The great thing about social media is you can become anyone you want to be. The bad thing – at least from a brand’s perspective – is that you may not exist at all.

If your brand works with paid online influencers, you’re probably familiar with one of the technique’s biggest risk factors now: influencer fraud – a dilemma that occurs when paid tastemakers use artificially inflated follower numbers to increase their asking rate for engaging their audience on behalf of a brand.

What was once an isolated trend has exploded in recent years, to the point where the digital landscape is reeling from all that fake follower activity. To put the scope of the problem into perspective, up to 20% of mid-level influencers’ followers are likely fraudulent, according to a Points North Group study.

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What does it mean to create loyal customers in a world where your competitors can be everywhere at once, shopping habits are increasingly search driven, and a single social misstep can quickly erode the favorable reputation it took your brand years to build?
It has become all too common for brands to promote brand loyalty simply by lavishing reward points on anybody willing to identify as a customer or load an app on their phone. And when the appeal of earning exclusive deals and discounts doesn’t do the trick, there’s always the option to fall back on scare tactics that point out your competitors’ shortcomings (remember those old I’m a Mac/I’m a PC chestnuts?).

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Did you follow the #PlaneBae saga as it jumped from social media channels to national news item? If so, you saw the turn it took from lighthearted love story to a much darker reminder of the unexpected ways our digital footprints affect our (and others’) lives.

Unwanted social media exposure is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to digital privacy concerns. With health insurers peeking at our online activities and AI algorithms analyzing online behaviors to assign everything from article preferences to loan or job suitability to prison sentences, protecting personal data is something everyone should be concerned with.

This concern should also extend to the work we do as content marketers. Changing privacy laws in Europe and, now, the U.S. have given us compliance-driven motivation to be more vigilant and transparent in our handling of consumer data. (See the privacy law recently passed in California.) But it’s the trusted relationships we hope to build with our audiences that give us even more compelling reasons to care about those who willingly share their personal lives with our brands.

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In 2015, I arrived in Cleveland for Content Marketing World in good health and good spirits, full of energy and excitement about the week to come. A few hours later that enthusiasm turned to panic, as my focus completely shifted to a sudden, sharp pain that woke me in the middle of the night in my hotel room.

Within 12 hours, I personally learned some lessons about the role health care content marketing can and should play in the lives of consumers. If your health-related organization is looking to improve your content marketing prognosis, here are some ideas based on my experience of tracking down vital information in a situation I never anticipated.

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If you want to significantly disrupt consumer shopping patterns, it doesn’t hurt to invent a sales holiday.

That’s just one of the many retail marketing takeaways to learn from the success of one of retail’s most powerful forces of nature: Amazon. The so-called “everything store” launched its members-only one-day shopping extravaganza, Prime Day, in 2015 and has continually chipped away at the post-Thanksgiving Black Friday’s sales supremacy.

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Editor’s note: In case you missed this post last year, we’re bringing it back and adding some fresh content too.

I’ve heard there are people who believe that “getting there is half the fun.” But to me, everything that happens between my decision to leave my house and my lying on a beach chair with a fruity drink in my hand is just stress-inducing static and delayed gratification.

To reduce the friction I’m likely to experience when I embark on a trip, I rely on the advice and assistance that travel experts provide online. And, judging from the sheer number of content creators who operate in this space, I’m not the only one.

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For many years, I worked alongside a talented content marketer who often insisted she just wasn’t “a creative person.” Though there was plenty of evidence to the contrary (I won’t embarrass her by sharing details), she refused to believe her brain was capable of generating big, innovative ideas or turning them into groundbreaking storytelling.

Rather than argue with her, I thought I’d prove her – and, by extension, any other marketer who thinks crafting imaginative, one-of-a-kind content is a task best left to “artistic types” – wrong once and for all.

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To the uninitiated, a content marketing initiative can seem like an old-school, Dungeons and Dragons-style quest. You continually roll the dice in hopes of earning enough trust, credibility, and experience to persuade your audience to embark on a journey alongside your brand.

Of course, performance should never be left to chance. Every creative asset you produce needs to be supported by strategic decisions – from crafting ideas into a cohesive message to selecting the content types and distribution formats that let your ideas work their magic. Choose unwisely and even your strongest content assets might fail.

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