Content Marketing: Do You Inspire or Pour Gas on the Fire?

When it comes to social media marketing, it occurs to me that we should all step back and ask ourselves a very important question: Are we adding value (inspiring) or are we are making the problem worse (pouring gas on the fire)?

Only you and the people you are trying to communicate with (market to) can answer that question but I wanted to share some things I have learned and am actually doing in an effort to avoid making the problem worse and have some fun in the process. 

I will do this in a series of slog posts so as to keep this brief and on point. Today, I just want to let you know about a new project I am working on and a pair of tools I discovered this past year.

Epicurean Friends is a lifestyle social network I created for people who enjoy food, wine and other Epicurean pleasures. The centerpiece of this network is an online community that allows members to connect, interact and share ideas with other kindred spirits - people who share their passion for all things Epicurean.

Having started and managed several membership-based groups, I have learned some valuable lessons about what works and what doesn't. As you probably know from personal experience, it is very challenging to get people to proactively interact with each other using the traditional methods such as discussion forums, etc. For these reasons, I chose Ning Networks to build my new website. As you can see from their marketing video above, Ning offers a feature-rich platform that enables community managers to create unique and meaningful experiences for their members. The site goes live on Sept. 1, 2012 so I will have more to share on that later this year.

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Content Curation As A Marketing Strategy

In an effort to create awareness for Epicurean Friends, I have employed a second tool called, Scoop.it. This is a content curation tool that allows you to aggregate content from various sources and disseminate it in a very clean and elegant way - kind of looks like a digital magazine.

My first Scoop.it "topic" is called the, Atlanta Food & Wine Journal. I have been using the tool for about a week now and have been very impressed with its functionality as well as its intuitive user interface.

I have also used many content aggregation tools in the past and this one suits my needs the best.

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In closing, I just want to point out that there is a BIG difference between curating and sharing content.   Every time someone LIKES, SHARES or RE-TWEETS something, they are simply sharing content. Curating content means adding value in some way. That could be annotating, summarizing it and or organizing it for your readers.  The video to the right does a nice job of explaining this difference by breaking down the steps to content management.

In future posts, I will share some more thoughts and ideas about content marketing. In the meantime, I would love to hear your thoughts and experiences.