How content marketing redeems social media

My friend Stanford Smith wrote a thought-provoking article last month, The Difference Between Content Marketing and Social Media and Why You Should Care, and it got me thinking about how these trends are intertwined.

I think the buzz on “content marketing” is an opportunity for redemption from years of social media silliness.

The failure of social media marketing

The opportunity to connect with customers through social media is a legitimate and historically important marketing opportunity. When was the last time an innovation truly changed the way we thought about marketing? The breathtaking shifts in social media make us rethink our opportunities almost every day.

For an executive who has been running a marketing department for 20 years, this may be a disconcerting revelation. The basic concept behind print advertising hasn’t really changed for centuries. A shift in how we market though television has occurred about every 10 years or so. Even websites are pretty easy to understand. But keeping up with the tectonic shifts of the social Web? Intimidating.