Zoom-Shirt Marketing

Confession is always weakness.

— Dorothy Dix

There's an easily-crossed border between authenticity and unseemliness.

I've noticed a lot of content marketers are crossing it, and am not sure they're making a wise move.

They may soon come to regret the confessional tone they've struck in their writing. One of weakness, wariness, weariness, and regret.

Blame Covid-19 if you want. 

It's forced everyone to examine the inauthentic lives they were living.

But whatever the cause, I can't recommend Zoom-shirt marketing: looking okay on the surface while confessing that—in reality—you're overwhelmed.

Zoom-shirt marketing hopes to build intimacy. 

But more often than not it's unseemly, and no way to build trust—the very foundation of sales.

In your efforts to appear authentic, be careful how confessional your content becomes.

"Confession is good for the soul," an old Scottish proverb holds. 

It's not so good for sales.

Confession is a style of writing better left to literature; to Rousseau and Thoreau; to Lowell and to Plath.

It has little place in content marketing.

FOOTNOTE: Here's an example of Zoom-shirt marketing. Here's another.