Warning: Do Not read If You’re An iMedia Fan

After looking through my mailbox, I recently got this weird feeling I was in a checkout line at the grocery store. Suddenly I was barraged with articles on gossip, weight loss, and more. While much of it was entertaining, it was nothing more then candy, providing little value to my intellectual diet.

So, in the spirit of the check-out line, I provide for you musings on spotting crap.

1. They start with a check-out line eye grabber headline, like “10 Tips To Supercharge Your…

2. Instead of writing an intelligible article, they list moronic, useless and unfounded ‘things’. These are called things because I don’t know what else to call them. They’re not bad advice, not good advice, not even middle of the road, just crappy things.

3. Every time you read one of these poor prose, you get the eery feeling that you read the same thing before, but you hadn’t…

4. The headlines are, yet again, like gossip rag exploits… “How to…, 8 Ways…, 4 tips…”, etc. etc.

I kid, but I am only poking fun of the reality we face. By we, I am speaking to marketers, digital strategists, branding pro’s and all. We’re inundated with articles that hold the substantive equivalent of diet cola, full of fizzle, and low on value.

It’s a dangerous game we’re all playing, passing out poor advice. What’s more dangerous, trusting the voices that are being delivered to us, without question.

On the internet, constant fresh content is king. You can get by with repurposed old content, which many articles seem to be, but it’s fresh content that everyone is looking for. Fresh idea’s, fresh concepts, fresh freshness. Sadly, this demand for more lowers the bar on what we’re willing to pass onto others.

Lessons learned: less is more in communication. Be it articles, email, Facebook, twitter whatever. Less is more. The more options, the more messages, the more broadcasts, the less powerful our message, meaning, and focus.

There’s something to be said in taking our time to put more thought into our words, and less clutter on the check-out line.