Stop, Read, Think ... Convert: The Present and Future of Marketing Success

You have only roughly eight seconds, the average human attention span, to grab someone's focus. What do you have to offer in eight seconds that is worth someone's time and attention?

We have come a long way from magazine, TV, and radio advertisements. Commercials can be skipped, magazine advertisements flipped, and internet ads can easily be sifted through in seconds. But what exactly entices people to surf daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly through top sites such as Google, Facebook, Youtube, Wikipedia, and Yahoo? 

Quality content. The biggest being, of course, viral content. This led to the recent push of content marketing, "a technique of creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to attract, acquire, engage a clearly defined and understood target audience with the objective of driving profitable customer action." With today's huge emphasis on social networking, the usage of back-links and keywords from SEO will not guarantee the same widespread audiences and broad successes, which content marketing is able to now attain. Google, Facebook, and Twitter are prime examples.

The greater demand for high-quality content from Google after the Penguin updates prompted a question of uncertainty about the role SEO would play in the face of content marketing. 

Is SEO still relevant in the face of content marketing? 

This debate of Google's intentions can be found in greater detail in three fascinating articles by Jonathan Piggins, Ken Krogue, and Sujan Patel. These authors all discuss similar issues but have diverging viewpoints regarding the potential possibilities of the relationship existing between SEO and content marketing.

The title of Krogue's article "The Death of SEO" speaks for itself as he describes SEO techniques as mere "pulp" filler, which boosts promotional materials and links. He heavily stresses engagement with social media, PR, and investment-worthy content over continuing SEO tactics as the primary force. On the other end, Piggins demonstrates optimism toward the adaptable role of SEO. He upholds that future collaborations and potential "symbiotic" relationships can exist between the two marketing techniques as the key to the largest potential audiences. In the last article by Sujan Patel, he brings forth other ideas, which explain how SEO intertwines with content marketing. To a great degree, his viewpoints fall within the same line as Piggins by drawing a workable relationship between the different marketing strategies.

In response to these three articles, I am most inclined to agree with Piggins. SEO will not be extinct from marketing practices anytime soon due to job-role adaptability, however, it will stand as the underlining to content marketing. In today's market, the filler content and pointless links originating from SEO will no longer be welcomed by either Google or the public. However, I found Patel's ideas of using keywords as links to social media materials such as blogs, videos, and etc. are applicable in supporting content marketing without seeming spam-like. Thus, I predict that SEO's future role will evolve into research support-orientated by simply tracking words or phrases that are frequently used by the online community. 

Content marketing, on the other hand, should carry the primary role by using compelling advertisements and social media engagement to specifically address and keep to the particular needs of the public. This idea is similar to Krogue's viewpoint, and I too consider social media engagement a crucial component for the success of any product or service. Only quality content has the ability to make the audience stop, read, think, and convert as I stressed in the title. The major goal of any marketer is to make their target consumers think differently. This requires intellectual and investment-worthy content. The type of content Google is ultimately searching for and will reward. Many other companies seem to have the same train of thought; according to Roper Public Affairs, nearly 80% of companies prefer information to be written in a series of quality articles rather than quick advertisements.

This is the visual depiction of how I see the two marketing techniques stand in today's market.

Yet, some may ask: "How can the objectivity of algorithms (from Google) actually account for the subjectivity of quality content?" 

This is an interesting inquiry briefly mentioned at the end of Piggin's article; however, my perspective on this issue is more in line with Krogue's ideas. 

Sharing and general web engagement should be used as the ultimate measure for content quality. 

These actions can be gauged through the "Big Three" monsters of social networking: Google+, Twitter, and Facebook. Simply put, the more online activity on a page translates to a higher-ranked page on Google.

While yes, certain pages with a lower-level of quality may somehow still be propelled forward. Generally speaking, the more shares, tweets, comments, general activity, and buzz on a high quality page will compel, but most importantly, retain a larger audience and carry the public spotlight longer. A trait that low-quality content marketing is unable to do. This process of success can already be observed through smaller scale activities such as Youtube videos or Internet memes that rapidly circulate through all social networking sites from shares, likes, and retweets. Thus, yes, I firmly see content marketing as the central figure in today's marketing conditions.

Now, that the importance of quality content has been established. Here lies the major question, I mentioned earlier: 

What do you have to offer in eight seconds that is worth someone's time and attention?

As times and technologies change, the idea of quality is constantly evolving. So how can you determine what the audience wants quality-wise within a specific industry? You need a content-intelligent company that can accurately deduce what and when content is currently the most trendy, posted, shared, and tweeted by your target audience. This is a service, that content-intelligent companies such as InfiniGraph, offer for any industry ranging from automotive to fashion. 

The graphs above depict the remarkable capabilities that InfiniGraph is able to provide for marketers who understand the crucial importance content marketing plays today. Here, large sets of data from  major social networking sites are translated in a form utilizable by any marketer for the benefit of their company. These vital tools can answer the crucial WHO, WHAT, and WHEN questions of your choice industry and audience.

This process essentially solves the ultimate question: what do YOU have to offer in eight seconds that is worth someone's time and attention?

Quality content specifically geared toward the target consumers at the right time and place.

By seeing and utilizing the data gathered, you can judge for yourself what content is currently sought out by the public and what content would entice a broad online audience. In this age of modern technology, your company must offer suitable high-quality content that the public requires to make them stop, read, think ... and convert!


Sources:

http://www.searchenginejournal.com/the-intersection-of-seo-and-content-marketing/64264/
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenkrogue/2012/07/20/the-death-of-seo-the-rise-of-social-pr-and-real-content/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media-network/media-network-blog/2013/may/10/google-content-marketing-seo
http://www.infinigraph.com

Library Research

Look familiar? That red high heel was also the symbol in the critically acclaimed movie The Devil Wears Prada.In many ways, that red high heel shoe represents the evils of the fashion industry and the standards it places upon women to answer the ultimate question: What is beautiful? 

Deborah Rhodes, a Stanford law professor, attempts to battle this notion of thinking by adding in another legal factor to beauty discrimination. 


       
"Justifications for banning appearance discrimination rest on three basic claims. The first is that such discrimination offends principles of equal opportunity - individuals should be judged on merit and performance, not irrelevant physical characteristics. A second rationale is that appearance-related bias reinforces group subordination - it exacerbates disadvantages based on gender, race, ethnicity, class age and sexual orientation. A third justification is that some decisions based on appearance unduly restrict self-expression and cultural identity" (Rhode 23).

However, her line of thinking, raises many questions, especially with the entertainment industry and other jobs that depend on the media to thrive. Should publishers of romance novels be required male models who do not possess the perfect masculine body? Should fashion magazines be required to hire everyone and not simply the double  zero sized women? Should everyone within every working establishment be put under oath to erase the physical appearance as a factor when hiring new employees? Thus, she feels that these measures are necessary to enforce in order to make a more permanent change within society. While I do agree that this beauty bias is certainly unjust and unfair, the difficulty of enforcing such a vague rule is too strenuous. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, what one may find attractive may not fly with another. Therefore, the idea of beauty is subjective and cannot be equally measured among all individuals with the exception of the few very beautiful ones. I feel that putting this type of law forth would raise more questions than solve them. 

Source:
Rhode, Deborah L. The Beauty Bias: The Injustice of Appearance in Life and Law. New York, NY: Oxford UP, 2010. Print.



"History has shown that stereotyping can lead to scapegoating, which can lead to discrimination, which can lead to segregation, which can led to physical abuse, which can lead to state-sponsored genocide" (Lester 10). 


This is probably one of the more powerful quotes I have read in awhile. Mostly, because while I was reading this quote, I was able to immediately conjure up several examples within my mind. The most famous example coming into mind was almost exactly identical to the pattern stated above. It led to discrimination of Jews with the increasingly gradual rise of Hitler, which then eventually led to their segregation into internment camps. Then, within the camps, Jews faced physical abuse, death, torture to becoming the national genocide, which we now recognize as the Holocaust. The discrimination Jews faced were further exacerbated with the media, more specifically the newspaper, television, and books in order to steer the general public toward Hitler's beliefs and accept the cruel fate of the Jews. 




Source:
Lester, Paul Martin. Images That Injure: Pictorial Stereotypes in the Media. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1996. Print.

Primary Research Survey

1. How often do you check online news?

Barely     Regularly     Often

2. How often do you let the media influence your opinion?

Barely     Somewhat      Often

3. More people believe in stereotypes than before from media influence. True/False

4. What type of Stereotypes do you think the media enforces the most? List top 2 or 3.
     1.
   
     2.

     3.

5. List top 3 media sources you follow. Can be specific internet sites, TV programs, newspapers, magazines, etc.

1.
2.
3.

6. How often do you watch television

Often     Sometimes      Never

7. Have you ever seen an ethnic stereotype that offended you?

Yes    No

My Year Of Meats Pt. 2

"I had spent so many years, in both Japan and America, floundering in a miasma of misinformation about culture and race, I was determined to use this window into mainstream network television to educate. Perhaps it was naive, but I believed, honestly, that I could use wives to sell meat in the service of a Larger Truth" (Ozeki 27). 

Through this passage shows Jane's idealistic streak, which commonly associated with her beliefs of documentary filming, and more specifically tied to issues such as racial justice and minorities. Ozeki often potrays this through the novel by placing increasingly diverse families in terms of both race and sexuality and then on to a documentary about DES poisoning by the novel's close. This type of idealism was also able to inspire the other main character of the novel: Akiko. AKiko found strength and somewhat of an identity through Jane's works and shows. It was quite interesting seeing Jane develop into a stronger woman by fighting for her own ideals, which you can see through the faxes between herself and John Ueno. To me, Jane represents a independent,modern, free-spirited,and strong American women who is able to inspire others. 


Random Picture #1: Japanese Beef Rolls
Random Picture #2: Grilled Japanese Beef


"...don't want their meat to have a synergistic association with deformities. Like race. Or poverty. Or clubfeet" (Ozeki 57). 

I thought this quote is important because it more explicitly describes the guidelines for the show's cast by Jane. While the original lines were to avoid filming things such as: "physical imperfections," "obesity," "squalor," and "second class peoples" (Ozeki 12). The original orders of what and what not to film were certainly in classier words while Jane bluntly describes what the producers actually mean. This shows the media will only show what it wants to and will cover up the flaws in society. This is to further perpetuate the view of the stereotypical American family: perfect, flawless, and happy to the Japanese families sitting at home. 


Family on the left would be more likely shown on television.
Family on the right...not so much, unless its a losing weight reality TV show. 

"I would like to think of my "ignorance" less a personal failing and more as a massive cultural trend, an example of doubling, of psychic numbing, that characterizing the end of the millennium" (Ozeki 334). 

This quote shows Jane's ultimate realization with herself, the media, and the consequences rises from her connection between the two. She recognizes that she had become one of the catalysts that further widened stereotypes and other hurtful beliefs that had flew along society.To her, meat is not the message but a symbol of oppression that devalues all other varied forms of identities besides what is thought of as 'society's standard.'



Source:
Ozeki, Ruth L. My Year of Meats. New York: Viking, 1998. Print. 

Internet Research

"We change our stereotypes infrequently. Even in the face of disconfirming evidence, we often cling to our obviously-wrong beliefs. When we do change the stereotypes, we do so in one of three ways:

Bookkeeping model: As we learn new contradictory information, we incrementally adjust the stereotype to adapt to the new information. We usually need quite a lot of repeated information for each incremental change. Individual evidence is taken as the exception that proves the rule.

Conversion model: We throw away the old stereotype and start again. This is often used when there is significant disconfirming evidence.

Subtyping model: We create a new stereotype that is a sub-classification of the existing stereotype, particularly when we can draw a boundary around the sub-class. Thus if we have a stereotype for Americans, a visit to New York may result in us having a ‘New Yorkers are different’ sub-type."

Source: 

No Author. "Stereotypes." Stereotypes. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 June 2012<http://changingminds.org/explanations/theories/stereotypes.htm>.

I didn't realize the amount of ways we have of creating, mixing, and adjusting our personal stereotypes and views to toward society. I think the method the media utilizes the most, is most likely the bookkeeping model. The perceptions the media continually tosses at the general public seems to change year by year. Unfortunately, many people tend to be influenced by the media in some way or another, especially the younger generations including myself. The media also seems to use the subtyping model as well. Stereotypes are being added, changed, and moved around all the time nowadays. Everyone from kids to teens to adults are being affected by the onslaught of stereotypes from the media.

"Stereotype threat can lead individuals to reduce their effort, perhaps because of low expectations of performance or perhaps to self-handicap. Stone (2002; see also Schimel, Arndt, Banko, & Cook, 2004) provided evidence that individuals who experienced stereotype threat before performing a task related to golf engaged in less voluntary practice compared with individuals not operating under stereotype threat. Stereotype threat can reduce preparation and effort, and such "self-handicapping" can offer psychological protection by providing an a priori explanation for failure. Of course, underpreparation can also produce a self-fulfilling prophecy, producing failure under the very conditions where people fear doing poorly."

Source: 

No Author. "ReducingStereotypeThreat.org." ReducingStereotypeThreat.org. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 June 2012. <http://reducingstereotypethreat.org/mechanisms.html>.

I completely agree with this possibility of reduced effort and lowered performance expectations. If everyone already has a strong mindset that you were going to be a failure or not as hardworking as others in the same field, there would be no hope for promotion or a goal to strive further for. What would the point in working hard be? Sadly, this line of thinking only perpetuates and exacerbates the issue because only more people would tend to believe the stereotype. However, this does not apply to everyone affected by this type of stereotype. Those pegged with this certain stereotype are able to persuade others to abandon this way of thinking if they are willing to work harder than their coworkers. Thats why people say: Life isn't fair, get used to it. 

"So in death, as in life, the enemy was stereotyped. The Japanese had narrow eyes, thin body and died with a yelp of narrow vowels. The German, broad, with a square head, would die with a deep guttural voice. For a young boythese comics were sublime; they took me to far-off new places and let me see strange, new people. On cheap paper, in black and white, week after week the Japanese and the Germans died in the same way; looking the same, sounding the same. It is just such a ceaseless reiteration of an image that perpetuates stereotypes."

Source: 
Mckenna, Mario. "Coping with Problems Caused by Stereotypes in Japan." McKenna. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 June 2012. <http://iteslj.org/Articles/McKenna-Stereotypes.html>.

While Jane in My Year of Meats talked a lot about ethnic and gender stereotypes, more specifically a japanese housewife, Mckenna addresses how the Japanese male soldiers were potrayed in American media. During WWII, the Japanese were constantly labeled as "chinks," "Japs," and "yellow skinned," which were extremely disrespectful. But these stereotypes were extremely effective in labeling the Japanese as the villains of the tale along with the Germans. Mckenna implied that in the end, it didn't matter what sort of death sound the Japanese or German soldiers cried out. All of it sounded the same in the end because the image and sound the American soldiers already stored in their heads were there forever. 

This is probably one of the most well-known examples of media-inflated stereotypes. The fat ass policemen parked at a donut shop with a pot-belly.
It can be seen through movies, tv shows, cartoons, because this one just never gets old.

In the photo above, Martha Stewart has done time for receiving information from her broker regarding an investment she shouldn't have received. She sold her stock shares and avoided a huge financial loss. Due to the fact she profited from the tip, she was convicted and sent to jail. The African American man next to her has never done time, yet most people would perceive that out of the two, the man would more likely have done time in jail.