Are You a Content Marketing Grifter?

The Year is 2014. The article title is 7 Tips For Cooking The Perfect Marry-Me Chicken. You wade past the thick veil of misogyny, but the stench of grifting just won’t go away. The first tip is to Check Your Local Grocery Store For Sales, with an affiliate link listing nearby sale produce.

Flash forward to 2023. You’re scrolling through LinkedIn and belligerent posts about AI flood your feed. You search for the earnest, meaningful comment furthering the conversation, but all you see are grifters masquerading as “thought leaders”, piling onto the conversation like those zombies climbing over the wall in World War Z.

In the early 2010s, the listicle had a chokehold on the way we wrote content for the Internet. Add all the keywords, the affiliate links, and make them spend MORE time on page.

Today, in the era of trending audios and runaway LinkedIn virality, it seems like the Internet not only wants but NEEDS your griftiest ideas. But even at the mercy of The Algorithm, there’s an authenticity that you can see and feel in good writers and creators even while executing the trendiest of trends. We’re not really sure how you’ll like this episode, but we hope it starts an honest conversation.

See you on LinkedIn?

Connect with Devin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/devinbramhall/

Connect with Margaret: https://www.linkedin.com/in/margaret-kelsey-104abba/

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