Content Was King

"Content is King" has long been the mantra for successfully driving visitors to web sites under a paradigm that declares that consumers and customers will flock to sites with the most relevant information. This model generally worked as long as marketers could promote sites and generate initial visits. The fallacy is that the "Content is King" model lives in the old push model of content delivery. The advent of social marketing capabilities and the corresponding ability of consumers and customers to generate their own media/content leaves the content push model behind. Generating traffic and return visits is becoming a function of the ability of your audience to engage and immerse themselves by interacting with one another within your online environment. If content was King, "Place" is now Queen. Is your site a recognized and compelling Place for your customers to congregate? Increase your ROI on web marketing investment by offering a compelling Place rather than exclusively pushing Content information.

One more comment - I love the phrase "consumer generated media" rather than "consumer generated content". First labeled by old compadre' Pete Blackshaw (Nielsen Online), "user generated media" focused on the notion that users create media for consumption by others, making the process an interaction rather than simply a push of content.