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Celebrate the Diversity of Purpose and the Purpose of Diversity [The Weekly Wrap]

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And that’s a wrap of the week ending July 17, 2020

This week I’m thinking about the long game (on purpose). I talk with marketing leader Folayo Lasaki about everything from the Facebook boycott to why representation matters as much in marketing as in media. And I share an article that explains how to be purposeful with your purpose-driven content.

Listen to (or watch) the Weekly Wrap

Our theme this week is purpose – it’s a long game. As author, philosopher, and civil rights leader Howard Thurman once said, “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” That’s purpose.

Purpose is your long game, says @Robert_Rose via @CMIContent. #WeeklyWrap #Contentmarketing Click To Tweet

Let’s wrap it up.

Listen to the episode (time stamps apply to the audio version):

Watch it, too:

One deep thought: Don’t rush your purpose (3:10)

It’s a weird time to be thinking about your long-term plans. But it might be the best time.

Most of us want our work to connect to some larger, greater good ­– to reflect our passion, our purpose. But, what if we don’t know what that is yet? What if we feel pressured to pick one now because of what’s going on in the world?

I recently worked with a young marketing vice president at a startup. Despite the company’s success, she felt the startup’s focus didn’t reflect her long-term passion, and she regretted that the brand hadn’t developed a distinct position on current events.

She’s not alone. There’s more pressure than ever on people to find a long-term purpose in their work earlier and earlier. Universities have begun to focus on helping students find their purpose rather than simply developing a career trajectory.

It’s not going very well. Recent research from Bates College and Gallup found a so-called “purpose gap.” They found that 80% of the surveyed graduates said purpose in their work was very or extremely important. However, less than half reported finding it in their jobs.

It could be, as the research concluded, that higher education simply needs to do a better job of helping students find their purpose. But I think it’s just putting too much pressure on students to find purpose when they’ve barely started their careers.

In this segment, I talk about this beautiful twist: Purpose-seeking seems more daunting given everything going on in the world – but the possibilities are also richer, more diverse, and more open than they have been for decades.

Purpose-seeking possibilities are richer, more diverse, and more open now than in decades, says @Robert_Rose via @CMIContent. #WeeklyWrap Click To Tweet

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT:

This week’s person making a difference in content: (8:24)

My guest this week is Folayo Lasaki, founder and head of brand consultancy Striped Elephant, which specializes in marketing, communications, development, media, and entertainment. Folayo is a 15-year entertainment industry veteran who has held marketing positions at companies including Variety, Landmark Theatres, Hollywire TV, Film Independent, IFP, and Filmmaker Magazine. She is a member of the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, is a voting member of the Telly Awards, and sits on the board of directors of WIMMIES (Women in Media). A graduate of Pepperdine University and UCLA, Folayo lives in Los Angeles where she can often be found making a mess in the kitchen or waxing poetically about women and representation in media.

And that’s what we ended up talking about after diving into a TechCrunch article about the growing Facebook boycott and the #StopHateforProfit campaign. (TL;DR: Facebook’s gonna Facebook.)

Here’s a snippet of what Folayo has to say:

You get the stereotypical archetypes … like the sassy Black woman, the fiery Latina, the Asian tiger mom. And you just keep seeing this stuff over and over again, to the point where you think it might be real. If you take a step back, you see the people writing these stories are the same people writing these stories … And what they watch and what they write become the reality for people.

When people write stereotypical archetypes, that’s what becomes the reality for people, says @justfolayo via @CMIContent. #WeeklyWrap Click To Tweet

Listen in, then learn more about Folayo:

One content marketing idea you can use (33:00)

The article I’d love for you to take another look at this week is How to be Purposeful With Your Purpose-Driven Content by Ann Gynn. In it, she explains that to succeed in purpose-driven content marketing, it must feel like an integral part of the brand, not a one-off.

That’s why simply changing your company’s Facebook profile image to a cause-colored ribbon for a month is only a tactic, not part of an organic, purpose-driven content marketing strategy. She gives several examples of brands getting this right, including Dick’s Sporting Goods’ www.sportsmatter.org.

Changing a #Facebook image to a cause-colored ribbon isn't purpose-driven #contentmarketing strategy, says @AnnGynn via @Robert_Rose @CMIContent. #WeeklyWrap Click To Tweet

I hope you’ll check out the post.

Love for our sponsor: Sitecore

As the well-known marketing saying goes, “Content is king.” And with organizations having to rely on their digital channels more than ever these days to reach customers, creating and publishing effective and engaging content has taken on a whole new level of importance.

Sitecore recently held its inaugural Virtual Marketer Day, and one of the tracks was dedicated to helping organizations better manage their content – from beginning to end.

There is a new post-event guide titled “Understanding the end-to-end content lifecycle,” with practical steps you can take to optimize your content engine and personalize digital experiences for your customers.

Download the guide today.

The wrap-up

I hope you’re enjoying the good and bad news we cover in this show. I’m always striving to improve it. If you have thoughts about what you’d like to hear about or guests you’d like to hear from, let me know in the comments. And, if you love the show, I’d sure love for you to review it or share it. Hashtag us up on Twitter: #WeeklyWrap

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Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute.

Robert Rose

Robert Rose

Robert is the founder and chief strategy officer of The Content Advisory - the consulting and advisory group of The Content Marketing Institute. As a coach and strategist, Robert has worked with marketers at more than 500 companies including global brands such as adidas, Roche, Salesforce, NASA, and Hilton. Robert is the author of four books. His latest, Content Marketing Strategy, was published by Kogan Page in September 2023, and was called “a rich and much-needed understanding of content marketing" by Professor Philip Kotler. Robert is also an early-stage investor and advisor to a number of technology startups, serving on the advisory boards of a number of companies, such as DivvyHQ, and BrandLens.You can follow him on Twitter @Robert_Rose.