Here's a question. Is it better to have 500,000 followers on Twitter? Or is it better to have 100 followers who are engaged and targeted? Is it better to have a website with 5000 pages of content, or a website with 50 pages of well thought out, valuable material? I am not trying to dictate an answer by using value terms in my questions, despite the fact that I am very much of the opinion that less is more and quality trumps quantity, but recent events are arising which may be proving me wrong.
None of us can avoid the whole celebrity Twitter stuff. I make it my business not to follow celebrities, mostly because I am not really that interested in what they have to say (I can read most of it in the papers anyway if I have a mind to) but also because I can't really separate a message designed for an undiscriminatory 500,000 strong audience from broadcast marketing. However, in the wake of Oprah and the other celebs, there seems to be even more of a mad rush on various social media sites for pure numbers without thought or care aboutwho they are.
Similarly, I was at a talk recently, the subject of which I have seen backed up in articles and heard in third party discussion. The suggestion was that to help you get good search engine placement, more is better. The talk I went to even went so far as to suggest that your best bet was to automatically generate articles which are simply rewordings of articles you have already generated purely for the sake of boosting your Google rankings. You too can have a site up there with Mashable! with minimal effort of your part and no need to come up with new ideas or original subject matter.
Am I missing something here? Am I wrong in thinking that both of these tactics are a return to the old style of marketing where as long as you shout loudest to the most number of people, you will be assumed to have the best product? Am I being naive by still thinking that what matters is expertise, engagement, genuine conversation and value? I don't think I am, and I won't stop training and advising people to think carefully about their audience, select who it is they want to speak to and then genuinely make an attempt to engage with them.
If you look at the long standing blog sites which really do have hundreds or thousands of pages, none of these people have resorted to regurgitating what they have already written over and over again (or worse, letting a bot do it!) simply to get ranking. They have ranking, respect and following because they have taken the time to offer quality, and to really speak to the people who matter. These are the people who deserve to have the recognition, not those who are trying to find shortcuts just so they can briefly scramble to the top of the heap and shout out their untargeted marketing message as loudly as they can until they are toppled by the next scrambler. Once again, we are faced with a choice. Do it quick. Or do it right. And once again, I can see which way many people are leaning.
I may not get to the top of the heap in record time, but I will continue with my policy of quality as opposed to quantity. I will take care in deciding who I connect to or befriend. I will think about what I write and write only when I have something to say. I will continue to try and produce content which is as valuable as possible to the people who matter. And I will continue to advice my clients to do the same. It may mean I will be temporarily buried, but I still believe that slow and steady will win the race.
And if it doesn't, at least I can continue to be proud of how I interact.
Can you say the same thing?