YES https://twitter.com/emilyinkpen/status/1326244011192049668

Okay actually, I wanted to take a second and unpack this more:

Marketing is SUPER important. But we tend to mistake what we think of marketing because we conflate it with ~advertising~

And honestly? When TV used to be the primary method marketers could use to communicate with audiences, that WAS a huge overlap. Sure, there was branding and product design (which is important), but communication mostly was directly through ads.

Now we live in an ENTIRELY different world. You can interact directly with brands, for example.

Hey @McDonalds how is it going today? Having a good day?

In addition, we also have a lot of interaction directly with creators. It's no longer "Bob's Plumbing" on the radio, it's Bob on his blog giving handy tips and telling you about his kiddos.

Some of this is because people are hard-wired to interact with other PEOPLE. We form relationships - even if, honestly, it's asymmetrical interaction (see entire conversations about para-social relationships).

Like, I don't ACTUALLY know @lsv (sup man), but when he's talking about making burritos and playing Among Us people connect with him as a person, even though the vast majority actually have zero interaction with him at all.

So, right. The confluence of events:
-We don't just see brands anymore on TV commercials. They are in multiple locations.
-We connect with stories and
...-Because of tech, we can connect as individuals with SO MANY MORE PEOPLE.

As a consequence of this, your ~entire online presence~ is now branding. WHO ARE YOU? What is important to you? What's your personality like?

Come on. The posed Insta-photo with the carefully arranged books on the table, the home-made tea?

That's branding yo.

A backward pic of you holding a sign that says "That's Marketing?"

Yup...

That's marketing.

That content that you put out in the world is the store-front of you. It's the first impression as people walk by. For most people, it doesn't actually matter because there's nothing in the storefront - er, they aren't promoting anything. Just here for the tweets. But...

For creators?
It's ALL about you the Creator.

I remember vividly the other day I saw the Twitter account of a person who runs a tabletop podcast. And out of the blue they were tweeting about Football.

There's nothing inherently good or bad about that (indeed, some folks are like "YESSS they like my team WOOT WOOT"), but it was completely incongruous with everything else about their online presence tied to that account.

It was just WEIRD, ya know?

If you are an individual creator, marketing *IS NOT* just running a promotional tweet (I have a lot of opinions about that particular tactic anyway), hitting send, and walking away.

Marketing is. Well. YOU. Your entire online presence.

In particular, that means 1) people should be able to find your online presence, and 2) people should be able to see quickly what value you provide.

OH. This person writes books and has a Youtube channel and talks about marketing too. He seems neat!

@AlasdairStuart is a great example - a glance at his profile and his tweets and you see EXACTLY what kind of person you'll find.

(Spoiler: he is in fact as kind and caring as his online presence indicates. ALSO he has a kickass newsletter the Full Lid that's free)

Marketing is weird because it has this reputation as artificial and fake, when in reality GOOD marketing is

1) utterly sincere and devoid of expectation
(I.e. YOU have agency to engage more)

2) clear and helpful
(You know what you get if you engage more)

You ever see the small business that clearly spent a LOT of money on their big Neon sign, and when you walk in stuff is just haphazard and random?

That's how a lot of people treat their online presence. Their OFFICIAL PROMOTIONS are polished (sometimes). Everything else? eh.

Again, to be clear, I'm not trying to say artificially curate something fake. People detect bullshit MILES away.

I'm also not saying don't post personal content. It's not that either.

The aforementioned personal-podcast post tweeting about football?

It wasn't that this person was tweeting about football.
It was that it was so literally out of the blue with *everything else* they've posted. It was also just a random one-off tweet.

If it was "I really like this football team. I have a question. What do you all think?" and turning it into an opportunity for engagement, that's all much more productive than just blurting out there a one-off random post.

See the difference?

Similarly I don't just tweet about marketing things. Hell no. I squee about my friends! I love to see what they're up to. I'll rave about Godzilla, or have musings.

You see who *I* am, and we can build a relationship.

And that relationship isn't "I'm doing this because I want to sell you something."

It's a SINCERE relationship. Because I care about my tweeps and I love cheering for them.

Now like, yes, I DO talk about marketing and I answer questions. I suppose technically yes, I have consulted for some people about marketing things? So if people really want to approach me about that more formally they can, sure. But the agency is theirs.

Anyway, the point I'm trying to stress through all of this:

It's not just advertising. Or thumbnails. Or clicks. People think of all that stuff when they think of "marketing." In reality, it's being sincerely you.

Put another way, everything about your online presence is marketing.

The real question is are you thinking about what sort of message you're sending?