Ambal from Click Documents asked me if I had any tips/strategies for corporate blogging.  The presentation below is a corporate blogging basics presentation useful for beginning bloggers.  That said, here are the main takeaways.  For more indepth understanding of a content marketing strategy, this content marketing white paper will help. A blog is just a tool, nothing more, nothing less. BUT, it can be a powerful tool to distribute consistent and valuable information to your prospects and customers.  Be sure to focus on the informational needs of your customers, and provide helpful content around those needs. The more niche the better.  Find your expertise area and own it! Not sure how to get started with a robust social media presence? First, focus on your blog and use that as the magnet to attract customers from social networks to your site.  You cannot have a social media strategy without first understanding your content strategy. Match your expertise areas with the needs of your customers. ...

Just about every day I answer a question about using Twitter, the microblogging tool. I’ve put them together in this handy post.  Enjoy, and, if you like getting information on content marketing, feel free to follow me @juntajoe. Question #1 What is the easiest way to find someone’s @ name? If I read an article or hear them speak, how do I easily find their Twitter call sign. Use Twitter Name Search Question #2 What are other ways to find twitter names? If Twitter Name Search doesn’t work for you, try Twellow, the Twitter Yellow Pages. Question #3 What does the # mean and how do you find out the # for a conference (for example). The # is called a hashtag. They were created to bring organization to Twitter.  For example, I may send out a tweet about content strategy, and may want to help those interested in content strategy find the tweet by adding #contentstrategy. For the example below, this person can now coordinate his/her tweets with others about news of the fire. If...

I don’t know about you, but I’ve been reading more print magazines lately.  Seems odd at first, but in a way, it makes perfect sense. I spend most of my business day and night on the computer. When I’m on my computer, I need to get things done. But when I want to relax and engage in an inspiring story, print is my choice…books and magazines. At the top of the list is probably Inc. magazine. This month’s article about how 37Signals founder Jason Fried spends his day was priceless.Continue reading

Big thanks to Mike O’Grady at Stella Pop for putting out the latest edition of eVidmagazine featuring yours truly.   Although Mike was originally thinking a two or three minute video interview, he decided that the video worked best as a 10 minute segment.  Hey, he’s the expert, so I’m not going to disagree with him. My biggest takeaway from the video was this – Less of me and more of you (well, not literally since it’s almost 10 minutes of me).  What I mean is that brands are starting to focus much more on you (the buyer) and much less on the “me” (themselves). In simplest terms, that’s what it means to be a publisher. For example, just pick up your local paper, NY Times or BusinessWeek magazine.  Very little of the content is focused on the publications themselves.   hmmm, why not? Well, because they want people to actually read it. Where did corporations go wrong thinking that our customers wanted to hear all about...

Dan Schawbel has put together a first-rate magazine about personal branding called (of course) Personal Branding Magazine. The latest issue includes an article from yours truly, which I’ve included below.  I also included one of my PowerPoint presentations when I do in-person workshops on personal branding (this article was based on that presentation). If this topic is important to you, I suggest you check out Dan’s magazine (get the free trial issue here).  15 Steps to Personal Branding Success Before talking about the how of personal branding, it’s essential to talk about why it’s essential for your business and your life. Developing your personal brand will help you: Grow your company. Drive your career. Open up partnerships and new opportunities you never thought of before. Shorten sales cycles. Minimize selling your services (since you will be the trusted expert). Become more fulfilled with life. 10 Steps to Personal Branding View more presentations from Joe...

Gijs Daemen from Merge Media, a Netherlands-based content marketing shop, did a bang-up job putting this video together on content marketing. The original presentation was directed to his customers in the Netherlands. Questions I answer in the video: What is Content Marketing? Why Content Marketing?  Why the opportunity? How about web content?  Are people making buying decisions based off of corporate online content? What about all these terms? Content marketing, custom content, custom publishing, customer media, inbound marketing…should you care? Joe Pulizzi 1 from Merge Media on Vimeo.

Gary Vaynerchuck, author of the new book Crush it! and the popular Wine Library TV (where he gets over 100,000 viewers a day), was kind enough to put this video together on content marketing for the Junta42 audience. Thanks Gary! A quick overview: Most important message to his followers: Patience. It takes patience to grow a business and is even more important than passion. Top 3 lessons: Care about your customers. Identify their pain points and show them you really care. Nobody cares about you, your products or your brand. Deliver something awesome to them so that they care about what you deliver to them. Internal communications is key. If your internal culture is not right, it's almost impossible to grow your business. What if a marketer believes they should create valuable and relevant content for customers, but doesn't have the resources or skill? GaryVee says to partner up.  Find an outside team that can help you deliver your story (this is why we started Junta42). How...

The following is a guest post courtesy of Russell Sparkman from Fusionspark Media, a new media communications company based in Washington state. I’ve had the pleasure of working with Russell on a number of projects, most recently their amazingly successful New Media 2012 conference. As you will learn from Russell’s post, he’s advocating a content marketing schedule that is quite ambitious, challenging for most companies. We believe this sort of thinking is not just nice to do, but necessary to the overall business and marketing strategy. Check it out and let me know what you think. This is a story about story budgets. No, not the kind of budget that defines, in dollars and cents, what you’ll spend on a story. This is about the traditional media use of the term “story budget” to describe the running tab of story ideas that make up a long-term publishing schedule. If you’ve been following this blog, among others on similar topics, you’ve heard many times that content marketers...

Really interesting study on content marketing and custom publishing research led by King Fish Media with help from Hubspot, Upshot and Junta42. (Note: the study requires name and email to download and the 20-page eBook can be downloaded here). Here are the highlights from the 189 marketing professionals that took the study: Beliefs about Content Marketing 93% of marketing professionals create or plan to create content marketing as part of their overall programs in the next year.  The take: We are all publishers now. Almost 67% of marketers believe that the content they produce can have the same or more value than a traditional media company. 8 out of 10 believe they can create content as engaging as media companies. The take: Brands have access to some of the best writing talent in their industries today versus years’ past, so this makes sense (although the number is a bit higher than I expected. Most marketers I talk with on this don’t really “believe” they can...

Let's face it.  Content strategy is not easy.  Actually, it's pretty difficult. Those that regularly read this blog know I've been covering it more recently: Content Strategy Comes Before Social Media 20 Questions to Ask Before Launching a Content Marketing Project The B.E.S.T. Method to Content Strategy Since releasing the Content Marketing Playbook (which is all tactical), I've been receiving more and more emails regarding where to start with a content strategy.  Here is a roadmap to follow to make sure you are on the right track. Step 1: Define Your Marketing Goals Goals like "we want more traffic to our website" and "our competitors are doing it" just don't cut it. Think of it this way: "What are the things that need to happen in order for the content program to continue?" Another good questions is "A year from today, what will be different in our business as a result of the content marketing program?" Here...

Well, first the bad news. After months of trying to work this out, the winner of Junta42’s $4200 in 42 Days Contest, 48HourPrint, decided not to move forward with their project. (for those of you who don’t remember, every project match that went through the Junta42 system over a 42 day period was eligible to receive the $4200 dollars) When we started this contest, we all thought how easy it would be to give this money away. I mean, who wouldn’t want $4200 to kick-start a content project, be it a blog, a newsletter, a video series or even (heaven forbid) something in print? Now, the good news. We have $4200 to try something new. What should we do? What would you do? Should we give it away (I’m thinking yes)? Should we spend it on our own content (that’s not as much fun)? How would you spend $4200? Would you go video, blog content, search strategies? Maybe you’d get a content audit and strategy completed, so you’d know exactly what needs to happen...

Somewhat interesting Bloomberg video from Ad legend Jerry Della Femina on the future of advertising and ad agencies. The key points: The advertising industry is not run by creative anymore, but the bean counters. The “good-old days” for advertising is over – where they used to make 15 cents on every dollar spent, now it’s more like seven or even five cents. According to Jerry, every meeting with marketing executives starts out with “How can I get more people to my website?“Continue reading