ContentCrush
Remember back to your impressionable grade school years, when you had that special classmate who made you smile? Perhaps she shared her favorite snack with you at lunchtime, or he chased you around the school yard during recess. The interaction was a little bit of play, a little bit of excitement, a little bit of humor. It was the childish excitement of curiosity. We labeled those experiences as crushes.
As marketers, we dabble in these playful curiosities. We create content that gets us to play, that gets us excited, that inspires, that humors. We work hard inside the craft editing videos, writing advertising copy, and designing brand graphics. But, we often get so lost in our own creative worlds that we miss out on the amazing content being generated and distributed every day in real time. We miss out on playing with others. We miss out on the curiosities of having crushes. So we go out to play, we venture outside of our creative holes and every once in a while, we see something that makes our marketing hearts flutter. We see an ad that spirals us into creative brainstorms, we get chills from a commercial, we want to inspire, promote, create strategize. And when these things happen, we get a little crush, or as we'll call it: a content crush.
We may see some of these outstanding pieces of content on display while watching the game on TV, flipping through our favorite magazines, listening to the radio, or laughing at the meme our friend shared on social media. Occasionally we may attend an award ceremony that honors our marketing industry peers for the witty, memorable, engaging content they unleashed on our connected world.
Whether the content is being produced by marketing professionals at a publicly traded company, independent bloggers, boutique agencies or social media stars; we should recognize and share it, so others can appreciate it.
When you see a piece of quality content regardless of the medium, the sector, or the channel, post it and include #ContentCrush to let the creator know that you have a crush on their content. Give them props, game recognize game, much respect.
One basic rule, which will help us keep our hashtag both honest and genuine; you CAN NOT post any content that you were paid to create or produce or distribute.
By Todd Levy
