Content is the new promotion strategy

For a year and a half now I've been talking about web 2.0 to people with varying levels of understanding about the term and the technology that it represents. In August, 2006, I posted for the first time about the six categories of web 2.0. I've used the "massive Volkswagon" many times to help give a basis for understanding in personal meetings and in seminars to groups of people.

Several months ago, however, I began to see a flaw in what I was talking about. My focus was totally on the technology, and as a marketer talking mostly to marketers, I found that the technology discussion was really only one part of the true shift in new media/web 2.0 marketing. It's one thing to start talking about fishing with nets, it's something else entirely to talk about why fishing with nets is important and strategic. That was the piece I was missing and as a marketer focused on new media, I was only talking about the technology without taking an important step back to explain the strategy for using it. If the mindset shift comes in forgetting the big fish, then the strategy to accompany it is this: content is the new promotion strategy. The technology (the nets...to stay with that analogy) simply lets content spread faster and go further than ever before.

This week I'm going to dig further into the idea of content as the new promotion strategy. After all, what is content and what makes it so special anyway?