Posts tagged as:

content strategy

Forget about Personas. Meet some real people.

by · May 16, 2013

As new disciplines emerge – like content marketing in the digital age – new jargon blossoms like wildflowers in a new meadow. Or sometimes like clods of cow shit.

Whichever category you put the term ‘Persona’ into (for me, it’s bovine-centric), you can’t deny that it’s won a permanent place in the B2B content marketing canon. “Don’t even think about doing content marketing without personas.” is Commandment Six last time I checked.

At Velocity, we’ve propagated the cult of the persona ourselves, with round-up blog posts and the occasional tirade about using personas properly. And yes, there’s a Persona section in the content marketing playbooks we create for our clients. But, to be honest, I’ve never felt entirely comfortable with them. For two reasons:

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Social Media Domination: Road Tour

by · April 30, 2013

We are pleased to announce that Social Media Explorer has partnered with ExactTarget to deliver a hands-on, full day workshop that will leave you with a fully executable and measurable social media strategy by the end of the day! We are so excited about the content and format that we are bringing the Social Media Domination Road Tour to five cities this summer: Philadelphia, Atlanta, Washington DC, Dallas and Minneapolis. You’ll walk away with a strong foundation to develop the most important strategies to be successful in social media:

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Is Content Truly King? Debunking the Content Mythos [PODCAST]

by · March 29, 2013

Welcome to the latest episode of Explore Marketing Uncensored, Social Media Explorer’s official podcast. Explore Marketing Uncensored is your one-way ticket into the twisted minds of some of the greatest digital marketing and social media thought leaders around. The goal: to provide marketing executives with the knowledge they need to be rock stars in their organization.

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What Tomb Raider Can Teach You About Content Strategy

by · March 22, 2013

This weekend, my family rented the latest game in the venerable Tomb Raider franchise. My husband and I can still remember playing the original Tomb Raider back in 1996, when we were a military family living in Japan.

The cost of living in Japan on an enlisted salary meant gaming was always a social event. The squadron’s gamers pooled our resources, and rotated who bought each new must-have game as they came out. But most nights, a dozen or so Airmen and their spouses would be crowded around a television in our friends’ tower apartment, watching Lara Croft’s pixelated derriere leap from one outlandish cliffhanger or puzzle to the next.

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Top Social Media Mistakes, According to the Experts

by · February 1, 2013

Nearly 90% of U.S. companies are using social media, according to eMarketer. Clearly, we’ve come a long way since the days when businesses debated if they should be participating in social media. Now, it’s about how businesses are using social and whether those efforts are effective.

There is no dearth of advice on best-practices in social media. For marketers, this generous supply of tips can be overwhelming and even contradictory. Therefore, it’s not surprising that many brands on social networks make mistakes that result in low community following, sub-par engagement levels, and customer alienation.

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Content Marketing: The Beautiful Buzz and the Hellacious Hangover

by · December 28, 2012

Traditional advertising diehards practically invented the two-martini lunch, but the old saps have been shunned from today’s meaningful marketing shindigs. To get their kicks, they mostly go to bonfire parties and burn their clients’ money.

Meanwhile, us new media maniacs are partying hard on content marketing.

The cork’s been yanked. Everyone’s tipping a glass.

And what a buzz. This gloriously intoxicating content marketing cocktail, this newly discovered recipe—two parts education, one part search, one part social—with an optional splash of advertising.

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Zen and the Art of Website Conversion

by · October 31, 2012

Long ago, before “social media” was a twinkle in Pete Cashmore’s eye, I used to build websites. Before that, I designed print flyers, billboards and brochures. The one thing that has never changed?

Nobody knows when to stop adding things.

I’ve been involved in creating websites since 2004, either as a coder, copywriter, project manager, webmaster, SEO, content manager, content strategist or some other capacity. In every single project, the client used the word “clean” to describe their ideal website design.

So why does nearly every website eventually end up a cluttered mess?

I don’t care. 

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How to Turn An Authentic Marketing Strategy Into Marketing Action

by · October 10, 2012

Editor’s Note: The following is a guest post from John Jantsch, a marketing consultant, speaker and author. The ideas in this post are drawn from his most recent work – The Commitment Engine – Making Work Worth It. Find more information at www.makingworkworthit.com

To me getting clear about strategy is the most important challenge business owners face and today.

I think you find your true authentic and perfect strategy by first looking inward and choosing a marketing strategy that is infused with who you are, why you do what you do and how you can use story to attract opportunities and clients.

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Does Your Content Strategy Tell Your Customer’s Story?

by · October 5, 2012

I bet you thought I was going to write about analytics and content strategy again, didn’t you? Or possibly a further discussion of data supported content decisions. Nope! This week, we’re going a different direction. Ultimately, my goal here isn’t to get content specialists to stop worrying and learn to love spreadsheets. It’s to get you to step back and look at your content from a big-picture perspective. Sometimes that means looking at objective data sources like Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools. But sometimes, it means looking at more subjective tools. Like for instance, storyboards and plot outline diagrams.

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