If you’ve been paying attention to the chatter in the SEO space recently, you might have noticed that “brand marketing” has become cool again.
Due to the Google “leaks,” many SEO pros have come to the conclusion that building a strong digital presence will yield SEO results.
Also, water … is wet.
Leaks, floods, and drips aside, there are better reasons why you should be focused on brand marketing right now.
Allow me to explain. [Warning: This post contains excessive amounts of snark.]
Building The Case For Brand Marketing
I’m not going to do the whole “5 reasons why you should focus on brand in 2024.” It would be off-brand for me.
What I would like to do, if you’ll indulge me, is first build up the case by looking at where the ecosystem we call the web is currently at.
I’m less focused on “the benefits” of the brand and more concerned about why the ecosystem itself demands a focus on this type of marketing.
It’s less a matter of “you’ll get X, Y, and Z” by focusing on the brand and more a matter of why you’ll be out of sync with your potential audience as a whole.
The Web Is Moving To Be More Conversational
The internet has become more conversational, and it’s only going to get more conversational.
One of my soapbox points is that content is one of the most quickly changing things on the planet. What we consume, how we consume it, and what we expect out of it are rapidly and constantly changing, and the consequences are often underappreciated.
My classic example of this was the first televised US presidential debate, which took place in 1960 and pitted John F. Kennedy against Richard Nixon.
If you listened to the debate on the radio, you tended to think Nixon won. Those who watched on TV tended to think JFK won.
Why? Well, Richard Nixon comes off as Richard Nixon, and JFK, well looks like JFK. I’m being a bit facetious, but it is true. Nixon famously looked pale, had a five o’clock shadow, and didn’t look directly at the camera.
The evolution of content has extremely understated consequences.
Like in 1960, we are at one of those pivotal moments in the history of content.
Think of the internet like TV commercials. Over time, what once resonated becomes campy and sem, if not downright, spammy.
Could you imagine Coca-Cola running and trying to sell its product using its 1980s Max Headroom “Catch the Wave” commercial?
Try selling my kids a sugar-infused breakfast cereal using a TV commercial from the 1950s. Good luck.
It’s not because those commercials are “bad.” It’s because the language and tone that resonates changes over time.
It’s a simple enough point … unless we’re talking about web content. For some reason, we feel web content and its consumption trends should eternally stay the same.
We write the same kind of content in pretty much the same way and balk at any changes.
But that doesn’t change the reality.
The content we create doesn’t speak to users. It’s not positioned correctly. The tone is off. The goals that support the creation of content, to begin with, are distorted. And more. There are a lot of problems – and to me, they all begin with content not being conversational.
In fact, I will go so far as to say Google should stop saying, “Write for your users,” and should start saying, “Have conversations with your users.”
We all think we’re “writing for our users” – I mean, who else are we trying to lure and convert?
It’s very easy to fool yourself into thinking you are “writing for your users.” It’s harder to convince yourself you are having some sort of dialogue with your users – which is what I think Google really means anyway.
All this said, what do I mean by content not being conversational and how do I know it’s even a problem?
What I Mean By Content Not Being Conversational
It’s not hard to see that we are not engaging our users in a conversation or dialogue.
All you need to do is head over to your nearest landing page and have a look at the language.
How much of it is just the company throwing out jargon or borderline nonsense?
Here’s what I came across in literally less than five minutes of digging around:
Screenshot from author, July 2024
Is it really without limits? Can I literally do whatever I want without any limitations whatsoever? I don’t get it – are we talking about God or graphic design software?
Is the below really a new way to run high-velocity sales? Does it literally refine the entire process like no one else is doing or has done before? Or is the company just saying this and spitting out whatever they think will drive conversions?
Screenshot from author, July 2024
You see this all the time in PPC ads:
Screenshot from search for [buy accounting software], Google, July 2024No nuance. It is the best accounting software, and I should trust that it is without any form of qualification.
This kind of copy, while it may have worked in the past, doesn’t (and if it does now, it won’t in the relatively near future).
This kind doesn’t actually talk to users in a real way. It actually treats the user like an idiot.
The average web user is far more savvy than they once were, far more mature, and far more skeptical.
Not taking a more genuine approach is starting to catch up with brands.
How Do I Know Not Being Conversational Is Even A Problem?
Greenwashing.
It’s when a company claims to be more environmentally conscious than it is. It’s spin and PR nonsense.
Companies thought they could pull a fast one on unsuspecting users. However, folks are now savvier and are catching on to brands positioning themselves as being “green” when, in reality, they might not be (or at least to the extent advertised).
You cannot get away with it anymore (and you never should have tried). The only thing that works is being genuine.
If your product is not actually “the best,” then don’t say it is – or, in fact, realize there is no “best” or “ultimate” or “fastest” or whatever. There is only what meets the needs of users in what way. That’s fancy talk for “pain points.”
Being genuine means talking to your audience and not at your audience. It’s having a dialogue with them.
Going the “traditional” route with your language is the equivalent of marketing language greenwashing … and it applies to your informational content, too.
Perhaps nothing epitomizes this more than the falling stock of influencer marketing. Study after study shows that younger users are far less likely to purchase something because an influencer is associated with it.
Influencer marketing, as we mostly know it, is a facade pretending it’s not a facade. Do you think Patrick Mahomes really eats Chicken McNuggets or has a strong preference to use State Farm for his insurance needs?
All influencer marketing is just a digital marketing version of a celebrity in a TV commercial.
Do you think whatever TikTok influencer really prefers Capital One or even knows that it’s not a geographical reference?
While the idea of “influencers” seemed like a viable idea at the onset it’s fundamentally not sustainable because it’s fundamentally fraudulent. (For the record, “community” marketing is something else entirely. While it might rely on “influencers” within a community, it is far more genuine.)
It seems that folks have caught on to the idea that maybe this influencer being paid to say or do whatever is not actually an accurate reflection of reality (much like social media influencers themselves, to be honest).
A 2023 Drum article quotes one study as saying upwards of 80% of users say a brand’s use of influencers does not impact them one way or the other.
For the record, there are other studies that indicate that influencer marketing is a viable option. I agree, but I think it needs to be qualified. Just paying an influencer to say good things about your brand is not authentic.
There are authentic ways to work with communities and influential folks within them. That tends to happen more with micro or nano influencers.
This is why we’re seeing a trend towards working with micro or nano influencers who might provide a more authentic experience for audiences – a trend noticed by Hubbspot’s 2024 social media marketing report (among others).
Again, it’s rocket science. Everyone knows the influencer is only saying the things they are saying because they’re being paid to. It’s relatively meaningless in a vast majority of cases.
It shows how much savvier the current web user is relative to the past, and it’s supported by where folks are heading and what they are trusting … themselves (DTA, am I right?).
A seemingly endless number of studies show users looking toward user-generated content. CNBC was quoted as saying, “61% of Gen Z prefer user-generated content.”
Image from CNBC, July 2024
Which brings me to my next point.
Informational Content Is Just As Bad & Reddit On The SERP Proves It
Up until this point, I’ve been focused on the nature of commercial content and the demand for conversational content.
The same concept applies to informational content, just for a slightly different reason.
Informational content on the web might not be as opaque as commercial content, but it is entirely sterile and stoic.
By sterile and stoic I mean content that doesn’t actually speak to the user. It takes a topic, breaks the topic down into various subtopics, and simply presents the information, and does so without ever discussing the context of the readers themselves.