A few weeks ago, I came across an OpEd by Ann Patchett. It was in the New York Times and she was lamenting the fact there was no Pulitzer Prize winner in fiction this year.
Before I go on, let me be clear I also think it’s a shame there were three finalists, but no Pulitzer Prize winner, too.
But the OpEd read like sour grapes to me.
When this blog gained a little bit of popularity, we began to have internal conversations about the type of content we should be writing. You see, what I consider the “smart” posts are never the ones that get shared a lot. Sure, people read them, but not as many comment nor share on their social networks.
The ones that do get a lot of comments and shares? The top 10 this or the such and such is dead. Continue Reading »
My dear friend Carmen Benitez sent a story to me a couple of weeks and I’ve had to take that long to really absorb it.
You see, it’s about algorithms becoming better storytellers than journalists, and I’m not sure how I feel about it.
A couple of months ago, I was speaking to a group of business leaders. One of the attendees told me he pays $50 a day to an Indian firm to have them scrape content off the Internet and change it “a little bit” so he can post it on his own blog. Continue Reading »
I hate to admit this out loud, but I know only a fraction about content marketing for the web.
I learned this flaw last night, as I watched the webinar Andy Crestodina is doing for us on Thursday – Build the Perfect Web Marketing Storm.
He talks about five weather systems in building the perfect storm: Blogging, email marketing, search engine optimization, social promotion, and writing.
Before I watched it, I went through that list and thought, “Surely I have all of this down, right?”
WRONG!
I also learned I’ve just been lucky with Spin Sucks and SmartTalk, but that I really could be much more strategic and smart about all of it and, perhaps, drive even more traffic.
He begins with a content marketing template. As I watched him explain it, I thought, “Come on. You don’t really use this for every piece of content you write, do you?”
And then he showed why he does. And, I’m pretty sure it works the way he demonstrates. Continue Reading »
Today’s guest post is written by Kristine Simpson.
It all started with Inside PR, a 15-minute discussion about PR, social media, and communications and how they intersect and on occasions diverge, hosted by Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman, and Joseph Thornley.
And now I have become an advocate of the podcast.
As the producer of Inside PR, I have seen what a podcast can do to build your brand and relationships with your audience.
Here are just a few reasons why I love podcasting, and why you should love it too. Continue Reading »
Today’s guest post is written by Lisa Gerber.
I’ve had a very challenging week leaving me with only one thing on my mind I can write about: My dog Jackson.
Jackson is very big and grew fast so he has bad joints causing him a lot of pain. When the bones don’t grow at the right pace compared to each other, they don’t meet well in the elbows and knees and all sorts of problems ensue.
Things have come to a head lately and our local vet just wasn’t able to help us. So I did what anyone very concerned fur mom would do. I turned to the Internet for research. Continue Reading »
Today’s guest post is written by Erik Hare.
The black and white TV images flickered inside the homes of viewers. A woman in a long dress and heels sashayed to the rhythm of the announcer proclaiming how easy the Robo-matic washer is to use ahead of the punchline – “Goodbye, Blue Monday!”
The baseball player could not slam the ball through the plastic that acted just like Guardal – “Protects your teeth!”
Thirty second morality plays flashed a quick and simple kind of storytelling bent to sell products. The morals were clear: Modern products created a more elegant, clean, and easy life.
The craft of storytelling is important because it gets the message into the guts, not the head, of the reader. It makes a connection that is deeper, more meaningful, and more permanent. It informs at a level that facts, figures, and bullet points never dream of reaching.
Storytelling has long been an important marketing tool. “Branding” is humanizing a product – telling a story that makes it personal. The difference today is the stories are told in little plays as well as in words. Social media is actually making us more literate.
This progression in storytelling is far from new. Continue Reading »
Today’s guest post is written by Tim Otis.
It’s no secret we’re overwhelmed with content.
But where is all the good content? How do you define it? And most importantly, how do you ensure you’re not consuming content that turns out to be a total waste of your time?
Stories come and go. And they become the inspiration for other stories strewn about people’s social feeds and channels.
What separates you from the last guy who just shared a link is you’re not buying into it right away because you understand your other role aside from “content strategist” – the role of an analyst. Continue Reading »
Earlier this month, I conducted a workshop for a small group of business leaders.
It’s one of my most favorite things to do because the groups are typically 20-25 people so we can really dig into their business strategies, look at their web properties, and diagnose a few things that can be changed quickly for immediate success.
During this particular session, I put a slide up on the screen that had the following four content ideas (thanks to Marcus Sheridan for a couple of these ideas): Questions people ask, challenges/issues, versus, or pricing. Continue Reading »
Today’s guest post is written by Lisa Gerber.
Last night, I asked my husband what I should blog about this morning.
He said, “Blog about what to do when you don’t have anything to blog about.”
Me: “Can’t, I’ve already done that.”
It’s the wild card. The “I can’t think of anything to write about, so I’ll write about the fact that I don’t have anything to write about.” It happens to the best of us. You get to use it once.
So what do you do the second time it happens? Just start typing, baby! Go with the stream of thought, and return to the top and edit. Continue Reading »
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A few weeks ago, I came across an OpEd by Ann Patchett. It was in the New York Times and she was lamenting the fact there was no Pulitzer Prize winner in fiction this year.
