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One July a couple years ago, my husband and I went on a road trip. It was short – about 4 hours one way. Since both of us are very casual travelers, we took a side trip and did other things to make it fun.

Until the car broke down.

Sitting in the middle of the rural Midwest in sweltering heat with a dead car, it would have been easy to panic. Instead, we kept each other calm, called for help, secured a rental, and carried on with our trip. That experience taught me a lot about what to do when a crisis hits.

Business is the same. Just like a vehicle, our best laid plans sometimes break down. A staffer may send an offensive tweet on the company account, forgetting it’s not his own. A change in policy or products may lead to an army of angry customers commenting on your Facebook page. No matter the case, there are three steps that can take you from being broken down and put your company back on the road to success.

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When advising clients regarding content strategy, one question that always arises is “How often should we put up new content?” Some folks advocate a daily posting schedule to a blog, with more frequent posting to Twitter and other social media. Others advocate a weekly blog post, with daily or every-other day to Facebook or other social media. This article will look at both sides, focusing on blog post frequency.

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This week I was contacted by MandLoys Digital Agency, asking me to review their content marketing site and consider featuring it on this blog. After reviewing the site, I was more than happy to do so – this is a high quality overview of content marketing.

One thing that was impressive is the way they use parallax scrolling as you view the page, giving you part slide-show and part infographic. In addition, the information is a great base-line overview of content marketing.

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(Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net)

Today is Independence Day in the United States!

I was ill yesterday and not able to post, so I’m posting today instead. Gratitude is one of my favorite habits – it’s been clinically shown to improve your quality of life, no matter your circumstances. Today, in honor of the 4th, I’ll post 10 reasons I’m thankful to be American.

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(Image courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net)

As a marketing firm, PR is part of your job. You don’t just create great content for your clients; you want others to create great content – in the form of media coverage. However, it’s generally really difficult to get noticed by the right media sources, and for too long the ubiquitous press release has been the most PR you could hope to gain.

Not anymore.

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(Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net)

In B2B relationships like providing marketing services, your primary contact is not your only concern. You can have a primary contact who is enthusiastic about your services and the possibilities of content marketing – the whole ball of wax – but if they cannot win the support of upper management, the deal will fall through.

Winning the divided attention of the C-Suite is no easy task. Upper managers have many visitors touting many pet projects to sort through. The key is to help your contact win support by standing out from the noise. Here are four ways to do it.

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There have been some exciting changes at the PCM site this week. I apologize if anyone tried to access the page during the brief outage on Tuesday. However, the site is now moved to WordPress and we will be back to our regularly scheduled programming next week.

Thanks so much for your patience!!

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The top-down and bottom-up approaches to stretching content work great when you know what you want to share. However, sometimes the problem a client has is that they don’t feel they know what to say at all. This is where the Thematic Content Creation Method can be a lifesaver.

The Thematic Method allows your clients to stretch their content creation by focusing on a single theme each quarter. There are two approaches to themes. The first is the content-type thematic approach. In this case, your client chooses four content-types that they feel comfortable rotating through for the year. Continue Reading →

One challenge that everyone in content marketing faces is trying to create enough quality content. Depending on the content channels a brand wants to use, you can need tweets, blog posts and Facebook updates nearly every day, along with large content like reports on a monthly or quarterly basis.

Unfortunately, no one has an unlimited supply of money to hire writers to create this content, or an unlimited supply of creativity to create it themselves. Fortunately, there are three great ways to reimagine the use of existing content: The Top-Down Method, the Bottom-Up Method, and the Thematic Method.

Which method you choose has to do with what’s best and easiest for the particular client or brand. Today, I’ll describe the Top-Down and Bottom-Up Methods. Later in the week I’ll cover the Thematic Method.

Steps in the Top-Down Content Creation Method:

1. Start with a large, well-researched report that relates to the brand’s offering or persona. I would recommend putting one out quarterly. This report can be advertised via Twitter and Facebook, and offered either at a premium or as a free download in return for an email enrollment to the brand’s mailings.
2. Each month, release a medium-sized piece of content related to the large report. Ideas include a summary PDF, an interview with one of the key experts (or multiple interviews if there are multiple experts), a case study, or a PowerPoint presentation released to SlideShare.
3. Each week, release two to three blog posts exploring topics and issues raised in the quarterly report.
4. Each day, release Twitter updates, Facebook updates, and/or Pinterest pins related to the report. Also keep up on blog post comments on the brand blog, while sharing and posting comments on related articles around the web.

This is, of course, a very comprehensive example – a brand or marketing firm with fewer resources would need to adjust these steps, especially the daily updates.

The Bottom-Up Method is very similar, but you start with smaller pieces of information and aggregate them into a bigger whole each quarter.

Steps in the Bottom-Up Content Creation Method: 

1. Start with daily brand-related updates to Twitter, Facebook, and/or Pinterest. Make sure the updates resonate with the brand’s overall story and persona. Comment on and share related online content with brand followers.
2. Continue with two or three blog posts a week about the consumer’s pain points or driving desires. Speak to how the client’s industry can help the consumer.
3. Each month, consider releasing a video or audio interview with an expert in the client’s field, speaking to the consumer needs. Email a newsletter to their enrolled prospects. Or, publish a case study or consumer success story based on their blog posts.
4. Finally, on a quarterly basis, aggregate the brand’s content into a special newsletter, webinar, or best-practices guide.

Whichever way you choose to go, you want to keep the cycle moving in the direction of reimagining existing content into new forms. By doing this, you can not only help your client reach their prospects across the web, you will also save your firm money and staff hours in creating content.

Which method of content creation makes the most sense for your clients? Share in the comments! 

(Image Courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net)

Creating great content is vital, as I discussed Tuesday. But even great content won’t be effective if you don’t know why you created it and what you intend it to do. When you know your content’s mission, you’ll know exactly how, where, and when to position it for maximum effect.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is successful content deployment. It’s challenging, but attainable. Are you in?

And no, this blog post won’t self-destruct in 10 seconds. Take your time.

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