Danny Brown

podcaster - author - creator

content marketing

The Sunday Share ? Content Marketing Art of War

video and content marketing

As a business resource,?Slideshare?stands pretty much head and shoulders above most other content platforms.

From presentations to educational content and more, you can find information and curated media on pretty much any topic you have an interest in.

As a research solution, Slideshare offers analysis from some of the smartest minds on the web across all verticals. These include standard presentations, videos, multimedia and more.

Which brings us to this week?s Sunday Share.

Every week, I?ll be sharing a presentation that catches my eye and where I feel you might be interested in the information inside. These will range from business to content to social media to marketing and more.

This week, an excellent re-imagining of the Art of War, from John Lane, Vice President of Strategy/Creative at?content marketing agency Centerline Digital.

As content continues to be one of the key factors for success in any marketer’s toolset, this presentation adapts the teachings of Sun Tzu and shares several excellent case studies on how brands are adapting to the new content-driven marketplace.

Enjoy.

 

The Sunday Share – Publisher, the New Marketeer

As a business resource, Slideshare stands pretty much head and shoulders above most other content platforms.

From presentations to educational content and more, you can find information and curated media on pretty much any topic you have an interest in.

As a research solution, Slideshare offers analysis from some of the smartest minds on the web across all verticals. These include standard presentations, videos, multimedia and more.

Which brings us to this new Sunday Share feature.

Every week, I’ll be sharing a presentation that catches my eye and where I feel you might be interested in the information inside. These will range from business to content to social media to marketing and more.

This week, a short but interesting Slideshare from George Zarkadakis of content marketing agency Xplain.

It takes a look at how content is forcing marketers to reevaluate their outreach, and to think like publishers if they want to succeed.

Enjoy.

5 Great Reasons To Use Video For Content Marketing

video and content marketing

This is a guest post by Joshua Hardwick.

I hear about “content marketing” all the time and to be honest, I’m sick of hearing about it. Ever since Google rolled out their Panda algorithm update a year-or-so again, it seems to have been the topic of just about every blog post out there.

“But why does it annoy you?” I hear you ask. Well basically, it’s because every online marketer worth his/her salt has been doing content marketing for years (before all this Panda nonsense) and I find it annoying that it’s become yet another “SEO tactic” where, more often than not, it’s more about “getting a link” than creating great content.

The truth is that great content will always attract links (and social shares and all the rest) and a lot of content marketers are creating great content every day. However, there seems to be one aspect of content marketing that is still (for whatever reason) extremely underused; video.

In my opinion, video should be part of EVERYONE’s content marketing strategy; and here’s why…

It Sets You Apart From The Crowd

As I mentioned above, almost every online marketer on the planet is involved in some sort of content marketing these days (i.e. guest posting, blog posting, creating infographics, etc.) but for some reason, very few are using video marketing at all.

Sure, a lot of the bigger companies have started using it in the form of viral ads or perhaps on landing pages but hardly any of the small companies out there are using it.

But why should you care about standing out from the crowd? Well, let’s say you were given the choice of reading two blog posts; one of them was 1000 words of plain text and the other had the same information, but presented in a video format. Which one would you choose and which one would you be more likely to share/link to? Exactly, the video post.

It’s Embeddable!

One of the best things about video content is that it’s easily embeddable on just about any website or blog you can think of. This means that bloggers can easily share the great content presented in your video with their readers too; they just have to embed it.

Let’s compare this to a standard blog post. If another blogger wanted to share your blog post with their readers they’d not only have to ask your permission (thus decreasing the likelihood of them sharing it) but also, have to significantly rewrite the post to ensure that Google doesn’t hate them for stealing your content.

If this wasn’t enough, you can probably generate a huge amount of back links to your site if you host the video yourself (and provide an embed code) too (check out this post if you want to do this).

It’s Not As Expensive As You Think

Writing a blog post is cheap; if you go on any popular freelancing site you can probably find a decent writer for just a few bucks quite easily. Now, creating (quality) video content is never going to be this cheap admittedly, but firstly; it doesn’t have to be and secondly; it’s still not as expensive as you might think.

The fact is, millions of people are writing blog posts every single day and while they’re still a great form of content marketing, there’s nothing special about them in most cases. A piece of video content is probably going to have chance of generating links and ranking well on popular search engines than any, bog-standard blog post.

As well as this, quality video content is becoming cheaper than ever to produce in-house. If you’ve got a Smartphone (e.g. iPhone, Galaxy etc) or perhaps a decent (i.e. $500+) DSLR camera with video mode, you’ve got everything you need to create a great video. Remember, it’s more about great content than fancy video editing.

You’re Probably Already Doing Similar Things

A lot of content marketers are constantly producing different forms of content in order to keep their strategy as diverse as possible and therefore, you’re probably already doing similar things to video marketing.

One of the things that springs to mind is infographic marketing. For years, infographics have been an extremely popular way of not only gaining links but also, sharing expertise and building trust.

Now one things for sure, infographics aren’t cheap (at least not the good ones anyway) so why not use that budget and produce a video? With thousands of infographics created every day, bloggers are inundated with requests to republish them but rarely are they asked to republish a video (hence you’ll stand out from the crowd).

The World Loves To Watch Videos

If all the above reasons weren’t enough to convince you, then hopefully this one will be; people LOVE videos.

Content marketing is all about creating content that your target audience is going to love and currently, the world seems to be in love with video content. Sure, people love reading a well-written blog post (as you’re doing right now) but let’s face it, it’s much easier to sit back and watch a video.

I could throw statistics about online video at you all day (if you want some, here’s some mind-blowing ones) but really, you only have to look at the success of YouTube to see just how much people love them.

And That’s A Wrap!

Well, I hope that I’ve convinced you to experiment with video marketing at least as I know it can lead to wonderful things.

However, just remember that video marketing works on the same principles as any other form of marketing; it has to be great content or no-one will care about it, no matter how much outreach you do!

joshua-hardwickAbout the author: I?m Joshua Hardwick, founder of The SEO Project. I spend most of my time ?doing SEO?, drinking red wine, and working on crazy projects (sometimes all at once). Feel free to follow me on Twitter. ?

image: EmpowerNetwork

Measuring Content Marketing the Easy Way

This is a guest post from Dan Norris of Informly.

Recently I launched a new feature inside my simple stats dashboard Informly that helps content marketers measure how effective their content is.

I’ve been creating a lot of content leading up to the launch of Informly last week and one thing I’ve wanted to measure is which bits of content are hitting the mark.

Everyone knows that good posts attract visits, comments and social shares (likes, tweets etc) but there isn’t really an easy way to specifically measure this as a whole.

This is where our ‘Post Impact’ chart comes in.

[Read more…] about Measuring Content Marketing the Easy Way

Sorry, Content Dudes, But It’s Just Plain Old Marketing

If you search “content marketing” on Google, you get about 560 million results.

There are events dedicated to content marketing, and folks like Brian Clark, Joe Pulizzi, Marcus Sheridan and others are huge proponents of the term.

So, big business then. And yet…

Is there really such a thing as content marketing? Or is it just marketing, plain and simple, and a facet of a bigger picture?

According to Wikipedia:

…content is information and experiences that may provide value for an end-user/audience in specific contexts.

So, by definition, content is information that may help in the decision-making process.

Marketing, on the other hand, is a different beast altogether. The core reason for marketing to exist, in no uncertain terms, is to make a buyer fall in love with something enough to purchase it.

This “something” can usually be categorized into three clear sections: product, service, expertise.

The Product and Service Angle

Product and service is straightforward. You make something, or provide something, and charge people for that. This could be footwear, a meal, cleaning services, or a million other things.

But it’s still the product or service that’s being marketed.

Sure, you might write a blog post about your industry and why your offering is better than anyone else’s.

Or you might create a video to showcase a design and embed on your website.

But that creation of content is simply a tactic in the bigger picture of marketing. The content is created to market the end product – you’re not marketing the actual content.

If you were, the message would be something like “See how cool this video / blog post is – buy the content now!”. Which wouldn’t make any kind of sense.

Switch to a marketing message, though – “The X1Z Thingymajig – Order Yours Today!” – and it’s back to using the content to drive sales of the product or service.

The Expertise Angle

One area where content marketing could be seen as a standalone solution is that of expertise (particularly on business blogs).

To show you’re someone a potential customer should do business with, you share your expertise and knowledge with your audience. You might provide white papers, or ebooks, or webinars, to help propagate that expertise and separate you as a thought leader (if that’s your goal).

The thinking here is, if the audience sees you know your stuff, they’re more likely to do business with you than your competitor.

But then, there’s that “do business with” phrase again. Because, as much as a business or consultant can say they’re offering expertise for the good of their readers, there’s always another end goal in sight – attracting business for your offering.

Sure, you’re offering free content as opposed to charging for it – but it’s with the goal of marketing your businesses through less in-your-face means. The end goal is still dollars in the cash register for whatever it is you’re selling (product, service, consultancy expertise).

Content is Still a Key Tactic

Now, I don’t want this post to come across as dismissing the importance of content when it comes to marketing your business. As someone who’s consulted clients over the years on the benefits of content, I know the value content brings to the table.

A successful blogger outreach, for example, can reap rewards at a far reduced cost to a business than traditional print or media ad buy can offer. A timely video can capture the hearts of your customers more than a radio ad ever could. And all the other pieces of content that get discussed when talking about content marketing all offer value too.

The thing is, though, it’s still just another tactic. The content is part of the overall strategy to get a customer to buy into your offering, and a solid part at that. But a standalone? I can’t see it.

Besides, when was the last time you ever saw a major news release and promotion for your latest blog post..? 😉