Susan Does Social

Great article from Kapost, leading to an even better one from Aberdeen: http://marketeer.kapost.com/2013/11/content-marketing-leaders/?goback=%2Egde_5109383_member_5809013467620864003#%21 Great takeaways here on how to align your content with your marketing and sales team. It's interesting how very little the messaging has changed--you are not an island. This is the same message marketing and sales professionals have been receiving for years, and once again it comes home in the content marketing arena. Again, no man is an island.

http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2013/10/future-b2b-content-marketing-experts/ from http://blog.thestarrconspiracy.com/truth/this-week-in-the-world-b2b-marketing-globoforce-ipo-and-your-2014-marketing-budget/ Starr Tincup posted a link to this excellent piece from the Content Marketing Academy. The questions are relevant ones, about the future of content and how it will play out in marketing. While they suggest content strategy vs. content marketing discussions, the real struggle is playing out in the small business, the one that the entire marketing department consists of one person. While social media has opened up some venues for equality, it is also pointing out that everyone is not a writer, nor are they being trained to be writers in college. I work in both business and education, and the two careers are dovetailing more than ever. We have so many students who can barely write, let alone write creatively per the vision of the marketing team. As social media becomes more and m...

http://www.fastcocreate.com/3020047/story-20-the-surprising-thing-about-the-next-wave-of-narrative?goback=.gde_5109383_member_5803164735457210368#! So, it turns out that the most important thing for content in 2013 is...wait for it...the content. This article does a great job of pointing out that all the bells and whistles are just that. It's the story that matters still.

http://www.idgconnectmarketers.com/its-time-for-content-operations/?goback=.gde_5109383_member_5802125494455394304#! When I started developing content for business almost ten years ago, much of it was a "nice to have". It was used as a piece to draw in the leads to other, more relevant points in the sales funnel. Blogs were still under corporate ownership, and most execs had a single ghost writer to manage the company blog. Now, so many companies are still applying the strategies that worked then to the rapidly evolving world of content. Companies see that they need social media, but fighting for a place at the table at a SMB is still a struggle. It is a tactics game.