After posting about a branded channel on Youtube, I began to question my reference to the quality marketing tactic of Bank of America. Although I was actually referencing their usage of a branded channel on Youtube, I couldn’t help but question whether I should explicitly champion marketing tactics of clients competitive to my own.
On that thought, a FOLIO magazine blogger Dylan Stableford wrote an interesting post “Should Time Link to Newsweek.” Although not exactly addressing my concerns, he discusses the question of whether competitors should link to each other. He addresses the notion, (similar to how I was feeling) about “sending traffic to the enemy,” but he makes a strong claim suggesting that is not the case.
The online communities that revolve around blogging and social networks, despite generating individualized content, “link” to each other or utilize each other’s content as resources and not as something to compete with. The blog-o-sphere is more like wikipedia where each small piece of content supplied further increases the wealth of knowledge as a whole. When one blogger links to another piece of content, it should not be a question of whether their competitive stances should deter this connection, but the focus should instead be on the benefit of the online community and the ability for one person to appreciate the work of another, recognizing strong creativity and intellectual excellence despite competitive ties.
That’s my take. What’s yours?
