McDonald’s Social Media Goes Wrong? Not a Chance

By Joe Pulizzi | Published: January 27, 2012

You’d have to be living in a cave not to be aware of the now historic McDonald’s Twitter campaign launched a few days ago. If you’ve been out of it for a while, here’s the CliffsNotes version:

McDonald’s promoted a Tweet using the Twitter hashtag #McDStories that went like this: ‘When u make something w/pride, people can taste it,’ – McD potato supplier #McDStories http://t.co/HaPM5G9F‘ (source). The link is a video  of McDonald’s potato supplier Frank Martinez and includes a heartwarming story about his life as a potato farmer.

Shortly thereafter, consumers from around the world ‘hijacked’ the #McDStories hashtag with, to say the least, some horrible tweets about McDonald’s food quality and overall experience.  You can read the most notorious ones here at the Daily Mail and here at Business Insider. Read More »

Posted in Case Studies, Social Media | Tagged , , | 9 Comments

Tablet Content Marketing: Crazy Stats and Time to Move

By Joe Pulizzi | Published: January 25, 2012

Apple iPad SalesIf you are not up on the latest statistics on the tablet, here are some to chew on:

Posted in Content Marketing, Content Strategy, Social Media | Tagged , , , , | 5 Comments

2 Examples of How Non-Profit Content Marketing Should Work [and grab a tissue]

By Joe Pulizzi | Published: January 19, 2012

Joshua

Joshua with his LEGO bricks at age Six

As many of you regular readers know, my oldest son Joshua was diagnosed with autism at two years of age (Joshua is now 10). At the age of three, he could barely speak.  Today, Joshua would be considered “high-functioning” autistic, which means that, if you don’t look closely, you may not notice he actually is a child with autism. To be honest, Joshua is one of those amazing gifts in life that just keeps giving.  We are so blessed to have him in our lives.

[NOTE: To give just a bit back to all those who've helped Joshua along the way, we organize a charity golf event every year, where the proceeds, now in excess of $75,000 in five years, go to the Easter Seals Northern Ohio (ESNO) earmarked for speech therapy. For full disclosure, I serve on the board of ESNO.] Read More »

Posted in Content Marketing, Social Media | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Content Marketing and the War of Attrition

By Joe Pulizzi | Published: January 18, 2012

There are a lot of reasons why content marketing doesn’t work for some companies. If we were making a list, they would include:

  • A lack of understanding reader/customer needs
  • Focusing on the wrong metrics and objectives
  • A soloed approach to content marketing
  • Poor execution
  • Bland storytelling
  • Lack of authenticity
  • Creating information that, simply put, is not helpful or engaging
  • Sales pitches disguised as content

And the list goes on… Read More »

Posted in Business Blogging, Content Marketing, Content Strategy | Tagged , , , | 8 Comments

10 Content Marketing Books to Help Sell the C-Level

By Joe Pulizzi | Published: January 13, 2012

Just ended a pretty impressive Content Marketing Institute webinar hosted by Joe Chernov, VP of Content Marketing for Eloqua and Rebecca Lieb, Analyst for Altimeter.  During the Q&A session, Joe talked about how to sell content marketing to the C-level through some amazing books.  Below are some recommendations from Joe (and some that I would recommend as well) for the marketing pro that needs more content marketing budget. Read More »

Posted in Content Marketing | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 10 Comments

Setting Content Marketing Guidelines: 5 Templates to Drive the Process

By Joe Pulizzi | Published: January 12, 2012

Content Marketing GuidelinesWhen you develop a process for your content marketing, you want to do it in a way that ensures creative, out-of-the-box thinking in the most “human” way possible. Just as we don’t want to let chaos rule the day — so too do we want to avoid the robot legalese that disengages our subscribers.

In our new book, Managing Content Marketing with Robert Rose, we talk a bit about The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.  The Daily Show is one of the best written television shows on the air. It’s amazing how almost every single day, despite how quickly the news moves, they manage to stay relevant, focused, and, most of all, hysterically funny. Read More »

Posted in Content Marketing, Content Strategy, Managing Content Marketing | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

Penn Stater Magazine Handles Scandal the Right Way

By Joe Pulizzi | Published: January 6, 2012

The last month has been a tough one for Penn State students, alumni and the entire community around University Park. For the first time in my life, I was almost hesitant to say I was a Penn State graduate  (I graduated from Penn State in 1997).  Something that once we were so proud of, has been tarnished in a truly horrific way.

Penn Stater Cover – January/February 2012 issue

Yesterday, I received the January/February issue of The Penn Stater, the Penn State Alumni magazine (cover to the right). I honestly got chills picking it up. I just held the issue in my hands for what seemed like minutes. Read More »

Posted in Case Studies, Content Marketing | Tagged , , | 17 Comments

Coca-Cola Bets the Farm on Content Marketing: Content 2020

By Joe Pulizzi | Published: January 4, 2012

Coca-Cola's Jonathan Mildenhall

If you’ve ever seen the movie Jerry McGuire, you remember the blue mission statement. This is the moment in the movie when Jerry McGuire (played by Tom Cruise) wakes up in a cold sweat and writes, what he believes, to be the future direction for his sports agency.

Well, Coca-Cola’s marketing mission statement is Content 2020, a content marketing brainchild of Coca-Cola’s Jonathan Mildenhall, VP Global Advertising Strategy and Creative Excellence, who recently stated that:

“All advertisers need a lot more content so that they can keep the engagement with consumers fresh and relevant, because of the 24/7 connectivity. If you’re going to be successful around the world, you have to have fat and fertile ideas at the core.” Read More »

Posted in Branded Content, Case Studies, Content Marketing, Content Strategy | Tagged , , , | 44 Comments

Top 5 Content Marketing Articles of 2011

By Joe Pulizzi | Published: December 27, 2011

It’s been a tradition on this blog to review the best content marketing articles/posts from the past year.  To be fair, we do this completely based on traffic to each post.

I’ve been covering the content marketing industry via this blog since April 26, 2007 (my first post). The title of that post was “Why Content Marketing?“. At that time, most people didn’t even know what content marketing was.  Almost 600 original posts later, and the majority of the marketing population is keenly focused on the content marketing revolution.  Thanks to each of you for keeping this revolution going, and how we can turn our customers into brand subscribers through compelling and relevant content.  Here’s to a fantastic 2012.

And now, your most popular content marketing articles over the past year. Read More »

Posted in Content Marketing, Content Strategy, Fun Stuff | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

A Content Marketing Christmas Story…Story

By Joe Pulizzi | Published: December 24, 2011

Joshua Pulizzi in front of "A Christmas Story" house in Cleveland, Ohio

This week the Pulizzi family had a chance to visit the A Christmas Story house for the first time.

Most people aren’t aware of this, but the house and many of the scenes from the classic Christmas tale were filmed on the west-side of Cleveland, Ohio in a beautiful neighborhood called Tremont.

It happened, but it wasn’t meant to be.

There were 20 cities in the original city search for the movie.  Cleveland was not among those 20. Read More »

Posted in Content Marketing, Fun Stuff | Tagged | 1 Comment