the content mint newsletter

In communication theory, there are two modes of thought development which are typically described as linear and circular.¹

Linear thought involves focusing on moving in a straight line from thought A to thought B by means of each subsequent cause and effect.

Most non-fiction books and many documentaries proceed this way. A problem is established at the outset and the progression of thought moves steadily through each next step until a conclusion is reached. For that matter, long-form narrative usually works in the same way.

Circular (or concentric) thought involves focusing on the interconnectedness of ideas. A thesis or topic is established at the outset and the thought proceeds by repeating the thesis in connection to a variety of other topics ad infinitum.

Modern media has made this mode much more popular in recent decades as it is the method underlying most podcasting, YouTube channels, newsletters (including this one), etc. The topic (and often even the prescribed solution) for these channels never changes, but the way it is brought to bear on new specific situations adds nuance and expands the understanding of it a little more each time.

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Of course, neither of these modes is inherently better than the other, and they can even commingle to an extent.

But in general, linear thought is great for thoroughly solving fixed problems,

while circular thought is useful for developing a deep and expansive understanding of something.

So, when deciding on the form of your media, ask yourself, which would be the most valuable to your customers?

1. I don’t know the exact origin of this idea, but I first came across it in Marshall McLuhan’s 1964 book Understanding Media and all the descriptions I’ve found online seem in accord with his explanation, which you can read, in part, here. ↩︎

If your goal really is authenticity, and authenticity means transparency or showing the way things actually are, then that means you will be revealing much more of the good, the bad, and the ugly of your product, service, or organization.

It means that ultimately your goal should not be to use your content to make your product, service, or organization appear to be a certain way;

your goal should be to make your product, service, or organization be the way you want it to appear in your content.

If you can do that, then all you have to do is hit record.

I am fascinated, and a little baffled, by false authenticity.

The very contradiction in terms should inherently invalidate it as a strategy, but we see it everywhere and the trend is not going away anytime soon.

At it’s core, false authenticity in marketing means paying someone to pretend to love your product or service.

As I see it, there are two distinct flavors of false authenticity, which for simplicity’s sake we’ll call “lo-fi” and “hi-fi” false authenticity.

lo-fi false authenticity

The technical name for this kind of false authenticity is “user generated content” or UGC.

This is when a company pays a person (generally someone without a large existing audience base) to create content as if it were a spontaneous review or genuine reaction.

This is pretty popular with companies because it’s cheaper than sponsoring someone with an audience and it usually blends in fairly well with the actual authentic content on social media.

hi-fi false authenticity

This is the strangest form of false authenticity to me because it’s so obvious.

This is when a company creates highly produced marketing content which pretends that it is a popular form of content which would otherwise be fairly low in production quality.

For example, large tech companies using their huge budgets to fake a hipster podcast or the spontaneous man-on-the-street style interviews which are popular on TikTok.

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But no matter which flavor you choose, the use of the false authenticity charade is always primarily concerned with capturing value rather than providing it.

If you really want your business to come across as authentic, it seems much easier to find a way to speak directly to your audience than to concoct an elaborate game of make-believe.

Ah, that coveted word:

authenticity

The golden calf of marketing.

Oh to be able to create content that seems as natural as if it weren’t marketing at all.

The problem is, once the audience gets a whiff of sales, your perceived authenticity disappears instantly.

And yet, as small businesses with an intimate knowledge of our niche customer base, authenticity seems like a natural approach to communication.

But before we can apply authenticity appropriately, we have to remember what it is.

At it’s core, authenticity means transparency. It means that a thing is what it claims to be. It means not pretending or having ulterior motives.

With that in mind, here are two methods for applying authenticity:

method 1

Don’t sell.

If you don’t want your content to look like sales content, then it should be genuinely and primarily concerned with benefitting your audience (i.e. providing value) and be content to let the sales follow, or not, as they may.

method 2

Be honest about your intent to sell.

If your content is primarily about how great your product or service is, just lean into it. Even going over-the-top on honest sales builds trust better than pretending sales is something else.

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Either way, the key to authenticity is making your intentions known.

There may be other ways to be sneaky or clever about marketing, but people are pretty good at picking up on true authenticity. Once you hit that uncanny valley of false authenticity, you’re in danger of making the audience feel taken advantage of, which is a good way to burn a bridge.

There has been a trend online recently of service businesses posting process videos on social media as showcases of the work that they do.

Sometimes these videos are timelapses, day-in-the-life, or detailed technical explanations of how they solve unique problems they come across in the field.

As an example, I want to look briefly at a guy named Spencer who owns SB Mowing and SB Pressure Washing.

The content from these businesses has become extremely popular for the timelapse videos that Spencer posts of himself mowing overgrown lawns and cleaning dirty driveways free of charge. According to his website, he has over 50 million subscribers across the various social channels where his content is posted.

This channel is an excellent, if somewhat extreme, example of when the content becomes the offering.

In Spencer’s case, the entertainment value of watching his riding mower zip over tall brush or seeing the white cement be slowly revealed from under layers of muck has overflowed into an excess of time spent watching this process by people who don’t live anywhere near Spencer and would never hire him for his actual service.

But here’s the thing, the intrinsic emotional value of this content has become so great that Spencer is no longer in the lawn care or the pressure washing business.

Spencer is now in the entertainment business.¹

So, when it comes to deciding the kind of value you hope to provide through your content, be sure to ask yourself: what business do I want to be in in the long run?

1. By the way, this is not just me being dramatic. If you read his FAQ page he explicitly states that he no longer accepts paying jobs and exclusively cleans for free to create content for his channels. ↩︎

As we saw ​yesterday​, the value of our content generally comes in two forms: knowledge (utility) and emotion (desirability).

This is what the audience gains by spending time on our content.

At some point, however, you or the audience may decide that the value of your content is worth more than ​the in-built time-cost​.

So what happens then?

Well, either you can ask them to spend actual money for your content, or they may decide to spend more time on it. What that looks like in practice will depend on the primary form of the value.

If the primary value is practical information, you may be able to productize your content into an e-learning course of some sort.

On the other hand, if you find you are primarily providing emotional value (i.e. entertainment), then a surplus of that value may look like virality—lots of people spending lots of time on your content—in which case there are many modern methods for monetizing such attention.¹

But in the end, value is always subjective and the basic rules of economics still apply: the price of any offering is ultimately determined by what the buyer is willing to spend, be it money or time.

1. see: what business are you in? ↩︎

What makes something valuable?

If extrinsic value is the treasure map and intrinsic value is the treasure chest, then what exactly is the treasure we’re talking about?

As far as I can tell, there are broadly two conditions which make anything valuable: utility and desirability.

In keeping with our treasure analogy, we can think of the gold (useful) and jewels (desirable) of the classic pirate booty.

When it comes to content, this value roughly translates into knowledge (useful) and emotion (desirable).

While every good treasure hoard should have a mix of each, as a small business, remember that gold, which is an agent of exchange, makes its way back into the economy much faster than jewels, which are kept and possessed for their own sake.

At the same time, the desirability of jewels is exactly what makes them so costly in the first place.

I have previously discussed the difference between the intrinsic and extrinsic value of content. One is like a treasure chest, the other is like a treasure map.

So, here’s a question for you:

When it comes to providing value through your business’ content, where does entertainment value fit in?

I’d love to hear your thoughts!

One way to differentiate yourself to prospects, aside from your actual offering, is in your communication style.

If everyone in your space creates messaging that is very technical and dry, try being the personable, down-to-earth voice.

If everyone in your space has a TikTok account, try starting a blog.

Of course, you want to stay consistent to your personal voice and desired perception, but saying the same thing in a different way just might click with a whole new set of potential customers.