Now is the time for businesses to invest in publications they own and control.

“There’s no one you need to pitch to have your stories placed,” advises Christopher Penn, chief data scientist at Trust Insights, who outlined the decline in mainstream media sites last fall.

In 2019, enterprise software company Nutanix had the foresight to tackle that challenge. With tech media focused on the biggest companies, Nutanix created its own editorial property, The Forecast.Continue Reading

Too often, the content approval process turns into prolonged agony.

You ask, remind, and plead with reviewers to send their feedback. Once you finally get what you need, the creators make the updates. Then you have to push the approvers to sign off ASAP on the updated content. And once again, you ask, remind, and eventually resort to pleading before you publish it.

Given all those headaches, publishing content that involves trends, news, and other time-sensitive topics in an expedited manner might seem impossible.Continue Reading

I sat down to edit a file created by someone else in a folder created by my client.

I knew the topic and the approximate date of creation. And I knew the file was in this folder. It should have been easy to find, right? Well, if you’ve taken on a similar challenge, you know the answer is a big fat no.

We spend too much time searching before finding the files we need to edit, post, design, etc. Then, we move on to the next thing.

And a few days later, we go through the same frustrating “process” all over again.

But what if we redirected the energy spent on those irritating tasks into creating a better content production process?

These nine fixes will help content teams address those pesky problems you never seem to carve out time to solve. Though software and automation are great ways to improve your overall workflow, I’m focusing on remedies you can apply today – some in only a few minutes.

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You invest a lot of time crafting and executing content marketing strategies in your paying gig. But when it comes to marketing yourself, what kind of investment are you making?

Are you like the barefooted shoemaker’s kid – knowing but not following your industry’s best practices to achieve personal professional success?

Now is the perfect time to change that. Whether you’re looking for a promotion or new job, or you want to pivot your role or industry, create a content marketing strategy to support your personal brand in 2021.Continue Reading

Imagine crowds lining up for more than 2 miles just to see your content marketing – and millions more gathering around the television to watch it. More than a mere success story, it becomes the central plot point in a Hollywood movie, which does so well that it’s become an annual family viewing tradition.

That’s the stuff of content marketers’ dreams. And it’s the reality for marketers at Macy’s, the U.S. department store chain that has put on a parade in New York City every Thanksgiving since 1924.Continue Reading

You can’t judge a book by its cover. You can judge it based on the recommendations of your peers.

Here’s some help to build a great shelf of books (physically or digitally) to improve your content marketing skills, expand your marketing prowess, and gain inspiration to make your work more manageable and effective.

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Creating inclusive content doesn’t require your brand to make a major statement on social justice or take a big stand on a hot topic.

It does require you to think differently, recognize what you don’t know, and use words more purposefully. But the extra effort is worth it.

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A digital-first content marketing strategy doesn’t mean digital only.

That’s the lesson from TD Ameritrade Institutional (TDAI) and its content agency, Imagination, which were recognized as the Best Content Marketing Program in Financial Services by the 2020 Content Marketing Awards. (TD Ameritrade was acquired by Schwab in fall 2020.)

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