What Is Content Marketing and Why Does It Matter?

Content marketing has become more than just a buzzword, it's all anyone's talking about in marketing everywhere you turn. It's not new, some companies have been doing it for decades, everyone else just came in late to the game and realized with the abundance of social media, it's become critical to create and share VALUABLE (key word here, folks) content. 

Content marketing can fit into almost industry, as well as B2B vs B2C. Everyone's tired of advertising, they want valuable information that may not even be just about you and your company alone. 

It's a great way to attract new or current customers if you're creating content they consume and use, plus it's owned media, not paid media (unless you count hiring copywriters, etc). Content is absolutely the present of marketing and it's only going to get bigger. Customers would rather visit your Facebook page or blog where you're talking about a variety of topics relevant to your industry but not necessarily your company than visit your website alone. It's almost impossible to have an engaging social media strategy without planning a great content marketing strategy alongside it, which can overlap into other channels as well. 

If you haven't yet gotten into content marketing & strategizing based on what your customers want and need, not just what you think they want - it's time to make the switch.

The Importance of User Generated Content

User generated content is a growing trend that is currently undervalued in many industries and it’s always interesting to see what large brands are making the most of UGC and how.

User generated content can be absolutely free, and equally as effective in promoting your brand, identifying or creating brand ambassadors as well as a helpful tool for listening in the spaces where your customers currently reside.

Paid media can be effective when done right, but UGC seems like a unique opportunity to reach customers in a different way without having to do anything. If you’ve got a great company, people of all ages, especially millennials, will share and create content about you that can come across as much more genuine than your expensive online advertisements can.

It’s important to leverage this content any way you can. How do you track and promote user generated content that’s relevant to your company? 

Down to the Wire for Facebook Timelines

It’s getting down to the wire and any brand who hasn’t switched over their Facebook pages to the new brand pages will be forced to at the end of this week. Facebook didn’t give brands an incredible amount of time to shift strategies and figure out their next moves, but some of the biggest and brightest brands have already taken first steps in the right direction.

It seems Facebook’s main reason for making this move is because they want brands to look at their Facebook fans as more than just someone to sell to – and I appreciate that. This move gives brands the opportunity to show the “softer” side of their companies with more stories, real photos that give a “behind the scenes look” and just helps to humanize the brand a bit more.

Anyone who’s a  community manager has probably hit a creative wall at one point with their Facebook posts and can sometimes forget that it’s not about SELLING when posting, it’s about story-telling and interacting with fans who already enjoy your brand.

Brand managers will also have to choose their tabs, photos and posts to highlight wisely. The initial fangate that fans click through to visit your page are now gone, so that cover page, highlighted content and tabs are more important than ever.

The milestone is a feature I really enjoy. It’s especially interesting to see Facebook pages such as Ben & Jerry’s who’ve added a variety of milestones featuring older ads, how they got started, etc – it’s an easy way to tell a great story and share the past everyone else may not know about. 

It'll be really interesting to see who's going to do well with these Facebook Timelines and how brands will get creative with all these new features. What brand is your favorite Facebook Timeline page right now? 

2012 Tech Predictions.

With the start of the new year, everyone's been coming out with lists, resolutions, "Best ofs", and 2012 predictions... so why not jump on that band wagon! I think 2012 is going to be another great year for social media, e-commerce, tablets, smart devices and... hopefully... mobile! Technology keeps evolving and it's only helping consumers experiences become better and better all the time. I honestly cannot wait for the day that I ENJOY watching commercials, reading e-mails from businesses and clicking ads on various websites I visit because they all take into account things I am genuinely interested in.


Obviously, popular social media channels will continue to stay on the rise, and any companies who have yet to jump on this band wagon will probably realize it's all here to stay. Something that I think people need to begin sorting out are the rules and laws that individuals, clients and companies need to follow and are supposed to be aware of. It seems like many people are running into issues with who owns which fans and things of that nature, and it doesn't seem like it's going to be easy to sort that out.

I am also one of the biggest fans of mobile advertising because it just makes sense to me. People are always ON their phone or NEAR their phone, you can't tell me that's not the perfect place to try and advertise to your customers.  Many people also use them for multitude of things, and use them while watching TV, while driving, while walking, etc. so why not try and reach them there as well? 


I know that tablet advertising is also something that's relatively new, especially because the percentage of tablet owners is very small... but still. The demographic is perfect for many large companies, and not too many are fully embracing it so why not jump on it when it's cheap and you can? I'd be willing to bet the click through ratios are higher on ads here than many other venues.


The last techy trend I'm hoping for this year is personalization... Companies seem to be obtaining various types of information about consumers, especially somebody such as Facebook and Google so please, if you're going to take and sell my information I've given you anyways, let's make it enjoyable for me and others. Personalize my ads and I will be more willing to watch and even click on something. 


Hopefully next year I will remember to look back on my yearly rantings and see what, if anything, came true in any sort of way. Happy New Year! 

"Advertising is based on one thing... Happiness." - Don Draper

Don Draper had it right when he said "Advertising is based on one thing... Happiness." He might have lost some of us when he continued explaining what happiness means to him, but he's right about the fact that advertising is largely based on one thing- emotions.

Behavioral Economics… it sounds like it has nothing to do with the business world, but instead seems to be some crazy mixture between psychology and math, right? Not exactly… Behavioral Economics is becoming more and more relevant every day, thanks to smarter consumers who have an infinite number of choices to make every day. Not only do consumers have more choices than ever, but with the popularity of social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook, they have thousands of opinions they can search through and listen to as well.

Market research today is studying purchase intent and what consumers want – but they don’t study the reason someone DOESN’T buy something or suddenly changes their mind. Emotions, opinions and peer pressure greatly influence modern-day consumers, and it’s time to start researching how and why this happens. Agencies and marketers need to start thinking more outside of the box to solve this problem, because although you may be working for a Fortune 500 brand, your brand is not as powerful as it was 10 years ago.

A great example comes from a recent Advertising Age article, who discusses marketing focuses for gym memberships. Traditional focus groups have found more people say they would go to the gym if it were closer, if there was free babysitting, or less expensive… But gyms have catered to these needs and don’t see any changes. What agencies need to do is think more outside of the box. One great new idea Advertising Age brought up was charging people for NOT coming to the gym- how revolutionary is that?! Think about it, how much worse would you feel about not going to the gym that is near free as long as you attend as many days as you say you will? Now, this idea may not be the most profitable, but it really gets the juices flowing and makes you wonder what else is possible.

Thus, advertising agencies may hire the best and the brightest in their classes, but if you don’t truly understand who your consumers are and why they purchase the way they do- aren’t you missing the point?

And the job search continues... On to the next advertising agency.

In the past few days, I have learned a LOT about job searching, interviewing, preparation and execution of the interview. Obviously finding a job, especially one that you are passionate about doesn't always seem to be the easiest thing in the world, but if you open your ears and pay attention to people's advice about where to look, what to do, and how they did it... It can make things a lot easier.

I have begun the job search, making searching for a job my day job- even though I still have social media work to do part-time. I have starting looking at every website I can think of, bugging all sorts of people about what they have heard, searching for my passions as well as any entry level position. I have had a few very informative informational interviews where I received information about the company, an idea of what a day in the life is, as well as general information about even MORE things I could be doing to find a job... I've taken away the fact that I need to get creative (I guess I could do more) politely ask as many people as possible about jobs, their ideas for help, as well as scour the web for any and every job!

I have only just started searching, and I'm actually very excited about what the future holds for me (as well as other entry-level graduates!). We really do have our whole lives ahead of us, and while I would love a job that I could immediately be passionate about (social media :) perhaps?) I would be able to be just as passionate about the fact that I have A job.

The search is on, the road is winding, but I'm looking forward to anything that comes next!

Most people struggle with life balance simply because they haven't paid the price to decide what is really important to them --Stephen Covey

Today I read an interesting Adage article (http://ow.ly/1DhBs) declaring the importance of brands evolving and that our future is in new century brands. This was quite an interesting, but in my opinion correct, statement made by Adage writers.

This world, and the Internet itself is always changing, sites pop out, trends fade in and out and people move on to big and better ideas. The article talked about how consumers now want two-way interactions between companies and themselves, and they are not willing to be loyal to brands unless there is communication, interaction and loyalty between the brand itself.

People want (or they will soon) brands to focus on being green, eco-friendly, talkative, and they want them to apologize if something ever goes wrong. They want honesty, trust and to feel more when they buy something. I think we feel better if we're buying goods that are helping the planet, helping others, or at least have a message that we agree with.

Companies need to step up their game and harness social media, track what people say about their brand, and truly engage with customers if they want the customers loyalty. I'm excited to see where these new brands will take us.

Fear melts when you take action towards a goal you really want. Robert G Allen

I'm currently working on figuring out what I want to do with my life. I'm currently searching for a new full time job, and since I have limited experience (mostly with social media work) the jobs are harder to come by.

I know that finding another social media position that's full-time would be a great option, because social media is super hot right now, and every business wants to (needs to really) get into it. The must successful companies dove right into it, tried out different strategies and use social media to it's fullest advantage.

Another hot trend/topic right now is mobile health. The mobile health business will be worth over $1 billion in 2014... Meaning that it's definitely not going away and it's here to stay. More doctors, health practitioners and patients are embracing mobile and wireless health, in the US, Europe and even places such as Africa. Health is on the tips of our fingers thanks to smartphones, iPhone applications, EMRS, and the newest inventions like the iPad. I definitely want to keep my eye on this sector, and try to jump in if anything ever opens up.

I have a vast network available thanks to family, friends, and acquaintance I've met over the years, but there are big decisions I need to make on which way I would like to go. I've read articles discussing the fact that the younger generations don't just stick with one career for the rest of their life, so I know that whatever job I choose is just opening many other doors later on in life. Right now the biggest decision is between working for advertising agencies in Chicago/NY/San Francisco, or chasing a dream and finding work in Spain.

Never mistake knowledge for wisdom. One helps you make a living; the other helps you make a life -Sandara Carey

I'm currently trying to figure out what I should start a blog about. I'm trying to dive into as many different types of Social Media as I can and see what works best for me.

I'd love to talk about social media strategic tactics, the new job search I'm starting, some twitter tips, advertising, mobile health, and then some fun things on the side of course too!

Can't wait to try this out, and I hope some people find it super insightful!

Check out my Twitter if you want to see more of my thoughts, articles I post through that and ideas that are always being thrown out into the world.