As I’ve embarked on my PR career, I’ve started to appreciate Disney from a different perspective – for its innovation, unparalleled customer experience and content marketing. I was reading this past month’s issue of Fast Company, and I was struck by an old content marketing map from Walt Disney himself, dating back to 1957, and what we still can learn from it today.

• Integrate – One look at the map, and you can see that all of Disney’s teams are constantly working together, around their central hub: creative talent and films. Keep your teams talking to each other to maximize the usage of all of your material. Your web team and your PR/creative team should be in constant contact, as much of your PR/creative team’s content should be featured on your website, whether it’s a bylined article or an infographic.
• Repurpose – Everything Disney does is repurposed and repackaged into each of its entities –  music, theme parks, print publications, etc. Today, as the internet has changed the way we market content, Disney has of course, innovated to match. Take their newest blog, Oh My Disney, a hub Disney content modeled after BuzzFeed, with memes, animated .gifs and more.
• Innovation at the center – What’s central to Disney’s content map? Their creative talent. Whether B2B or consumer, innovation is at the center of what you do. Innovate and drive a sense of urgency within your company. With your integrated content marketing plan in place, as you innovate, you can’t lose. Easier said than done, right?

Take a look at Disney’s map – what surprises you? What can you learn from it?

Our clients are using marketing automation software, like Marketo and Eloqua, more and more to show how their campaigns drive leads and revenue. In turn, we’ve found our agency more embedded in the lead and demand gen world than ever.

And, we’re ready. As PR agencies, we know how to create dynamic, innovative content for our clients so their prospective customers will download and interact with it, moving them through the sales funnel more quickly.

If you want killer content, your PR team needs a seat at the table. Here are three reasons why:

1) We know your message, and we can articulate it better than anyone else. As the stewards of your voice and message, content marketing is the perfect fit for us. It’s our job to help create amazing content that prospective customers want to fill out contact forms to access. We know your audience. We know what they want to hear and how to communicate your messages to them most effectively.

2) We’re creative. We LOVE to brainstorm and, as your agency, we can offer so many different perspectives. What might have been an everyday white paper can turn into an engaging eBook. That infographic? Let’s make it interactive.

3) We play well with others. Now, when I say, we should OWN your content marketing, I’m not saying that you should just let your agency do it all. We need to work with your internal teams, and not just your communications team. We are measurement junkies. After the dark years of AVE and impressions, we love the fact that we can work with your marketing team to measure exactly how well our content is driving leads. We want to work with your web team to make sure everything is totally optimized for search. Put us all in a room, and let’s have some fun.

We’re ready. Are you?

It started out as a typical Sunday afternoon. My two sons, inspired by the previous night’s bedtime story of the Avengers, transformed into Iron Man and the “Credible” Hulk to fight evil doers in the basement. My wife was at the store rummaging for milk, school lunches and snacks. We take turns making this weekly run, but never with the boys if we want to avoid Lucky Charms down on aisle five and steely stares from those who aren’t sensitive to the mayhem of shopping with six- and four-year-old boys. So with the Avengers fighting as one, I grabbed my cup of coffee and iPad to catch up on stuff.

Ten minutes in, everything tipped. It wasn’t the coffee cup capsizing when Iron Man decked the Hulk beside me (though it was close). Instead the “tipping” was regarding my ritual of catching up on the score of quadrant four emails from the previous week. I rationalize that most of these emails are educational – alerting me to the latest happenings in PR and marketing. They are from our trades, associations and bloggers that I read to stay ahead, and honestly, to feel guilt-free before the Monday Madness begins again. Those emails that multiply like rabbits – accumulating so rapidly that our ex-Marine IT Czar gets in my face about clogging up the server.

So after those ten minutes, the inspiration to continue reading just wasn’t there. I deleted those emails, powered off the iPad and picked up the New York Times.

Wouldn’t you know it; among the articles I ran across was one by Jenna Wortham: “When Emails Turn From Delight To Deluge.” Was it a sign from above? It was Sunday, after all. That’s my email box, littered with seemingly pertinent, educational information – information that comes in all shapes and forms, from white papers, eBooks, webinars and infographics, by-lined articles and even cartoons – always  tactical and cleverly positioned as “best practices.” Emails with subject lines such as:

How Your B2B Content Marketing and Sales Can Work Hand-in-Hand

2013: The Year of Integrated Digital Marketing

Vine: How can brands get social engagement in six seconds?

Oh, and lest I forget the one that pushed me over the edge…

The USPS is Going to Stop Delivering Mail on Weekends, Should You Start Delivering Emails?

NO! HECK NO!!!

My choice to turn it all off wasn’t because the information wasn’t enlightening or useful. Some of it was. Maybe my frustration had been fueled by an Alfred Tennyson quote that I’d heard the day before:

“There lives more faith in honest doubt, believe me, than in half the creeds.”

Sure, Tennyson was talking about religious creeds, but though it was Sunday, it was the PR and marketing creeds (not religion) muddling my inbox that made me question the value of our focus as an industry. It made me doubt that amidst a revolution (really, a repackaging) of the “come and get it” content marketing movement taking place in our industry, we may often lose sight of the strategic and creative side of what we do and how we deliver value. Among the rise of social media platforms that are simply a means to distribute the content, have we become ants marching to the proverbial “this is how you do it?” Are we focused on delivering value or are we just cranking out noise?

We are communicators, engagers and even sometimes, entertainers. But our higher purpose and value to our clients is to do much more than communicate and engage with their audiences. No, what we are in the business of doing is INSPIRING our clients’ audiences. If what we communicate or the ways we engage with our clients’ audiences doesn’t INSPIRE them to an action, well then, it’s just noise. It’s like a status post on Facebook that puts out a plea to like a page in order to reach a milestone of “likes.” If what we do doesn’t inspire or help achieve a business goal (such as to get the public to support a cause, voters to vote for a candidate, employees to be motivated to contribute to their company’s goals, investors to invest in their company, prospects and customers to buy products or services and tell others to do so, etc., etc.), then we have failed.

Unfortunately, it’s easy to be overwhelmed by the noise, and lose sight of the value of inspiration of what we are capable of doing. The Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) defines PR as “building mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics” along with a set of processes as a management function. The American Marketing Association (AMA) is even more transactional in its definition of marketing as an “activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners and society at large.” And our industry has gone rabid as well, foaming at the mouth with customer engagement strategies and programs. Some recently even have adopted the ideal of “engage” in their taglines.

The point is that we provide value only when we are able to “fill (our clients’ audiences) with the urge or ability to do or feel something.” That’s the definition of inspiring. I am not talking about getting your client to 1,000 “likes.” Great brands inspire us to do or feel something. Their communications and marketing follows suit – it’s inspirational. It is not simply an exercise of connecting and “engaging.” Inspiration comes through emotion, storytelling, sharing experiences and reminders of our humanity. The best brands make us think and do and dream – all with positive business implications. You don’t have to look far to find those great brands that INSPIRE. They do it with their advertising and content, across their interactions via social media channels and through the customer experiences they create and deliver in-store and online.

The honest doubt I have is that there may be far too much action without inspiration. Our daily media outreach, posts on Facebook and Twitter, mobile marketing and content, may not fill the people with whom we are engaging with the urge or ability to do or feel something. Yes, Seth Godin is correct that we are in the “connection economy,” but without inspiration, our connections are worthless.

We are the professionals who build mutually beneficial relationships with our clients’ audiences. What we have to do is to think beyond the transaction of communicating and engaging, to INSPIRING. We have to switch our mindset from customer engagement to inspirational PR and marketing. PR and marketing that comes in all shapes and forms, but that stirs emotions, rouses spirits and galvanizes conviction. And above all, stimulates action.

So what am I going to do about those emails? I have hope. As one expert noted in the New York Times article, “We might try to keep emails brief, taking inspiration from Twitter’s 140-word character limit.”

Amen.

With the convergence of digital marketing tactics, it’s pretty clear that the core to a successful digital strategy is content. Just about every SEO expert, content/digital marketer should agree with the age old “content is king” statement. It’s no secret that if you want to rank in a search engine, generate leads or get the most “likes” or “tweets” you need unique, valuable, and quality driven content on your website.

I continue to push our clients and my co-workers to generate content but the true question is “what type of content should get created?” Whether its a article, infographic or press release, content should fall into one of these three main buckets outlined below. Creating a content plan that varies itself across these silos will help establish your client from a relevancy, expertise and authority standpoint.

 1. Evergreen Content

• Definition: Just as the name implies, evergreen content is “always fresh” (forever green) and not relative to one specific moment in time. Evergreen content is pretty general and will bring visitors to a website for a long period of time. This type of content helps establish the basics that define your business or objectives.
• Content Example: Creating a keyword rich article on a website that isn’t time sensitive. I.E. creating a “benefits of maple syrup” section on purecanadamaple.com
• Establishes: Relevance as the content created is relative to business objectives and searches.
• Ideal for: SEO/SEM

2.Brand Content

• Definition: Content that highlights your companies accolades, work and expertise.
• Content Example: Press releases, white papers and case studies.
• Establishes: Expertise
• Ideal for: PR

3. Industry Content

• Definition: Content that provides insight into your businesses overarching industry.
• Example: Blog posts, infogrpahics and other insightful content.
• Establishes: Authority
• Ideal for: SEO, PR, Social Media

Photo from Scott Meis

If content is king, photos are his favorite little prince. Mark my words, 2013 will be the year of the photo. We were just getting primed in 2012. Facebook acquired Instagram. Photo posts on Facebook get more likes than links, text or videos. Your audience isn’t reading your posts anymore… not unless there is a photo to pull them in.

Take Mashable, for instance. Every single one of their posts on Facebook has a photo. In fact, it can be hard to find the link to the actual article the picture represents, at times.

And – with filters, editing apps and vintage cameras, you can truly make your photos stand out.

So, when I’m snapping photos at events and putting together content for my clients, here are a the top three lesser-known apps I can’t live without (everyone knows about Instagram, after all):

AfterFocus Pro:

You know how when people take really cool pictures with their DSLRs and the person is focused, but the background is blurry? I always was very jealous of that look. Well, with AfterFocus Pro, you can have that effect with just a few keystrokes. Just pick your foreground, midground and background and bam, beautiful picture. It’s available on iPhone or Android.

Rosalie’s Turkey Day before:

Rosalie’s Turkey Day After:

HDR Camera:

HDR Camera is, in a word, magical. Here’s my basic understanding: when you take a picture, it actually takes a few pictures in a row, letting in light at different apertures. This way, your darks become more black, and your colors become brighter, making for striking pictures. Some think you can overdo it with HDR. I just think it’s amazing. You do have to hold the phone very still, because it overlays each of the pictures for the effect. Available on iPhone or Android.

Vacation in West Virginia Before:

Vacation in West Virginia After (amazing, huh?)

Diptic:

Want to really tell a story with your photos? Download Diptic. Lovvvve it! It allows you to patch together a few pictures to tell a story. Take some of your favorites from a vacation and make a collage. They’re easily shareable to Foursquare and Instagram too. Grab it on iPhone or Android.

For instance, here’s a diptic of a “rainy day in Maine” this past summer:

So, better have these apps on your phone for the New Year! What are some of your favorites?

By Jason Poulos (@TheSaganaki)

I started working with a new client this past week and in typical web nerd fashion I was curious to see what was going on behind the scenes in the analytics world. I took a look at the website’s history for the last 2 years and glancing at their data I noticed a pretty huge spike in traffic from November 2010 to February of 2011. This spike in traffic came from a paid content targeting campaign (Google display ad network) that ran during those months. With all of this increased traffic, how did those marketing dollars pay off? Was this campaign a success?

At first glance, we can say “yes this campaign was a success.” More visits to the website = greater brand awareness = success. To truly measure success, the real question is what did visitors  do once they reached the website. In looking at the graph we can easily see that a person visited this site (page views), looked at one page (pages/visit) in a pretty short time frame (time on site) and then left the site (bounce rate).

Digging deeper into the website’s analytics I discovered the landing page that users would be presented with when an ad was clicked. The targeted landing page contained some brief copy, a product demo video and a form to request more information about the product. All solid landing page techniques. This campaign was also set up with a conversion goal in the analytics. This goal tracked how many people filled out the form on the landing page. Clearly the goal of this campaign was lead generation and they were measuring the success of the campaign by how many people filled out the form. How well did this campaign do? How many users filled out the form?

124. 124 people completed the form out of the 11,117 visits to the website that the campaign generated. That gives this campaign a 1.1% conversion rate. Not so hot in my mind but I have no idea how much money they put into this campaign or how much their product sells for. In theory, out of those 124 leads, one sale could pay for the entire campaign depending on the price of the software being sold. Unfortunately it’s a mystery as I’m missing some data to fully analyze the ROI of this campaign. Purely by the numbers this doesn’t look like a successful campaign to me.

Improving that Conversion Rate

Out of all of this I do find the marketing decision interesting, going with display ads over search. This aspect alone is a challenge as content targeting is a push medium. Realistically, this type of campaign would’ve done better as an AdWords campaign because it’s a pull medium. AdWords are served up based around a user’s search in Google. This type of user initiated marketing tends to do better than a medium that pushes a message to an audience.

It’s hard to say what went wrong in this campaign, most likely the content of the ad reflected something different than what was on the website. What makes me think that these elements were not aligned is that the average time on site for this campaign was a mere 19 seconds. On top of having the ad and content misaligned we need to think about where these ads were placed and what determined the ad placement. More research and tweaking of these elements as the campaign progressed could’ve helped out. The other side to the argument is that this campaign was perfectly executed and this data truly highlights the disadvantages of display advertising.

What do you think? Success or failure?

If you were to look under the hood of Google you’d be presented with an extremely complex and intricate math formula. Since it’s virtually impossible for humans to keep track of every website on the internet, Google has turned to it’s algorithm to help determine how a website ranks on their search results page.

Knowing that their formula isn’t perfect Google periodically changes these algorithms in an effort to provide searchers with the most relevant and accurate content. When this happens, it’s known as an “update,” which in turn has an impact on the search results we get. Sometimes the updates have a big impact; sometimes they’re hardly noticed but within the last year two major updates have occurred that now determine some characteristics of a “quality” website.

The first of these two updates occurred in February of 2011. The Panda update was designed to filter out thin, un-fit content that lacked substance. When the update first ran, some websites that had number one rankings were now shuffled to the back of Google’s index due to the website’s lack of content. The Panda update isn’t a one time update either. Google will occasionally run the update in an effort to re-sift through all of it’s content to ensure the best search results.

On April 24^th of this year Google released it’s most recent change to their ranking formula. The newest update named “Penguin” targeted content that over used keywords (keyword stuffing) and sites that have “unusual linking patterns,” such as links from content with text that is completely unrelated to the actual on-page content.

How to Survive in Google’s Panda-Penguin World?

As Google keeps on throwing out more and more bumps in the road it might seem impossible to attract and maintain those #1 rankings. We have no idea what lurks in Google’s update future but one thing that will never go away is Google’s thirst for compelling content. Not only is Google thirsty for content but we can see through recent updates that the search engine seeks quality content. Focusing  on the creation of engaging content will not only attract strong rankings but good content will also avoid getting caught in an update that could potentially hurt your website’s rankings. As we look to the future, here are some timeless tips:

1.Create valuable content.

If you aren’t producing content that is entertaining, informative or educational it will be a struggle to get ranked. Excellent content will be relative to your keywords and provide enough detail to fully satisfy your readers inquiry. A good way to see if your website contains valuable content is by taking a look at your website’s social profile. When users are excited, surprised or humored by the content they interact with they react by buying, sharing, connecting or returning to the site. A site with valuable content will have lots of return visits, shares or purchases.

If you feel that your website’s content might be lacking take a look at Google’s guide for quality content.

2. Don’t try to game the system with your content.

Their are tons of ways  out there to try and trick a search engine into better rankings. The recent Penguin update tried to eliminate some common “black hat” techniques but as time goes on it’s inevitable that a new technique will show up that will “guarantee #1 rankings.” As tempting as it might be to follow the latest and greatest cheat, your site will most likely suffer down the road. From a content stand point, make sure that you aren’t over using a keyword as this will come across as keyword stuffing and you could get penalized. The copy of your website should sound natural and not like a broken record repeating the same phrase in every sentence. If you can work your keyword into your copy at least 2 or 3 times you should be in good shape. Image from Warrior Forums

3. Diversify how people reach your content.

You’re taking a risk by solely relying on organic search for traffic as a simple algorithm update can annihilate your rankings. To help avoid a situation like this, look towards other methods to market your content  as putting all of your eggs in the organic search basket could be disastrous. Beyond a well optimized site for organic search, paid search, e-mail marketing and social media marketing should fit into a your content and distribution strategy.

Unless organizations have a thought leadership platform, their social media and media relations efforts are destined to fall on deaf ears.

Shel Israel’s recent Forbes article explored the topic of thought leadership and got me thinking. While not a new concept, thought leadership is important because it helps define why others should care about what you have to say. Israel defines thought leadership as “someone who looks to the future and sets a course for it that others will follow…[they] look at existing best practices then come up with better practices.”

One important way to create thought leadership is through content marketing or brand journalism, which is basically publishing educational material to help promote your organization and its services. Content marketing has long been a mainstay of B2B public relations, in the forms of developing case studies, bylined articles, white papers, fast-tip videos, webinars, etc., but it’s clear that it has real relevance to the healthcare industry as well. By publishing their own content, hospitals have an opportunity to educate people about health issues, new medical procedures, position their physicians as clinical experts and ultimately, help create preference.

A great example of a health system that promotes thought leadership is Virtua, a health system in Marlton, New Jersey. The system created its own broadcasting network and develops videos that focus on news, health treatments and wellness. By publishing their own news, they’re creating thought leadership while promoting its clinicians. Three weeks after the launch, they attracted more than 5,000 viewers to the network site. These videos were then shared via the health system’s social media networks.

Another classic platform to express thought leadership is through a corporate blog. Blogs can give executives and clinicians a platform to discuss the latest healthcare news, post videos about new procedures and talk to the patients about satisfaction and latest medical advancements. Research even shows that 89 percent of journalists source stories from blogs. However, many hospitals do not have a corporate blog. According to Ed Bennett’s blog, Found in Cache, there are 1,229 hospitals engaged in social media, but only 149 have a corporate blog. This means that hospitals are engaging in social media without the benefit of providing original content that will help position them as healthcare leaders.

Hospitals can engage in content marketing, even if they don’t have a corporate blog or broadcasting network – it’s just more difficult. However, hospitals can still establish thought leadership by strategic use of traditional media stories, bylined articles in trade publications, infographics, webinars, videos, eNewsletters and SlideShare. The key, though, is to drive people back to their website – and their blog – rather than other people’s websites.

With the many business and clinical experts on its staff, hospitals have the opportunity to promote industry leaders from within the organization. By creating a thought leadership platform and leveraging a content marketing strategy, they can give their social media efforts a real boost.

CRT/tanaka hosted its very first Northern Virginia B2B tweet-up on Tue, Nov 8th with Shawn Cook, Director of Sales, Eloqua kicking off a discussion around marketing strategies that have had a huge impact on Eloqua’s sales cycle. Throughout Shawn’s presentation, it was very clear that Eloqua as a company takes it “content strategy” very seriously. I couldn’t help but continue to bug Sheila Bogan, Public Relations Manager, Eloqua to introduce me to Joe Chernov, the master mind behind all things “content.” What follows is a short email interview with Joe Chernov, Chief Content Officer at Eloqua.

Joe is the vice president of content marketing for Eloqua, a revenue performance management SaaS company. One of the industry’s most award-winning content marketers, Joe is responsible for imagining, developing and distributing much of Eloqua’s market-facing content throughout the social Web. Joe oversees international public relations, analyst relations and social strategy. Before joining Eloqua, Joe was the VP of communications and associate VP of marketing for word-of-mouth media firm, BzzAgent, and the chair of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association’s ethics panel. He has presented to the FTC about the Commission’s “Endorsement Guidelines” and has lectured on content marketing and social media ethics at universities and international marketing conferences.

Content Strategy is a phrase that still seems to be somewhat foreign especially to B2B marketers? Could you please enlighten us on how Eloqua has mastered this? <

Joe: I agree that content marketing isn’t a skill that comes naturally to many B2B marketers. I suspect it’s because B2B products tend to be more complex than their consumer counterparts, and, as a result, the marketing lexicon is filled with trade-specific jargon and buzzwords. A simple, accessible, “human” lexicon is the first step in a content marketing program. Even if an individual marketer possesses that skill, organizational culture seems to want to suppress it. As a result, the content marketing effort is derailed before it gets off the ground. After all, there’s never been a great piece of content that included the words, “industry-leading, paradigm-shifting solution.” That said, I wouldn’t say Eloqua has mastered content marketing. We are very much still learning ourselves.

If content is King, who are the soldiers to the King? What are the critical elements to executing a content strategy that positively affects your bottom-line?

The foot soldiers are the places where the content is distributed, the people who share it, and the tools that track it. Content marketing, of course, isn’t new. But the ability for the marketer to double as the publisher, distributor and analyst … well, that’s the new part. Just as a king wouldn’t have kept that title for very long without guards, without distribution and support, even the best content is doomed to fail. A content strategy that positively impacts the top-line is one that balances broad awareness (that is, gets new prospects to discover you) and helps accelerate active leads through subsequent stages of the purchase funnel. That is successful content.

How does Eloqua continue to produce such great, relevant and fresh content in a somewhat less-entertaining space like revenue performance management? Please educate us with specific examples.

Joe: Who says revenue performance management isn’t entertaining? Really though to the extent that we have a secret, here it is: We are a company of marketers who sell a product to marketers. So we turn the mirror on ourselves. We create content about what we know, not just what we sell. We understand that our buyers have more concerns than “just” marketing automation, so we try to help them keep pace with changes and developments in adjacent sectors. We honestly try to be a resource — even if that means we recommend another product, which, incidentally, we have done in our social media program.

Why do you think CMOs in the B2B space are still skeptical to test drive social media?

Joe: I think B2B is inherently more conservative. The old, “Nobody gets fired for buying IBM” adage is still very much hardwired in the B2B marketer’s DNA.I think that skepticism is starting to subside. Trusted firms like Forrester and SiriusDecisions and even some vendors have done a very good job at illustrating that social media is giving way to social business. Books like “Smart Business, Social Business,” (http://www.amazon.com/Smart-Business-Social-Playbook-Organization/dp/0789747995) by Michael Brito hopefully will convert whatever stubborn skeptics remain.

The role of a Chief Content Officer is extremely critical and we see the benefits of that in Eloqua’s success. Can you please help us understand at a strategic level, the role of a Chief Content Officer and how that person acts as an integral thread that connects Marketing, PR, Social Web and in certain cases Customer Success Programs?

Content marketing is a force multiplier. I cannot think of a single function that, if executed well, improves the performance of so many other functions. An effective Chief Content Officer contributes to SEO (search engines place a high value on fresh content, linked to by high authority sites, and shared liberally on the social web), public relations (the media is far more open to write about innovative content than they are willing to report on product press releases), demand generation (the effectiveness of marketing automation http://www.eloqua.com/topics/marketing-automation.html systems hinges on quality content), social media (it gives community managers something to share) and, if the Officer publishes helpful (versus promotional) content, then absolutely the Customer Success team benefits as well. It’s benefits are truly pan-organizational.

If you had to pick three social media trends that will dynamically shift the B2B space in the coming years, what would they be?

Joe: I think we are going to see a rise in adoption for internal social networks, like Salesforce’s Chatter or Yammer. Executives seem to have recognized that the “social UX” has become the natural environment for interpersonal communication. The vendors are also now building out workflow and operational efficiency tools, which will make executives more willing to invest in the platforms. I think the Big Three networks — Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook — will expand to four, with SlideShare joining the ranks. Lastly, I think you are going to see some major mishaps in B2B social media. I suspect we’ll see cases brought before the FTC that expose B2B marketers who attempt to shortcut the system by shilling their own products or paying others for positive reviews.

Thank you Joe for taking the time to help CRT/tanaka Buzz Bin readers with some good advice on an effective content strategy that delivers value to your community as well as your sales organizations.