I love Superbowl Sunday as a social media marketer because it's the one day every year when even the staunchest traditional advertiser agrees with me. They agree with my philosophy that advertising (and marketing, PR, etc.) must have value for the people they want to reach. It's on this one day every year the really good promoters realize they're not in the advertising business. They're in the entertaining or inspiring (or outraging) business. All of those have value to people, and value earns attention.
I believe content is the best marketing strategy. It takes the focus off the advertiser and puts the focus on the audience. When you focus on meeting the needs the audience has, you stand the best chance to gain and retain their attention. That fundamental shift changes everything. It forces the marketing minds to put more thought into their actions and create something actually worth the time they're going to pay so much for anyway.
Social media tools are content creation and distribution technologies. They just happen to be really cheap and really easy to use. Creating good content is the hard part. Creative people who get it win. Traditional, arrogant, old marketing mindsets lose.
I'll be enjoying the affirmation this Sunday. It's a shame we'll have to endure another 364 days of ads that won't have any value for us, but I'll leave you with this encouragement: when it's game time, it's pain time.
Go Steelers.