Content is over

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Over the last decades, the internet has evolved from a discreet tool that could be accessed at specific locations, to a portable phantom that follows us everywhere we go. We carry it in our pockets, and it serves as the stage for most of our professional and personal interactions. Most of what happens to us on a regular basis is enabled - or rather made possible by the internet.

But, what is the internet made of? There are two possible answers to this question, which we’ll nickname “the backend answer” and “the frontend answer”.

“The backend answer” is technical. The internet is the infrastructure that makes it possible and the software that makes it work.

“The frontend answer” is far more limited, but equally true. To users, the internet is made of content. Be it a B2B SaaS whitepaper, a Wikipedia article, or a TikTok feed.

According to DataReportal’s 2024 Digital Overview, the average user spends 6 hours and 40 minutes per day consuming content online. But, what is “content”?

“Content” is the generic, catch-all term we give to material we consume online. This term implies a “flattening”. Everything is “content”, regardless of its tone, format, and goals. At the end of the day, everything’s the same.

This “flat” idea of content is not a cause but a consequence. It’s a consequence of bored audiences that spend more time looking for something interesting, than enjoying and sharing it. And it’s the consequence of content teams that produce material that’s optimized for discoverability, not value. We’ve gotten used to a boring internet, where finding the answer to a simple question requires filtering out dozens of low-value attempts at hacking an algorithm.

Years of short-termism and strategic shallowness have resulted in today’s content landscape: Low-value blog posts topping the SERPs, AI-generated slop filling social media, and mosaics of stolen content going viral on TikTok.

Years of international experience doing content marketing for startups have led us to a simple but rare conclusion: If you’re selling a great product, the best strategy is going against the mainstream content marketing playbook.

SEO is a means to understand your audience and join conversations they care about. Social media is a platform for participating in cultural conversations. Your blog should be a toolkit that helps your sales & support teams meet their goals, not your attempt at ranking for generic keywords.

We could write a 400-page book about what we do, why, and what we’ve learned. But, in short:

Postdigitalist is a content studio that helps tech startups meet their strategic goals by building a better internet.