I have been under the impression for quite a while that eventually one of the large content marketing platforms...  will develop social media capabilities ... that content marketing would be the parent, and social marketing would fit underneath it. What Sprinklr is trying to do is flip the script on that, where social media becomes the parent a…

a few sacred cows have emerged about the nature and promise of content marketing – these are the white lies marketers tell themselves. Here are a few myths marketers need to dispel if they want to really reach prospects with their content... The goal of content marketing isn’t to create content, it’s to create educated buyers who are ready to h…

"Thoughtful, longform content is king... A young, bare-bones website called Wait But Why is disproving the notion that thoughtful, long-form content and virality are mutually exclusive... monthly averages of 1.6 million uniques and 4.6 million page views... Its newsletter has over 106,000 subscribers... Its most viral article... has well ove…

If your enewsletter is basically an RSS feed from your site's newsroom, you might want to think again. At the very least, we always advocate including an email-only editorial in enewsletters published every week or less frequently. "Publishers are ... already treating email newsletters ... as designed to be read entirely in email without reader…

I’ve had the amazing pleasure of meeting with over a dozen of the largest companies on the planet over the last six months... [who] have hired journalists, producers, broadcasters, and editors to refine and tell their story on a consistent basis... but not one ... focused on subscriber growth... While larger enterprises are fighting silo battle…

"...after this Spring’s most recent NewsFeed algorithm updates is that Facebook Pages—the ones used by businesses—are generating appalling user engagement rates... work-arounds ... mostly involve investing even more resources into Facebook ... more money devoted to advertising to fans brands have already paid to acquire in the first place." …

"Publishing partners have built best-in-class agency capabilities in house... brands and their media-buying agencies are going to publishers, emboldened by larger budgets, to create large-scale interactive ads with graphics, video and text.... "ours is a story that requires more than an ad. Content helps them explain the technology behind th…

"... infographics are often taken at face value... And it is hard to fact check infographics... Fast Company republished 10 facts from Buffer. Fact checking one of the facts in that list went like this: The fact quoted an infographic -> that quoted a blog post at Huffington Post -> which in turn quoted another infographic -> which quoted a blog…

"...a new ecosystem of content promotion has arisen to fill the visibility hole left by the unfulfilled promises of organic search and social media. The channels and tactics for content promotion are advancing, affecting everything from influencer outreach and media relations to native advertising and sponsored content." - The Content Marketing E…

From 360-degree to Buzzwedge, a guide for the perplexed: - 10 Content Marketing Buzzwords You'll Hear Way Too Much At SXSW

"A Content Marketing Roadmap (CMR) is a strategy and game plan for content production and publication, usually for a three-month period. Its purpose is to take the guesswork out of blogging and lead generation and to, with every piece of content written and published, be working toward a goal." - What is a Content Marketing Roadmap? | Amanda Shaw…

"...the trick with content marketing is that it's a long game.... it can take months to build a backlog of great, search-friendly content.The great thing is, once that content's written, it'll work for you over time by accumulating traffic and generating leads... I’ve been inspired by BuzzFeed and other popular online content platforms, whose les…

"content marketing is hard... We pour energy and resources into minute gains, instead of focusing our attention on the simple changes that make a huge difference. Today, I’d like to talk about 7 content marketing tips that will get you so much more with so much less. It’s about working smarter, not harder." - 7 Content Marketing Tips: Your Audie…

"In 2014, we published a series of posts to help marketers get back to the basics of content marketing or to improve what they are doing. In case you missed some or all of the series, here is a quick primer." - A Blueprint to Jump-Start Your Content Marketing Strategy

Just substitute 'governments' for 'businesses' and 'brands', 'citizens' for 'customers', and 'policy' for 'product' in this excellent HBR post: "Businesses need to take Ello and its manifesto as a wake-up call to rethink the way they use social networks to reach customers... That means stepping back from the relentless quest for followers, click…

"Here I will share some of the companies that I think really "get it" (unlike I did back in 1998) and are doing a great job of providing their targets audiences with information and entertainment that not only meets their customers needs but provide them with a deeper connection to the brands themselves."

"An 11-point cheat sheet from a weathered Content Marketer to make it all better." Some lessons are wonderfully odd, like the fact that odd numbered titles get better clickthrus, while others are rather bland (does anyone really still need to be told to "Be precise"?) and others are not necessarily correct (one should "Keep it short" unless one d…

While possibly a bit naive regarding Facebook's motivation for crucifying organic reach, some good points here: "- Talking doesn’t equal connecting: It seems that many brands take their audience for granted. Liking a page doesn’t always imply interest. ... - Paid reach won’t substitute for great storytelling: While paid reach might get more visib…

It wasn't supposed to be this way... "The internet is ballooning with fluff, and bad content marketing is to blame. In our obsession with "engaging" our "audience" in "real-time" with "targeted content" that goes "viral," we are driving people insane... Although word on the street is that people want short, “snackable” content, the data says…

(and why I joined a technology company, not another comms agency): "...organizations that had software engineers and Web enthusiasts in the room when big decisions were made navigated the seas of change more successfully than those that didn’t... When you think about how news and entertainment have been delivered over the internet so far, four m…

"We are moving toward a new Internet paradigm where Google responds to questions with answers, rather than redirections to bog-pits of branded content – and marketers loathe it.... People want to read things that are relevant, interesting, and not predicated on barely veiled advertising guile. Mercifully, search engine technology is catching up. T…

"But the ramification of this fundamental shift in design is that we now consume content in headlines, thumbnails and mini descriptions. According to a recent study by Copyblogger, on average 8/10 people will read headline copy, but only 2/10 will read the rest. We have all become headline hunters." While I dispute the idea here that Facebook inv…

"BuzzFeed UK editor Luke Lewis shared his tips and advice for effective use of social networks as part of news:rewired last week" You've probably read this already, but just in case... - Lessons in creating a buzz on social media from BuzzFeed | Media news

"there is a hierarchy of information consumers are looking for.... consumers seem much less concerned with how they receive it than with whether the content itself is well conceived, well executed, useful and honest." - Survey: What Types of Content Consumers Do Want From Brands | FleishmanHillard

"On Monday, at almost the exact same moment as tens of thousands of people — including dozens of professional journalists — were checking the SCOTUSblog site to see whether new decisions by the country’s top court had been posted, the site itself was being denied a press pass" - Senate press gallery ignores the evolution of journalism, denies SCO…

For those still confused: "Content marketing is not PR as such... But there is a basic realization that people are tired of ads and having promotional messages pushed on them. So called “branded journalism” is ... often compelling high-quality content that many newspaper editors would wish their journalists could produce.... brands seem sometimes …

Content shock defined - a lot of content to consume triggered by this post, which is ironic: "the volume of free content is exploding at a ridiculous rate... our ability to consume that content is finite. There are only so many hours in a day... This intersection of finite content consumption and rising content availability will create a tremor …

Building links to your site is a critical part of online promotion. A good article on some techniques *beyond* blogger outreach: "Here are just some of the wealth of link opportunities that are out there in almost every market: Resource pages Forums Directories Professional organizations Events Submission-based Press"…

"Stephanie shares how marketers can make the most out of the LinkedIn publishing platform." - LinkedIn Publishing Platform: What Marketers Need to Know | Social Media Examiner

"There's no such thing as "perfectly optimized", but I took a stab at drawing up the mythical beast anyway: "... I first saw the "perfectly optimised page" infographic on Twitter, but discovered a much richer, larger article on Moz. In itself, this is a great use of infographics and data visualisation - the infographic stands on its and has bee…