In this solo presentation, Dan Willis of millennialmotivator.ca explains content marketing and debates whether creators should focus on promoting their own material (receiving) or highlighting others' work (giving). He first defines traditional marketing versus content marketing, emphasizing that content marketing involves creating valuable, non‑direct‑pitch assets (videos, blogs, podcasts) that still convey a brand message. Willis then examines the "giving" side—sharing one’s own content across platforms—and notes the risk of appearing spammy, especially as content creation has become easier for many. He contrasts this with the "receiving" side—curating and sharing high‑quality content from others, which can boost community goodwill but primarily benefits the original creator. Throughout, he stresses that the binary of give vs. take is too simplistic; the true driver of success is building a community through relational marketing. By balancing self‑promotion with genuine support for other creators, marketers can foster relationships, increase trust, and grow a thriving network. Willis concludes with a call for viewers to share their thoughts and to apply these community‑centric practices in their own marketing strategies.
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Is giving truly better than receiving when it comes to our content marketing? Stick around, I'm going to walk you through this. Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen. I'm Dan from millennialmotivator.ca, helping you learn how to create, engage, and inspire. If you're new to the channel, go ahead and click that subscribe button. button, the little bell next to it, you'll get notified when my next video goes live. Today though, what we are talking about is giving and receiving with content marketing, what that looks like, what it means, and what the best practices are. Now, for those of you that aren't quite sure how content marketing works, what it is, what it's about, let me give you a quick breakdown. Essentially, you've got your traditional marketing, right? So you take an ad, you put it on a billboard, maybe it's a video, you run the trailer online somewhere, you pay somebody to do it. Great, old school marketing, no problem. Content marketing is when you create something like a YouTube video or a blog, something that shows your brand's authority in its niche, something that showcases a product or a service, and it's not a direct pitch, but inside the content itself, there's a pitch of some kind, okay. So that's what we're looking at with content marketing. Now the idea with giving and receiving is, is it better for you to constantly be showcasing your own content as you're distributing across your networks, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, wherever you post? Is it better for you to constantly be spamming your own stuff, that would be receiving, right? You're receiving the attention, or is it better to give the attention to some other players along the way? Let's take a look at both and see if we can't come to some understanding here. Okay, let's start with us, 'cause it's all about us in some way, right? The reality is this, you go out, you bust your butt, you learn how to do YouTube maybe, you're playing around with video, you're creating great blogs, blogs or vlogs or vodcasts or podcasts, whatever it is, whatever that floats your boat out there, and you're creating phenomenal content. There's a few things to take note on this. It's taking time, it's taking effort, you're making a commitment, you're trying to build a community and awareness around what you're doing. All of these factor in for sure. And when you make that investment, you want to make sure that that content that you're creating is getting out to people and it's creating the exposure you had hoped that it would. Otherwise, you wouldn't take the time to create it in the first place, right? Great, we all agree on that. The problem that lies therein is people see this, they know this now. Maybe if you go back 5 years, maybe 10 years, it— nobody would have batted an eye. They would have gone, this is great, somebody's creating content, this is fantastic. These days though, content creation is quite a bit easier to do, especially since this little bad boy here is a walking, talking studio for most people. I can create a podcast just by holding this up to my ear. I can create a YouTube video just by doing this. There it goes. The reality is this, guys, creating content is easier than ever. So a lot of people feel kind of spammed when you're constantly throwing your content out. We have an understanding of this now, this balance of what it looks like when it comes to your own personal content. What does it look like from the receiving side then? When we're looking at receiving, it's the opposite, right? Other people have gone to the efforts of creating great content through all the different mediums, and it's really taking note. Now, there's different kinds of content. There's the unsung heroes. You find a great piece of content that nobody's giving attention. You find the viral content that's just exploding across the internet. Heck, it could just be content that relates to your, your EQ. It, it lit up your heart, your mind. It did something emotionally for you that you just want to give out to your community and say, this blew me away. Those are all awesome ways to support content that other people create. But the reality is the benefit is there for them ultimately, isn't it? Now we've got that understanding of the give and receive, guys. Really what I want to get down to though is it's not that black and white. And I think you guys have probably come around to that understanding already. Here's the positives here. If you're creating your own content and you're putting it out there, the chances are in this community there are people that are gonna be all about taking that content that resonates and putting it into their networks. That's great, that's what you want. Your brand, your product, your service that you created content around is getting some exposure, and that's fantastic. The flip side of that is other people are also creating content and are hoping to see a similar result. Now, for me, you'll know that it's not all about the give or the take, it's about being a part of a community. And you're gonna hear this a lot over the year, guys. Putting out 312 videos here a year, you're going to hear community and relational marketing until I am blue in the face. It is such a key reality when it comes to your marketing— content marketing, digital marketing, social media marketing, networking conferences, it doesn't matter. The reality is this, guys: creating community, creating relationships is foundational in success when it comes to marketing. So what is the key in content marketing. Is it better to give or is it better to receive? The answer is both, so long as it's building community. When you are giving content, okay, you give your content out to the internet and say, here it is, world, check out my stuff. Engage. Do it not in a spammy, promotional, here's a billboard of me kind of way. Do it in a way that educates, informs, and inspires people. When you are helping others receive and you've got this beautiful way of just Showing them off, that's awesome. But make sure that you're also doing that to build up your community. You've got people that have followed you and appreciate the content you create and curate, so make sure that the content that you're putting out there is something that will relate to them. The more that you do this, guys, you're gonna start to build relationships with other creators out there. Your community is gonna start to recognize a group of creators, and the community is gonna grow and blossom. This is the ideal situation. Forget the concept of give and take and realize it's a bit of both to make a community work and grow. That's it for today though, guys. I'd love to hear your feedback on this. What do you think? Is it give? Is it take? Am I completely off my rocker in thinking it's about community? Let me know down in the comments below. Love to hear your feedback. And if you know somebody that's wrestling with this struggle, share the video. Maybe it'll help. Catch you tomorrow with another great video, guys.
