Marketing certainly can be and should be broader than that, as shown by your real-life examples. I like to think in terms of customer experience and branding, rather than marketing. But even branding is a dangerous word, since it too easily conjures up images of corporate logos slapped onto something. People who believe that everything is marketing and that everyone in the organization is engaged in marketing and branding have it right.

I appreciate your thoughtful comments. I also dig your Public Beta logo. Very nice!

Second, your definition of marketing assumes the exclusion of legitimate, collaborative activities. As a small business owner whose “marketing” activities are heavily regulated by the Bar, I can tell you that your definition is not globally applicable. I, along with other lawyers, engage in constructive, enjoyable activities which have the secondary (or even primary) effect of enhancing our marketability. We blog, we attend conferences, we teach seminars, we publish articles. These are all considered “marketing” activities by lawyers but mostly fall outside your definition of the term. I know the same holds true for other professionals as well. So I respectfully disagree with your dim view of “marketing” but agree with your dim view of deceptive marketing.

First of all, thanks for commenting. I’d like to share some thoughts on the points you raise. On the first point: this kind of short-term thinking is unsustainable in a new era in which reputation is becoming all-important. Long-term success suggests a different approach be taken. This approach does, as you say, make money for some people, but in the same way that robbing a bank makes money for a criminal.

On the second point: blogs have indeed turned out to be brilliant marketing tools for their authors, but only because it isn’t marketing. Being true to oneself, offering a truly fantastic product or service, and engaging in the conversation around it is not marketing. Marketing is a planned campaign of one-sided message-delivery (propaganda, really) and is anti-blog.

On the third point: Exactly!

2. Even as a person who started blogging six years ago, for the sheer love of blogging, I recognize that some blogs have turned out to be brilliant marketing tools for their authors. This is mostly true in the case of niche experts with focused blogs, but also true of more general-interest blogs of good writers. Even blogs created for the express purpose of “marketing,” if written with passion, ccan have a profound impact on the public image and earning potential of the writer.

3. The two points above are assuming that the blogs are genuine expressions, rather than link farms or outsourced content streams. A blog based on “systematic lying and deception” is fairly transparent and probably won’t succeed. But not all of advertising, not all of public relations, is founded on deception. That which is will eventually fail; that which is not will eventually be exposed. Probably by a blog.