Recorded at Content Marketing World in Cleveland, Ohio, Sarah Mitchell and Brand Newsroom producer Dan Hatch catch up with Andy Crestodina — co-founder and strategic director of Chicago-based Orbit Media — to discuss how to use content to drive conversions. The discussion straddles both the worlds of content marketing and SEO.

It's Brand Newsroom's third birthday and Sarah Mitchell and producer Dan Hatch are in Cleveland, Ohio, for Content Marketing World 2017. This it the first in a series of special podcast episodes from Content Marketing World. Sarah and Dan caught up with Content Marketing Institute founder Joe Pulizzi for a chat about what to expect from this year's CMW, the state of the industry in 2017, his vision for the future, his take on the King Content situation, and a few insights from the upcoming Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends reports for 2018.

There'd hardly be a bookshelf in the country that doesn't have at least one a Lonely Planet guidebook on it somewhere. Today, James, Sarah and Nic are joined by Lonely Planet's director of sales and marketing, Chris Zeiher, who explains how a company with a printed product made the transition to a digital world.

Sarah's recommendations: https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-by-first-known-date and https://twitter.com/MerriamWebster

Chris recommended: http://iknowthepilot.com.au

James suggested: https://www.airtasker.com

Nic spruiked his net Meet the Media event: http://www.mediastable.com.au/about-us/meet-the-media/

Show Notes will be available at www.lushdigital.com/blog.

Brand Newsroom is the podcast for anyone who has a say in how companies are communicating — covering marketing, content marketing, public relations, media, branding and advertising.

It's obviously, really, that psychology is a big part of marketing. After all, we're talking about human behaviour and trying to influence that behaviour. James has a masters degree in psychology so the BNR team leans on his expertise to explore how to use psychology to succeed at marketing — including content marketing, public relations, advertising and more. Lush Digital's content strategist Carla Young is filling Sarah's shoes this week.

Full show notes will be available at www.lushdigital.com/blog.

Search Engine Optimisation: Is it the magic sauce we need to add to our content to help us reach our audience? Or is it an old-fashioned dark art we no longer need to worry about?

To discuss the state of SEO in 2017, the BNR team is joined by someone who really knows his stuff, Lush's Zubin Fitter.

Full Show Notes: http://lushdigital.com/blog/bnr153-how-important-is-seo-in-2017/

ON MY DESK

Sarah: LinkedIn Company Pages Playbook https://business.linkedin.com/marketing-solutions/blog/linkedin-company-pages/2017/introducing-the-linkedin-company-pages-playbook-

Zubin: Calendly https://calendly.com/

James: Dashlane Password Manager: https://www.dashlane.com/

Nic: Nic spoke about the value of branded merchandise.

There was some big news in the content marketing space here in Australia last week. Less than two years after media monitoring and data firm iSentia bought Australia's best-known content marketing agency, King Content, for A$48 million the company has killed off the brand, closed its New York and Hong Kong offices, and cut its staff. What went wrong? And what does it mean for content marketing?

Show Notes for this episode will be available at www.lushdigital.com/blog.

• Sarah's recommendation was this report by the Content Marketing Institute on how content influences purchasing decisions.
• Nic mentioned an app called Layout, which is available on iTunes and Google Play, and can be used to make a montage of pictures.
• James' recommendation was a book called TED Talks: The Official TED Guide to Public Speaking.

The Brand Newsroom team is joined by experienced broadcaster and voiceover artist Alex Lush to talk about voiceovers. BNR received an email from an avid Brand Newsroom listener, Brenda, who asked how important it was to get the right voice to do your voiceover. It's a great question, so we thought we'd ask the best voice in the business. Alex is also Lush Digital's chief of staff. Show Notes will be available at www.lushdigital.com/blog/.

Jeremy Stewart of Launchpad Creative joins Nic and Sarah to talk about websites. How often should you update your website? What difference can a refresh make to the effectiveness of your site? And what sorts of things should we be updating all the time? Show notes for this episode are available at www.lushdigital.com/blog.

Nic Hayes and Sarah Mitchell are joined by Lush's senior producer Ian Bignell for a conversation about how to succeed at producing video for social media. Every day half a billion people are watching videos on Facebook. More than half of all of us are watching video online every single day. So video for social is clearly an incredible opportunity for brands to get their message out to an audience. And if anyone knows how to get it right, it's Ian. Show Notes for this episode will be available at http://lushdigital.com/bnr149-how-to-succeed-at-video-for-social/

The Brand Newsroom team talks about podcasting and whether it's a worthwhile part of the marketing mix for your small business. They take a look at the challenges, highlights, pitfalls and benefits of putting a podcast together. Full show notes for this episode can be found at www.lushdigital.com/blog.