Everything is marketing
Everything you read, hear, see and watch is marketing. You’re always being sold.
A smart tweet is meant to indicate that someone is worthy of a follow. A podcast interview is an opportunity to get the audience to buy-in. An interesting video entertains you into thinking the creator is worth subscribing to.
We live in the attention economy where the only finite resource is time, therefore corporations and builders are forced to fight for it. Once you get someone’s attention, you must sell them something in order to get a payoff for your effort.
Navigating the world through this lens is challenging because it leads to cynicism. I can’t take anything at face value anymore because one of my first thoughts is usually “what action does this person want me to take as a result of what I’m ingesting?”
On one hand, this is something to get over, like accepting that professional networking is transactional and everyone is in on the game. On the other hand, I wonder if there’s a way to exploit this. The only way might be to not sell something, and instead give something away for free.
But if you attach your name or company to it? Well, that’s marketing.
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