The other day we published an articled in which I was quoted as saying:

I just about punched myself in the face when I saw this. The part about tweeting with purpose is true, but the term “engagement” is my least favorite word in social media. It’s fuzzy and hard to quantify – and here I am using it.

Why?

I found myself using the term with clients and in speaking appearances more than I like. I somehow convinced myself that it’s expected of me to speak the same language as my audience, and since the questions I get are often about “engagement,” I started mimicking the questions and responding with the word I secretly hate more than any other.

It’s not just me. I’m finding more and more articles from trusted sources that just aren’t compelling. So many are impractical and discuss the same social media engagement concepts from years ago. No new strategy, no new insight.

This made me wonder if the pressure to create content around the clock is impacting the quality of what we say. Is the pressure we all face to create a persistent stream of content watering down even the best experts?

Are we recycling content so we can compete with all the content noise out there? Are we getting lazy? Worse, have we run out of things to say?

Here are three examples from sources I admire and trust. Note: I do still admire and trust them. And in a way, seeing that they’re not perfect gave me hope that it’s cool to be imperfect. Still, what could be happening here?

1. Jargon Dump

The Content Marketing Institute (CMI) reshared this Lee Odden article on Twitter, and since I love CMI and I have respect for Lee Odden I quickly went to read it. I found this:

Putting the overuse of the word “leverage” aside, that fourth point, “Be visual,” made me doubt that Lee truly wrote this article. Hello obvious!

I get it though, we still see tons of blogs without visuals. But why “be visual,” and not “use images.” Why “customer information needs…” and not “know what your customer needs and address those needs through your content?”

Are we learning anything new here?

Using data to optimize performance is great, but that’s what marketers have been hearing for years: “leverage data.” How should we use data to make a blog more successful? That would make for a very useful article.

I still love Lee and he’s making me think, but it seems to me that he’s just filling the content hole here.

2. Much Ado About Nothing

Another great Twitter resource of mine shared an Ari Herzog article on unfriending “weak links” on LinkedIn. It sounded really interesting and it does have some great points. But it calls out so-called fallacies which turn out to be just actions by design. LinkedIn is designed to encourage the recipient of a recommendation to give a recommendation back.

There is nothing new here. So I was disappointed to see that this article raised a great question but didn’t tell the reader why we should care.

I honestly don’t see an elephant in the room. LinkedIn is designed to function like this. It’s a fact. It’s the law of social media – each action should trigger another, or else usage of social networks would stall.

So, if we all start unfriending LinkedIn connections, will LinkedIn’s growth stall? I feel like that’s the elephant in the room – are social networks big pyramid schemes?

3. Big Promise, Little Delivery

Jay Baer wrote an article about how websites will be the AM stations of the web. Again, great premise.

Yes, mobile devices are winning. Nothing new here. But what is the parallel between websites and apps that’s similar to AM Radio and…? Where’s the next layer of depth, the delivery on the promise of the title?

I hope there will be a follow up on this article where we will find out. Unfortunately the ending question that was meant to lead to discussion also gets answered as a final word in the article. So is this a closed argument? Probably.

I will now go back to pondering my own moments. We could edit out my “engagement” statements, but I’ll leave them in so I can make fun of myself… after I’m done kicking myself for it.

How do you keep up with today’s content demands? How do you keep the volume up and the quality high? Please discuss.

Image Credit: imagerymajestic via freedigitalphotos.net.