Junta42 blog

Get Content Get Customers Sighting at Newark Airport

First time I found Get Content Get Customers in a bookstore - Borders at the Newark Airport...sandwiched between Porter and Ramsey.

Picture #1 shows the actual position of the book when I arrived.  Picture #2 shows the book as I left the bookstore.  Amazing, isn't it?

Also, for all you Kindle fans, GCGC is now available on the Kindle and currently sits at #8 in the Direct Marketing category.

News Flash: Guardian Seeks to Grow through Products, Not Content

If you are a regular to this blog, you've heard this before: in the future, it will be very difficult to tell the difference between media companies and brands that sell products and services.

Heck, we may be there already. Media companies are working hard to develop products while their advertising revenues plummet.  Brands must develop consistent content and publishing strategies in order to attract and retain customers (to ultimately sell their products).

It's a strange marketing world we live in today.

Another shining example of this happening is at The Guardian, the liberal UK newspaper and online resource. After giving my speech on the Future of Custom Publishing at the "Best of Corporate Publishing" 2009 event in Berlin, Germany last week, I had the opportunity to listen to Colin Hughes, managing director of Guardian Professional, the B2B Division of Guardian Media.

After talking for a while about content syndication, Colin opened up about the future of The Guardian.  Here are his thoughts through my notes:

1. No one has figured out how newspapers can make enough money online to be profitable, including them.
2. They are not quite sure when the last day will come for a printed Guardian, but their leadership is quite sure it will come within the next 30 years, if not sooner. They are preparing that it could realistically come very soon (though).
3. They belief the key to their growth is in creating new, unique and valuable products and services by leveraging the Guardian brand.

Let's focus on that third point for a second.  The Guardian has been working with over 850 development organizations around the world.  Their charge: to develop new applications and products based on the Guardian brand.

These development organizations get free use of the Guardian brand, with the only caveat being that if any money is made, there must be a revenue share with the Guardian.

It's a Facebook Apps meets NYTimes strategy.  The Guardian has their own VC fund, but instead of monetary investment, they willingly give use of the Guardian brand. Only time will tell if it will work, but I believe they are headed in the right direction as a large media company.

In 10 years, it will be interesting to see if we'll be able to tell The Guardian from other brands working to sell products and applications in their chosen sectors.

As media companies have been aware for some time now that their emerging competitors are their own advertisers, brands need to be aware that future competition will come from media companies as well.

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Content Strategy as the Future of Marketing

Kristina Halvorson (@halvorson) from Brain Traffic did an amazing presentation about Content Strategy as the Future of Marketing.  It's thanks to Kristina that I've been presenting more about a greater focus on content strategy as THE critical part of a total content marketing strategy. 

My key thoughts while reviewing her presentation include:

• Relevance is key to your brand's importance to a customer.  Relevance is created through the distribution of consistent, compelling content.
• Information from a brand must be useful. It must solve challenges or entertain (depending on the brand). hmmm, I wonder what can do that (yes, content)? 
• When thinking about content strategy, think about USABLE content for your customers. That means, less talk about YOU and more focus on THEM. 
• You need a content strategist, either inside your organization or a partner for hire. Plan for one NOW.  
• Stop thinking like a marketing person when developing your content and start thinking like a publisher.  It helps if you develop content that your customers would want to share with others. 
• Your content, and thus your website, is more than marketing, it's an asset. Start thinking about taking resources out of places other than the marketing line.  It's that important.  

 

Content Strategy: The Future of Marketing

View more presentations from Kristina Halvorson.

Other Relevant Resources:

• Five Reasons Why Content Strategy Comes Before Social Media
• Kodak: Why Content Strategy is the Key to Marketing  
• Web Content Strategy: The Official Presentation  

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Social Media Stages of Involvement - Where You Should Be Spending Your Time

Great social media presentation short by Andrew Davis from TippingPoint Labs given last week at Custom Media Day in New York City. The video is three minutes long and worth the time.

DISCLAIMER: I took this with my new Flip camera, which I love.  The only problems with the Flip are that you need to be close to get a good video and you need steady hands.  I failed on both accounts. 

Andrew is an expert at social media adoption, and breaks down the percentage of time brands (and in this particular case, custom content provider clients) need to spend on social media at certain points in the lifecycle of the social media tool.

• Experimentation - 5% (i.e., duckduckgo.com)
• Adoption - 10% (i.e., 12seconds.tv) 
• Gestation - 15% (i.e., Yelp) 
• Escalation - 15% (i.e., Twitter) 
• Consolidation and Monetization - 25% (i.e., Facebook) 
• Maintenance - 30% (i.e., YouTube, blogging) 

  

 

 

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10 Social Media Tools - Best Kept Secrets

My friend Scott Abel (The Content Wrangler) gave an outstanding presentation at Web Content 2009 on social media tools - best kept secrets.  The full presentation is below, but here's the quick take on the 10 Scott shared:

10 Web 2.0 Tools Marketers Can Use Today

View more Microsoft Word documents from Scott Abel.

1. Google Docs Forms Designer. Create custom forms for surveys and downloads. Customize in less than 10 minutes.
2. Delicious Promotions. Scott reviewed the power of promoting events and offers through Delicious.
3. Tynt. Scott's favorite tool. It tracks what users copy from your website (very cool tool).
4. Ping.fm. Write once, publish many. Ping allows you to publish to as many as 60 social networks in less than 10 seconds (NOTE: be careful.  Understand how your message is being sent and where it is going so you are not Spamming anyone.)
5. GoView. Screencasts that allow you to show instead of tell.  According to Scott, a step down from Jing but easier to use.
6. bit.ly. Shorten your URLs for distribution and be able to track them as well (who opens it where).
7. Scribd. YouTube for PDFs.
8. Kwout. Screen captures with working links to original pages.
9. Knowem. Checks brand name availability across 120 social media websites.
10. slideshare. Increase the value of slide decks far beyond the conference presentation.

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