunch of videos, and watched tons of Twitter feeds that look as if the PR pros or Marketing geniuses have gotten their grubby little hands into the mix.

The language is clean but generic. The passion is non-existent. And corporate messages are inserted at every opportunity.

When you create content to educate and inform, authenticity is a must. You must create information that comes from the passion of caring deeply about a subject.

Don't let your marketing communications or public relations staff vague up your stuff. Don't let the agencies MarCom it to death.

As soon as content has been through the Marketing Communications wringer and the PR gauntlet, it ceases to be authentic and people don't pay attention.

Resist the urge to message.

Allow people to let it all hang out, quirks and all. Your readers will thank you for it. And your business will prosper.

Comments

[Steve Drake]

Great post David.

PR was my early career ... hope I wasn't guilty of putting information through the "marcom wringer or PR gauntlet" ... but ...

Now that I'm a daily blogger, I am able to share the passion about my topics ... including commenting about or writing on some of your great posts.

Steve

[David Meerman Scott]

I hear you Steve. I know I was guilty of this back in the day that I was in charge of corporate communications for various companies!

[andrew]

People don't want to eat steak that has been sprayed with sanitizer. Well put, David.

[David Meerman Scott]

Nice quote Andrew!

[Pat Thomas]

Guilty as charged! Thankfully I no longer work for "those" people.

[Pam McNamara]

I'd also say, don't let Legal sanitize your content to death either.

Working with Legal is especially a challenge for marketers in healthcare and financial services industries. Best way to handle for this to include Legal colleagues from the beginning on the strategy, personna building and creative ideation for the content initiative/blog. Make them part of the process and set guidelines for what requires a true Legal review and what doesn't.

[cloudia]

The experts have bleached the passion from most jobs that used to be callings.

Aloha from Honolulu
Comfort Spiral

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[David Meerman Scott]

Pam - you're right. Legal too!

[Dante Iacovoni]

It's funny how the "right language" is really the wrong language. This has to be especially true with hi-tech companies. Content created to push all the right buttons just turns me off. Not only is it boring, but it often says the same things as a swell of other voices in the market. It's the stuff that says something different that engages readers. That's what keeps my eyeballs reading on anyway.

Dante

[Lynne]

THANK YOU! The last time I worked with a big corporation I was truly amazed by the ability of the top brass to use so many words to say absolutely nothing. Why bother?!? Stop the meaningless corporatization of our words!

[Paula Lay]

"...it ceases to be authentic and people don't pay attention. "

Also, it's not that people don't pay attention, they just don't have any to spare online. If you don't give your readers the information, your competitors will.

[Kelly Monaghan]

Ah, yes. Sincerity. Once you learn how to fake that, you've got it made.

[Kimmo Linkama]

True, there could be a lot more originality and authenticity and a lot less sanitized corporatese in content published by companies.

But.

From your post it looks like you're talking to a business owner/CEO ("YOUR marketing communications or public relations staff"). In that case it's YOU who hired those marcom/PR people to promote your business and the legal staff to keep it out of trouble. Why would you let some people (content creators, whomever you mean in the post) working for you do their job but prevent others (PR, marcom, legal) from doing theirs?

I don't know which is better, "quirks and all" or a multimillion-dollar lawsuit/ business secret leak/ publicity disaster.

"You must create information that comes from the passion of caring deeply about a subject" is naturally what will determine the success or failure of your messaging. Unfortunately, though, in real life some filters are unavoidable.

Or maybe I got it wrong somehow?

[Pete Kloppenburg]

As a marketing professional, I've found, over and over, it has been the owners/CEOs who have stomped out all the personality and conviction from my writing. They'll say "Love it! Now I'll just make a few tweaks..." It could be that I work in Canada, where the CEOs are traditionally highly allergic to risk and bold moves, but only one client has ever allowed me to turn it up to 10. Sometimes I dialed it to 11, and he dialed it back, but most often I get clients who run my blog posts through the MS Word readability score and then tell me to dumb it down.

[CW]

I completely agree with Scott. Professional online marketers should always keep in mind that a unique informative, well-presented content is of paramount importance. Whether it is video, post, article or tweet, you need to have informative content that lets people respond. And whenever you do, it should be done with passion, as Scott has pointed out.