2020 was a tough year. And, sadly, the problems we experienced as a society didn’t magically disappear when the calendar flipped to 2021.

If that tough year taught us anything, it’s that we as individuals, brands, companies, and teams need to work harder – together – to course correct.

Last year, I wrote an article, Content Can Perpetuate Racism and Inequity. It’s Time to Do Better, challenging content marketers to do better with diversity, equity, and inclusion. I included, “We must ensure that our content authentically reflects the diverse voices and experiences of our audiences and avoids unconscious bias. If we don’t, we are contributing to the problem.” And it bears repeating today.Continue Reading

Visual storytelling is an important method for educating, entertaining, and making your audience want to come back for more. It brings life to your ideas, brand purpose, and personalities. It lets you show, not just tell.

CMI’s recent Visual Storytelling Summit was full of great tips that will inspire you, make you laugh, make you cry, and get you motivated to try something new – regardless of the constraints the pandemic has imposed on all of us.

Each session offered many eye-opening ideas for your 2021 strategy. I’ve gathered some highlights here, and I linked to the sessions they’re from in case you want to watch them on demand (a single registration form gives you access to all the sessions you select).Continue Reading

One of the many lessons of 2020 is that we look to the future with anything but 20/20 vision. But that doesn’t stop people from trying. What are budget forecasts if not our best predictions about the coming quarter or year?

Knowing that the results will be perfectly imperfect, we sent more than 100 virtual crystal balls to industry thought leaders and subject matter experts, including Content Marketing World presenters. After reflection, they revealed their predictions for content marketing in 2021.

A few themes emerged from the otherwise varied responses – empathy, connection, inclusiveness, transparency. The term “human” showed up in many predictions. Several predictions recognized content marketing’s elevated role in the business – supplementing sales, helping data acquisition, impacting the bottom line. And a few got more granular with thoughts on tactics and strategies.

Read these prognostications as lenses for comparison with your thoughts about (and plans for) content marketing in 2021. And please share your predictions (and your thoughts about the ones shared here) in the comments.Continue Reading

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Being a content marketer isn’t easy. And it won’t get any easier in the years to come.

But doing the hard work brings great rewards – having a genuine impact on the lives of your brand, your team, your audiences, and even yourself.

Here’s the good news: Achieving these great rewards doesn’t require big dreams and over-the-top projects. The rewards don’t come from being grandiose or controversial for the sake of controversy. They come from being more interesting, more helpful, and more truthful.

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Seeing all the amazing initiatives and outstanding creators highlighted in this year’s Content Marketing Awards, it’s clear that even the most challenging times aren’t stopping brands from delivering content experiences worth celebrating. 

They look for opportunities to reach new levels of business growth, drive creative and technical innovation, and deliver increased audience satisfaction. And they do this as our industries, our culture, and our media landscape evolve.

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What are content marketers doing? How are they doing it? Are they successful?

For the past 11 years, we’ve asked content marketers those questions, which have helped many teams check their practices, budgets, and priorities against their peers and plan for the future.

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