I’ve noticed that many of the marketing companies that I see on Twitter and Instagram, particularly on Instagram, don’t create a lot of content.

I had to think about what they were doing, and the term Engagement Driven Marketing popped into my head. I’ll explain what I mean.

I tend to create a lot of content.

That fits how I work:

• I read, I make notes
• I reflect, I make notes
• My Evernote is a mass of ideas, todos, future projects

I write stuff down.

And as a growth strategy that works. If you simply release a lot of content. People will find it. You will grow.

Slowly. Organically.

But it does work.

Some people don’t do that

On Instagram I do look at the profiles for people who have followed me, or liked my material.

Often these are marketing companies.

And they often haven’t created a lot of content on Instagram.

I see profiles with a fancy nine image spread. Those cool sequence of images where each image forms part of a bigger image and thereafter you have to add three posts to Instagram each time you want to post one, otherwise your feed looks like a mess. Cool. But it wouldn’t suit my usage of Instagram.

I see profiles with a few random posts that I can’t often see any coherence to.

But basically, a handful of posts.

And yet, they have gained a following, and seem to be growing.

What are they doing?

How are they growing?

Given that I looked at their profile because they liked one of my posts, or followed me. They are adopting an Engagement Driven Strategy rather than a Content Driven Strategy.

A quick Google search tells me that I didn’t create a new ’type’ of Marketing approach but I would describe it as this:

• create a base set of content
• create a free pdf or a few lead generation products on site
• have a news letter and encourage sign up on site
• Engage

Where Engage means:

• use hashtags to find accounts
• target specific hashtags related to your niche
• like posts
• comment on posts
• follow accounts

If you are actually using Instagram then you might adopt a follow/unfollow strategy, but that is not an approach I’d take.

Clearly they are not curating content or re-posting content. But simply liking and commenting, can gain followers.

Downsides

I don’t think it leads to fast growth.

And when I see this from agencies and people who sell services to expand your following or help you with your content marketing then I think it is a poor strategy because I would evaluate a content marketing expert or agency on their ability to adopt many strategies and do all the things that the would encourage me to grow.

But… what do I know. They are still in business. They use this strategy. I assume it works for them.

Lesson: Make time in your schedule to Engage

If you had no time.

No time to create new content.

No time to adopt a Marketing Holding Pattern.

No time to cureate.

You still have time to Engage.