Content

It’s Time to Challenge Our Content Marketing Assumptions

  I originally wrote this post as an open letter to Content Marketing that began: “Congratulations on making it another year…” But that sounds somber and a scooch melodramatic, doesn’t it? Maybe. But the end of an old year and the start of a new always make me a little somber—and that’s been especially true this year. Maybe it’s because the recent past has felt more warped and wounded than many. Or maybe it’s more personal than that. Maybe it’s just because my beloved little dog Abby is showing early signs of senility. She just asked to go outside for the 8th or 9th time today and as I type this she is barking her head off at some goblin or shadow or (more likely) tree branch that threatens our happy home. Which is both sad and hilarious. Isn’t aging for us all? Abby knows that it’s probably a tree […]

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Calling BS on Facebook’s Edict That Writing Is Dead

Facebook is predicting the end of the written word on its platform. And perhaps suggesting that words more broadly are doomed. “The best way to tell stories in this world, where so much information is coming at us, actually is video,” said Nicola Mendelsohn, who leads Facebook’s operations in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. “It conveys so much more information in a much quicker period. So actually the trend helps us to digest much more information.” In five years’ time, she added, Facebook “will be definitely mobile, it will be probably all video.” Stats show that the written word is becoming obsolete, replaced by hipper, accessible images and video. She did throw writers a bone: Words are disappearing—save for the fact “you’ll have to write for video.” Did you catch that? “have to.” Have. To. Our words are like the last triceratops wandering an increasingly balmy earth. In search

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Content Marketing Grows Up: My 2016 Prediction

Content Marketing wakes up one morning in a place it doesn’t recognize, and tries to piece together what happened last night… and all the previous nights, too. (Because, if it’s being honest, last night wasn’t an occasional bender—it had become a lifestyle.) It takes a hard look at itself and wonders with a measure of regret: “How did I end up here?” Everyone said Content Marketing had such potential. Everyone said it was the hope for the future that would save marketing from itself. Everyone said Content was the very thing that would align storytellers, artists, writers, technologists, and analysts. Everyone said they’d all work together to create marketing that doesn’t feel like marketing. The Content Marketing champions toiling and sweating in marketing departments worldwide stuck out their necks for Content Marketing, too. They believed in it, and they convinced their bosses and clients to believe, too. Everyone said they’d

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5 Keys to Developing a Strong Tone of Voice in Your Content Marketing

One of the biggest branding mistakes that companies can make is to not pay enough attention to their tone of voice. “Voice” sounds high-minded, doesn’t it? More suited for the literary world rather than the business world? But tone of voice just refers to how you sound in your writing. In marketing, your tone of voice can be a significant differentiator. (Along with a few other key things.) It’s a strong advantage, because a lot of companies aren’t yet thinking about it. Businesses often spend a lot of time on their logo and color palette and other things they think of as “branding”—the look and feel of their website, collateral, signage, fonts, and so on. But very few take the time to consider the branding that a unique voice can give a company. A key question is this: Mask the logo on your site. Do you sound different, unique—like yourself?

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Bigger, Braver, Bolder Content Marketing: 3 Examples from the Cutting-Room Floor of My Latest Presentation

This week I debuted a new presentation at Content Marketing World about creating bigger stories, braver marketing, and more buff, ripped marketing writing with bolder tone of voice. (I’m giving this same talk at INBOUND15 tomorrow.) If there were a 12-Step Program for PowerPoint Recovery, I’d be going to meetings thrice weekly. I tend to build bloated slide decks overstuffed like a post-Thanksgiving gut, with examples of great content and marketing I love. And then I have a heck of a time killing my darlings. Because to me they are all precious. And, also, I don’t want to let my marketer-audience down… because what if the exact example I leave out about that one automaker’s effort is exactly the inspiration the marketing manager for Burt’s New and Used Auto needed to see? Can you tell I overthink this stuff? Luckily, this time around, I’ve worked with my brilliant and talented

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This Wonderfully Old-School Business Storytelling Tool Helps You Tell Powerful Stories

“We need stories so much that we’re even willing to read bad books to get them, if the good books won’t supply them.” —Philip Pullman Just under a year ago, my friend Ron Ploof sat in my kitchen and told me his idea for a simple tool that would help businesses become better storytellers. Only… it wasn’t really an idea, it was—to describe it more accurately—an obsession. As he talked, I felt that stirring I get when I hear a good idea: part quickening (Whoa! Now THAT is cool!); part jealousy (Damn! Why didn’t I think of that?); which promptly morphs me into motivator (WHY ARE YOU STILL SITTING HERE? Go do it! You’ve got this!) Stories surprise and delight us. They put flesh on the dry bones of data. They add narrative to your messages and presentations, making them memorable. Stories give your business-to-business “solutions” a heartbeat and a

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Enter This Essay Contest and You Could Win a Free Trip to Boston from MarketingProfs

You can be a good writer without being a good marketer. But I don’t think you can be a good marketer without also being a good writer. Which is why we’re excited to announce the First-Ever MarketingProfs Essay Contest in connection with this fall’s premier B2B marketing event, MarketingProfs’ B2B Marketing Forum. This year’s B2B Forum is our 9th, and it’s the largest, most inspired, must-attend event for anyone who works in business-to-business marketing, in any capacity. (See the full program and keynotes here. Or read more background on the event here. Or here’s a picture of a shark.) How could the MarketingProfs B2B Forum make you a better marketer? The individual who best articulates the answer to the question How could the MarketingProfs B2B Forum make you a better marketer? wins a free pass to the Forum … and other perks we’ll talk about in a sec. Essays must be

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How Not to Ruin Instagram (Now That the Ad Floodgates Are Open)

“Deciding what not to do is as important as deciding what to do.” —Steve Jobs The news broke last week that Instagram will expand its advertising service to all marketers, not just a chosen few (Disney, The Gap, Ben & Jerry’s) it’s been working with since first rolling out ads in the fall of 2013. That means the popular photo-sharing app is opening up to zillions of advertisers, who’ll be flocking there to take advantage of more ad styles and sophisticated targeting tools developed by Instagram’s Facebook sugar daddy. The marketer in me is psyched: The in-app purchasing features on Instagram’s new ad format is great news for companies that have struggled to convert followers into buyers, or have developed convoluted, inefficient workarounds. The Insta-Fan (InstagrAnn?) in me is less excited: Well, damn. Here comes everybody. Here comes the push. Here come the product-centric ads and the sponsored posts and

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8 Writing Tools I Use Every Day

What writing tools will help you produce your best work? Last week, two interviewers asked me about the tools I’d recommend for writing. One of them asked about writerly things I might covet the way some people do—like first editions of favorite books, or fountain pens, or antique Underwoods. (Not to be confused with other kinds of Underwoods.) I’m sentimental about a lot of things, but not about writing tools I use. Instead, I look for frictionless tools that ease the process, not complicate it. Part 6 of Everybody Writes is stuffed full of a bajillion tools that can help a content creator be more efficient and hale: But which are my faves? I used to think that tools alone held a kind of mysticism. When I was in middle school, my mother bought me my own IBM Selectric electric typewriter. It came in a hard plastic case with a

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