Content Marketing News & Articles

“Knowing yourself is the beginning of wisdom.”
Aristotle

When companies venture into the content marketing world, many of the conversations center around the audience, the delivery and the metrics. All important and worthwhile topics, yet there’s another, more crucial element that needs to be the foundation of your content marketing efforts -- your story.

I had an interesting experience last week that made me rethink the rules of content strategy when it comes to business objectives. I wrote a wildly popular blog post that received double the traffic than one of my typical blog posts usually receives.

What a week! Yesterday, Microsoft Azure in W Europe went down, Google Talk went silent and Twitter had a major outage.

Cap that off with Facebook, Apple, Amazon and Zinga stock spirals and one can't be blamed for thinking now is the perfect time to take a looooong vacation -- maybe it'll all be shiny and happy again when you get back.

Getting Content Marketing
Back in ROI land we are busy closing out July's focus on Content Marketing.

• Interview with Robert Rose on engaging your customers
• Content Marketing Tweet Jam Review
• Experts insights on the hardest part of content marketing

Don't forget our Content Marketing webinar on August 8th.

SharePoint = Elephant Still?
The preview of SharePoint 2013 is out and there's no shortage of views on its future significance to both social business and web content management.

As August rolls in we dive deeper into the platform's place in our world and whether or not SharePoint is still the elephant in the room.

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Editor's Picks

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Around the Web

• Do You Value Comments?
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• Chief Content Officer Job Description Sample Template
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Featured Events (all events | post your event)

• Aug 08 -- (Webinar) Leading with Content Marketing -- Rethinking Web Engagement
• Aug 09 -- (Webinar) Performance Tips for Drupal Website Builders
• Sep 04 -- Content Marketing World Columbus
• Sep 13 -- Henry Stewart DAM Conference in Chicago
• Nov 14 -- Forrester's Customer Experience Forum West Los Angeles

Featured Jobs (all jobs | post your job)

• Cloud Architect in California at Apple
• Research Analyst in New York at Siegel+Gale
• Marketing Content Manager in Palo Alto at Alicanto
• User Experience Designer in Dallas at SoftLayer
• Project Manager in Canada at EMC

There's a process that you go through when you're getting to know someone. Learning their likes and dislikes, habits and aspirations, favorite movies and go-to recipes when they just don't want to think about dinner.

A lot of businesses are trying to find out the same things about their customers in order to provide a great customer experience. But just like any relationship, this is a two way road, where each side takes turns speaking and listening.

This week we heard about the storytelling skills being used to engage audiences and about the true value of collaboration. One contributor's article about his favorite SharePoint 2013's features got a song from "The Sound of Music" stuck in my head all week as a result. Not fair.

This month's Tweet Jam tackled the do's and don'ts, ins and outs of content marketing. The insights gained throughout the hour was evidence that great content comes from brilliant minds. Overall, we learned it's not the tools you use, it's how you use them; and that as content marketers, our customers may not always care about us, but we should always care about them and try to create a customer journey that doesn't just meets their needs, but is as pleasant as can be. 

For so long, we have been taught that marketing is about persuading people to buy something. It's about the end result -- the sale. Well things have changed and marketing has evolved. Yes, many online marketing processes are still about that end result, but there's a another way to build loyal subscribers to your brand, and it's not about selling, it's about providing something valuable -- information. That is the essence of content marketing. What's the hardest part of content marketing? Now that's a good question.

Does it seem like more and more companies are launching products more than ever before? According to a recent poll by the SAVO Group, you may be right. But do more product launches mean more sales? Not exactly. 

Successful content marketing has been likened to running a marathon and not a sprint. Creating good content that targets the right audience doesn’t happen overnight, but requires continuous training and development. As such, we’re taking a cue from the Summer Olympics and are introducing eight key content marketing events for which you should be actively training in order to achieve Olympic level success. Go for the Gold!

For many companies, content marketing is a direct way for getting new leads. Before they allow you to read or download e-books, white papers, videos or any other content, they present you with a form.

Through forms, companies get personal information about people reading their content. While this approach is absolutely legitimate, in many cases if done wrong, it may lead to an opposite result by losing potential customers. Let's go through the five most common errors companies do in getting the leads through content marketing.

We are only a few hours away from our July Tweet Jam. Today we'll talk content marketing and how to properly use it to engage your customers and build lasting relationships. We're sure you'll walk away with some great insights from our lineup of panelists and all the other participants.

Not a day goes by that I don’t get a question from someone asking me why content marketing is taking off like it is.

How long will content marketing last?

Is content marketing a buzzword?

When will the party end?

Chute, a San Francisco-based startup providing a platform for building and hosting media-rich apps and sites, has received US$ 2.7 million USD in seed funding from a group led by VC firm Freestyle Ventures that includes fellow VC Battery Ventures, as well as Salesforce.com. Chute, which originated in the Y Combinator startup funding/incubator program, says its goal is to “serve, route, or analyze every photo and video on the Web.”

Content Marketing isn't exactly new, but it's certainly come mainstream with the evolution of the Internet and recognition that the online customer experience should be as much about engaging and building loyal subscribers as it is about selling products and services. The two go hand in hand these days.

To learn a little more about content marketing and how it helps engage customers, we spoke with Robert Rose, Senior Analyst at Digital Clarity Group and co-author of Managing Content Marketing.

All businesses struggle with the question of what works in marketing. To hear how one organization made the decision to switch from traditional marketing tactics to a content marketing focus, we turned to Nicolas Antonio Jimenez of Widen. Nicolas acts as Digital Asset Management provider Widen's Marketing Coordinator and has witnessed firsthand the benefits that came from providing quality content to create an educated audience.

Content Marketing -- Step by Step
Don't know how to get started in Content Marketing? Check out this approach to developing your content marketing strategy. You can also try one of these fast and easy Content Marketing projects or 7 ways to reverse engineer great content.

Responsive Design...Or Not?
Did you miss our recent Optimizing Mobile Customer Experience webinar? Fear not, we have the full webinar summary and recording right here. Or perhaps you agree with this article and think that responsive design is the wrong paradigm.

July's Tweet Jam Next Wednesday
A final reminder that our Content Marketing Tweet Jam is next Wednesday July 25th at 10am PDT / 1pm EDT. Details here.

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Editor's Picks

• SharePoint 2013: 5 Reasons Why the New App Model Will Make Everyone Happy 
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Around the Web

• Five key areas to address in your mobile customer journey
• Don’t Trash Your Company’s Customers and Prospects on Social Media
• Promises Technology Offers 
• New Ways of Visualizing the Customer Journey Map
• Stand By Your Brand: Cultivating Experience to Foster Brand Advocacy

Featured Events (all events | post your event)

• Aug 08 -- (Webinar) Leading with Content Marketing -- Rethinking Web Engagement
• Aug 09 -- (Webinar) Performance Tips for Drupal Website Builders
• Sep 04 -- Content Marketing World Columbus
• Sep 13 -- Henry Stewart DAM Conference in Chicago
• Nov 14 -- Forrester's Customer Experience Forum West Los Angeles

Featured Jobs (all jobs | post your job)

• Interaction Designer in San Francisco at Yammer
• Sales Director in California at Tealium
• Content Lead in Vancouver at Hootsuite
• Director of Information Technology in California at KANA
• Principal Program Manager in Palo Alto at Skype