Article Writing, Article Marketing, Article Syndication - Aarrgh! :)

When the distinction between them blurs, too many things appear the same!

Around and around the discussions and debates go on the forum, especially
since the Google update which supposedly hurt Ezine Articles and brought
"article marketing" to an end (or close to it!)

Often the passionate arguments are fueled by a common element - each
discussant means something DIFFERENT by the terms they use.

Article Writing is the action of writing articles. Plain and simple,
right? Not quite. Some people are using it as an alternative for the
related term, "article marketing" - which involves a little more than
just writing.

Article writing involves creating articles. Nothing more. You can get
paid for doing it, which crosses into the realm of article marketing.
You can get paid from the use of the content, which is what makes you
an infopreneur (an information entrepreneur).

But the core act of actually stringing words into articles is all that
is meant by "article writing".

Now what about "article marketing"?

Article marketing is the art of marketing using articles. Articles
that you or someone else wrote.

Recently there has been an interesting distinction between "article
marketing" and "article DIRECTORY marketing" (a subtle and somewhat
funny distinction, to my mind!)

There are oh-so-many ways to market yourself and your business using
articles. ALL fall under the blanket term "article marketing". In a
broad sense, it is the use of articles to raise awareness about your
brand or product or service, and to generate sales or conversions by
your articles getting read by prospects.

It's a blanket term - and that's where the confusion occurs, with too
many people assuming their way of "article marketing" is the ONLY way
to make it work! (News flash: It isn't! )

Which brings us to the least understood (and therefore popular) term
of the 3 - "article syndication".

Some have equated it with writing articles for others to publish. And
others have used it to mean submitting work to directories where they
may get picked up and re-used.

Article syndication, to put it plainly, is the act of getting your
content re-distributed to a wider audience than you can reach on your
own.

Once again, there are more ways to do it than I can list or even know
about.

If you phone up a friend and ask if she can distribute your write-up at
her next tea party at her club, that's "article syndication" too... you
get the idea of how vast and extensive the possibilities are?

Hopefully, these descriptions help clarify the terms and help us all
discuss and debate issues from the proper perspectives.

Yes, article syndication can be a form of article marketing... and none
of it will happen without an article first getting written - but the
terms themselves are pretty distinct and refer to unique actions,
each of which is different from the other (even if we've seen them
used inter-changeably all over this forum lately)

Hope this helps in some little way.

All success
Dr.Mani