Kelly Kingman says, “In the movie Amadeus, the creatively frustrated composer Antonio Salieri discovers pages of Mozart’s original, handwritten compositions and remarks, with utter anguish: He had simply written down music already finished in his head. Page after page of it — as if he were just taking dictation. When it comes to writing, do any of us know what that feels like? Maybe once in a blue moon we are lucky enough to stumble into a Mozart-esque state of content creation — dropping perfectly formed prose into our blog or ebook without any struggle”. Solve Your Blank-Page... [...]

Tiffany Monhollon says, “Have you ever been so overwhelmed with running your business that you barely have time to do the very minimum when it comes to staying up with what’s new in marketing and managing vendors? Sometimes it’s so easy to get caught up in the day-to-day that you overlook a critical aspect of marketing — measuring your return on investment (ROI). Here are five signs you might just need a system to track your marketing ROI so you can make sure you’re getting the most out of your investment. 1. You don’t know what matters — or why — on... [...]

Jeffrey Kranz says, “We’d all love to show up first in Google for something. There’s likely at least one golden search term or keyword you’re striving for —and we’ve all heard plenty of different get-to-the-front-page-of-Google formulas. It can get a little dizzying keeping all the approaches straight. But it can be done. If you’re willing to invest some time, resources and brainpower, you can create the top content on any topic. To share exactly how, I made an infographic mapping out not one, but six foolproof, can’t-miss strategies that real-life people (including... [...]

Barry Feldman says, “Your content marketing ambitions are large. Unfortunately, your team is not. Though you may need help for one reason or another, it might not be the right time to bring in another employee. Enter freelancers: With a team of contract workers, you can enjoy the flexibility that comes with hiring on an as-needed basis, while avoiding the overhead that accompanies permanent staff. Above all, you’ll get the talent and experience that fit your project. Freelancing is more popular than ever, so the talent pool is immense. This means you need to know how to find, hire, and... [...]

Jeff Sauer says, “We analyze the performance of our content every day. Sometimes it’s subconscious, like when we check the number of tweets we get from a new blog post. Other times, we make more conscious efforts, like reviewing performance metrics in Google Analytics. This feedback—both formal and anecdotal—informs what we do next. It influences future blog posts and validates our strategies. Reviewing content performance on a regular basis has been key to the growth of many online publishers. We should all be taking note of these successes as we build our own content marketing... [...]

Kristen Dunleavy says, “Did you know that 91 percent of B2B marketers and 86 percent of B2C marketers are usingcontent marketing? Everybody and their mom, dad, aunt and cat are creating content. So how do you make yours stand out? We thought Marcus Sheridan, author of The Sales Lion blog and highly sought after public speaker, would be the perfect person to ask. Marcus grew his swimming pool company to one of the largest of its kind – all thanks to awesome content marketing. These days, he uses his powers to help other entrepreneurs grow their businesses. Read on in this Q&A to learn how... [...]

Kelsey Meyer says, “When you’re in a bind to create a high-quality blog post that generates brand awareness, educates your potential audience and draws in qualified leads, you can’t expect to come up with an idea for the perfect topic in one sitting. Instead, incorporate the following practices to store, manage and inspire new ideas: 1. Build a knowledge bank. A knowledge bank is your secret content marketing weapon. It’s where you store, organize, tag and reference all the information you extract from your team, the content you’ve already created and the insightful research you’ve... [...]

Kurt Wagner says, “Facebook is making a pitch to media publishers: let us host your content for you, and we’ll make it look beautiful (and give you more eyeballs) in the process. That’s according to Chris Cox, Facebook’s chief product officer, who joined Re/code‘s Peter Kafka onstage Tuesday at the Code/Media conference at The Ritz-Carlton, Laguna Niguel, Calif. Cox says that Facebook is actually having these kinds of discussion with publishers, and is trying to figure out a model that would enable Facebook to host content that would otherwise go on a publisher’s own website. Cox... [...]

Matt Byrom says, “Content marketing has quickly become the most popular way for businesses, large and small, to market themselves. And, it’s no wonder when you consider all of the benefits: It presents you as a thought leader within your industry It creates trust between brands and customers If done correctly, it seriously increases SEO With this in mind, it’s easy to see why 9 out of 10 organizations now market with content. So, we all know that content marketing is important, but what about outreach? If you’ve yet to try outreaching your content, or your doing it and not seeing... [...]

Thomas Stern says, “By now we all understand that a content marketing strategy is essential to increasing your brand’s online exposure and authority, but are you devoting enough resources to different channels within your content plan? Paid, earned and owned channels come together to support different elements of the sales funnel, and a gap in one area can damage the integrity of your entire content marketing campaign. If you are not devoting the proper resources to each channel, your brand may be missing opportunities and losing customers due to inconsistencies in content or delivery. Take... [...]