Content Marketing Quickie

Hey, it's Stiles from Brand Content Studios and here's your Content Marketing Quickie for the week of June 4, 2019.

-Wanna learn some stuff about social media? Gee that's swell, because Social Media Examiner just put out their 2019 Industry Report and these are always nuggets of information that are either reaffirming, or downright hard to believe. Despite warning signs and storm clouds, social marketers don't care. They're very bullish on it, even moreso than last year. They think it's doing everything they want it to do: exposure, sales, thought leadership, you name it. The big 5 will likely stay the big 5, in order they're using Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube. Twitter? Really? Yes Twitter! It's the 6th most-popular social platform for American users but #3 in the hearts of marketers. In fact, over a third plan to increase activity on Twitter even though usage has fallen 4 percentage points in 2 years. Anecdotally, I was following the Twitter hashtag during Digital Summit Atlanta and was stunned at the lack of participants and activity on it compared to just 5 years ago. On the other side of the coin, Americans are way more likely to use Pinterest and Snapchat than social marketers are. Facebook is de-prioritizing the News Feed and de-prioritizing publisher content, but social marketers do not care. 51% plan to increase their posting throughout this year. What Facebook is switching to is something consumers love, messaging. But you can count on social marketers to zig when the world is zagging. Only 39% of them plan on increase their Facebook Messenger activity, which is actually DOWN from 2018. But here's something they're getting right. They know they have to pay Facebook to get any reach. While 51% are increasing organic efforts, 59% are upping their Facebook ads game. So, in summary, it's like social marketers feel like they just figured these channels out so they're operating as if the platforms and user behavior don't change.

https://www.convinceandconvert.com/social-media-marketing/social-media-statistics-2019/

-Gonna take a shot in the dark here…you do lead generation campaigns don't you? What do you hope to get out of that? Yeah, I know, leads, I'm not that stupid. But even SmartBrief wanted to know more about what the expectations are so they asked marketers and advertisers things like what do they see as "typical" success for lead gen campaigns. Over 30% want an average conversion rate of 10% or less but over half want 20% or less. Some wanted 50%+, they're like the girl who turned into a blueberry on Willy Wonka. If you don't test your landing pages, you are not alone. Only 24.5% do that "Always" or "Often". 16% "Never" do. How many fields do you make users grind through on your forms? 93% use 6 or less. The experts say you should shoot for 5 tops.

Now to talk about my thing, content. Marketers are using all kinds of it. Tops on that list are white papers, ugh, videos and infographics. Most think promoting a video will deliver the strongest conversion rate. But at the same time, they put a lot of stock in the design, layout and copy of the landing page, feeling like that's got the greatest impact on conversion.

https://www.smartbrief.com/original/2019/05/survey-report-landing-page-habits-marketers

-Wow Andreesen Horowitz analyzed the living hell out of podcasting. I mean it's a really in depth and thorough look at where things stand today. Who didn't come out looking so good? Apple. 60% of podcast listening happens there and that app comes pre-installed on phone but has Apple been good for podcasting? Could be better. Like tons better. Even though the podcast app is in 900M iPhones worldwide, it only has 27M monthly active users in the US. That's um, quite a gap. The other way Apple's botched it is they don't monetize podcasting on their platform at all – that's made it hard for advertisers to jump in harder and heavier than they have. Yet another way Apple's blown it is the metrics are non-existent. And of course, a lot of people think the app sucks. Overall, it paints a picture of Apple as a lead weight around podcasting's ankles. In terms of the app, the study says "Users seldom feel passionately about the podcast app they're using. The content is the core element users are engaging with." That might be why Spotify already has 9% of podcast listening and iHeartRadio and Pandora are scoring from promoting podcasts to the large existing user bases they already have. Then there are what Andreessen Horowitz describes as "long-tail" listening apps, like Stitcher or Breaker, who are competing based on features users just like better. Advertisers are in and are largely very happy with the results they're getting, but podcasting's monetization is still lacking. Again, ad buying is manual and tedious, not like it is on Google and Facebook. And it needs those metrics and targeting tools. The report says, "The current state of monetization in podcasting mirrors the early internet: revenue lags behind attention." But make no mistake, companies, probably not Apple, will figure these things out and podcasting's monetization future looks very, very bright.

http://www.insideradio.com/podcastnewsdaily/new-report-blames-apple-for-difficulties-in-making-money-from/article_dd49b3e8-8233-11e9-919e-5778e1456954.html

-Well earlier I told you how doe-eyed in love social media marketers are with Facebook, no matter what. So this story I assure you will not matter to them. But an eMarketer report tells us users are spending less time on it. And they say time spent on Facebook will go down even more or at best, stay flat for the foreseeable future. Do you spend 38 minutes a day on it? Because that's the average and that's down 3 minutes from last year. That may not sound like much unless it's your 3-minute video that didn't get seen. What's going on? Why is interest going down? Several reasons. One, the scandals, the privacy issues, it all just keeps giving the brand impression that this is a company that's learning to fly while it's already 30,000 feet in the air and we're all sitting there in coach hoping they get it right. Analyst Debra Aho Williamson also says the News Feed changes haven't helped, because there's less publisher content and apparently, your friends and family just aren't that fascinating. Teens especially seem more than willing to not go on Facebook, and our lives depend on what teens think. So, the numbers aren't great, and you know what you do when you have bad numbers? You hide them of course; this is the generation of transparency and authenticity. Facebook recently stopped disclosing metrics for its main app. The good news for them, Instagram's fine. Usage should rise through 2021.

https://mashable.com/article/facebook-use-declining-emarketer/

That's the Content Marketing Quickie for this week. Subscribe, review it, let me know how to make this better for you…sounds like my honeymoon. And as Johann Sebastian said, I'll be Bach next week. I'll be…because that was his last name.

Hey, it's Stiles from Brand Content Studios and here's your Content Marketing Quickie for the week of May 28, 2019.

-Some people are mad at Mailchimp. People get mad sometimes when change happens. Then some people get mad when they need change at a toll booth and can't find any. It's a real no win situation. But Mailchimp wants to be more than just an email marketing platform now. They want to serve small businesses in just about every way small businesses need to be served. They teamed up with Square to offer shoppable web pages. They broke up with Shopify amidst rumors they're going to develop and roll out their own ecommerce platform. They've introduced a CRM, a tool to build websites including buying your domain, and, here's the part that has some people angry, a new price structure in which you'll get charged for all your contacts, not just your subscribed ones. I mean there's some grandfathering for people already on plans but nothing last forever grandpa. Darcy Kurtz at the chimp says, "We have the permission and credibility to play in this space." The CRM gives you what you'd expect, you can store data there, see your customers and prospects, segment those peeps for messaging, even see a customer's lifetime value based on engagement data. Gee, I wonder what my lifetime value is. Other tools "smart recommendations," which makes recommendations based on user data using…the magic phrase everyone's required by law to use now, AI. You can now even retarget with Facebook and Instagram ads like you already could for Google. But wait there's more, it's also a social media manager, you can do your organic posting on Mailchimp. As for the bacon, the green, the scratch, even the free version comes with the CRM, smart recommendations, starter templates and automations. Then if you want custom branding and a/b testing it's $9.99/month. Other plans go up to $299.99/month, wow, that's less than $300, which gets you phone support and advanced segmentations.

https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/mailchimp-debuts-a-crm-platform-to-help-small-businesses-act-like-enterprise-businesses/

-How are Millennials going to feel when we stop talking about them? Well they'll probably feel like Boomers – getting shoved closer to the "they don't matter" column. But they better get their existential selves ready because now the talk has started to shift to Gen Z. Gartner studied them like little lab rats raised on the Wiggles and found out cool things like they're 1.5x more likely to follow a brand if that brand puts out content that boosts their image. That's right, you've got to pay attention to their image, because while other generations worried about fitting in, Z's are savvy self-branders and self-marketers. Plus, they are true digital natives, so they aren't awed by technology just for the hell of it being newish, they expect the Internet and social media to serve their perceived needs. 81% of them follow friends online but guess how many follow brands. About 30%. When they do look at social content from brands, they want it to inform and inspire them. Again, they take social media seriously, but mostly as a way to project the image of themselves they want to. Lots of likes on their posts makes them feel better. So let's get back to that informative and inspirational content. It's got to be that if they're going to share it. The study says it has to interest or excite them; make their friends laugh; or express how they're feeling. You can get them as loyal customers, but they're going to drive that relationship, not you. But to do that you have to find them, which isn't easy because they change social media apps like Disney changes their classic movies. Some other things that will help you make content for them, root it in their top personal values, which are identity, creativity and passion. And you can capture attention by taking a stand, as long as they agree with that stand. Finally, there's not that much difference to them between their digital and real worlds, so you need to meld the two as much as you can.

https://www.webwire.com/ViewPressRel.asp?aId=241255

-If Google's SEO Myth Busters podcast was willing to tell you the top 3 SEO factors to focus on, would you want to know what they are? Fine, I'm going to tell you thanks to Webmaster Trends Analyst Martin Splitt. Factor #1 – Your content serves a purpose for the user. It's about something they need or want. Use phrases people would use when searching for that thing, which means you B2B people should calm down with the jargon that impresses only you and talk like a non-tech management level person would talk. Factor #2 – Meta Data. Ooo now you're getting excited aren't you? This is what creates the little snippet that shows up under your entry in the search results. By itself, it's not a ranking factor, but what you put here will convince people to click your entry, or not.

Make sure the titles and meta descriptions are unique and specific about that page, copy and pasting or default content is not such a good idea. Factor #3 – Hopefully, you feel the need, the need for speed. How fast your pages load isn't more important than other things, you can be slow and still rank well – that's how I got out of high school, but it matters. Best way to approach it is it's an SEO factor, but it's got nothing to do with the ranking algorithm itself. There you go, tips right from the Google's mouth.

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/top-3-google-factors/#close

-And quickly squeezing another one in, a survey by Yum Yum Videos says 87% of small business owners are quite happy with their ROI from video marketing. Use of video marketing is still going up. 21% are going to do it for the first time this year and those who've done it are likely to invest in it again. In 2019, unless these owners are lying, 67% will make more than 3 videos, 34% will make 3-6, 19% will make between 6-10, and 14% of Quentin Tarantino wannabes will make more than 10. Great. What are those videos likely to be? Well since 95% of online consumers have watched at least one explainer video, that's the top choice for 80% of businesses who believe it also brings in the best ROI. They're going to put these videos mostly on social media, specifically, in order, YouTube, Facebook then Instagram. The most small business owners, 66%, said it's video that will have the biggest impact on their strategy this year. But just in case you hate videos, some other formats made the list, including eBooks, infographics, blog posts, and yes, podcasts.

https://smallbiztrends.com/2019/05/video-marketing-roi-statistics.html

That's the Content Marketing Quickie for this week. This has been going on long enough that I can ask you to take a minute and review me on whatever platform you listen on. I won't even tell you what to say. You're a content marketer, you'll think of something. Back next week.

Hey, it's Stiles from Brand Content Studios and here's your Content Marketing Quickie for the week of May 21, 2019.

-If you're using a creative ad agency or you are a creative ad agency, you might have some kind of emotional reaction to the thoughts of ad veteran Paul Arnold. Be careful when you invite someone to speak at a conference because they just might speak their mind. Paul says advertising, as it is right now, is on a "suicide" mission to wipe itself out. Hey I bet that's not what you wanted to hear. You wanted to hear you're all doing a great job. But the way he sees it, some things are happening that are creating an existential threat. No, it won't happen as fast as Thanos snapping his fingers or the dinosaurs looking up and saying, "Hey, what's that falling out of the sky," but more of a slow decay kinda thing. First of all, he's seeing clients not trusting their agencies as much as they used to, and creativity getting progressively devalued. A lot of clients are out there feeling "let-down," and right alongside that, believing that creativity isn't that hard, that anybody can do it, and that they know how to do it better than any collection of entertainers and journalists. That's why the lesson Intel learned about taking everything in house is being fully ignored and in-house operations continue to be built. And that content will mostly be inward-focused, company leadership pleasing, customer ignorant and likely – epic masterpieces of utter boredom, sameness, and safety. Paul goes on to say clients raising demands on agencies and agencies bending over to take it up the…to please clients is a wicked combo in which nobody is asking, "Why are we making this?" It is strategy free. I've seen it myself. When I ask about content strategy, prospects look at me like I'm speaking to them in fluent Klingon. Can't we just get on with making stuff that won't work? Paul said, "If agencies carry on the way they are, they're destining themselves to becoming a low-value, commoditized category."

https://www.thestar.com.my/business/business-news/2019/05/06/advertising-is-on-a-suicide-mission/

-When the execs at Spotify heard NSYNC sing "Bye Bye Bye," they thought it was spelled B-U-Y and was a secret message that they should spend tens of millions on podcasting. And that's exactly what they did. One company they already owned before this recent buying spree was Soundtrap. They started up to make it easier for morons like me to make music, thinking most music programs looked like the dashboard of the space shuttle. Well Spotify is using them to make podcasting easier. Soundtrap for Storytellers is a cloud based, subscription platform that does a lot of cool things some wannabe podcasters see as hard, or something they'd really just rather not mess with. Obviously you can record your show there, but there's a built in Skype type thingy that makes it easy to have guests in other locations. You could have interviewed Arnold Schwarzenegger in South Africa right before he got kicked in the back. You get a big library of sound effects and jingle making tools, tapping into Soundtrap's original strength. Then multiple people can edit and work on the podcast together in real time, from different locations since it's in the cloud. And here's the really interesting one, interactive transcripts are created that sync with your audio, and you can edit the audio file as easy as editing text document. Now with all that, I thought Spotify would only let you put your podcast on Spotify but wow, no. You can download the finished product and publish it wherever you want and even publish the transcript. Now how much would you pay? This really isn't an ad. None of you have contacted me to sponsor this show yet so there aren't any ads, but then again I've never asked. Anyway, it's $15/month or $18 a month if you also want all of Soundtrap's music tools. Drawbacks, you're limited to 8 hours of interactive transcripts a month, and it's only available in English. Other languages are coming though, like profanity.

https://www.cnet.com/news/spotify-launches-the-google-docs-of-podcasting-soundtrap-storytellers/

-If you've dedicated your whole life to being a keyword master, or if you're a brand that only creates content so you'll have a place to stuff your keywords, you might be interested to know keywords are becoming less of a thing. Aw, some of you are mad, I can feel it. Jonathan Kagan at Results Digital isn't saying keywords have gone away, but there's been a shift in priority away from keywords and toward audience target and segment. He says think about it, Google, Bing, Yelp, Facebook, it's the category and audience for those ads that get traffic to you, not keywords. Marketers have started to focus on who should see an ad, not whether they searched for a certain term. Jonathan sets the target audience before even putting keywords in, then lets Dynamic Search ads do the keyword targeting. The audience gets narrowed down, the competition goes down, and they aren't overpaying for the target they want. What this does require though is ad copy that works beautifully for that customer and that landing page. Jonathan suggests merging your paid social and search teams since the needed skills are the same, get data on your site visitors and use that to build awesome segments, and quit stressing about every variance of a keyword imaginable - the search engines have gotten smart enough you're just being redundant.

https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/335697/the-keyword-is-dead-accept-and-adjust.html

-Gonna squeeze a little more learning in here. The 2019 Adobe Brand Content Survey revealed some things you should probably keep in mind as you do your big time hoity toity content marketing job. Half of people use more than one device at a time constantly or frequently, and they use devices over 8 hours a day. So your audience is definitely out there. Brand sites are important and all that crap, but frankly, young people go to social and video channels to research you and interact with you after buying. More than anything else, consumers want content to be accurate and informative, followed by simple and entertaining. The things that piss people off most are spam emails and slow loading content. In fact, over half, especially Boomers, will give up on you if they have problems getting your content. As for the content itself, what pisses them off is stuff that's too wordy or badly written. They also don't like bad designs or creepy personalization. Older consumers are less likely to share stuff, give up their personal info, or trust social media. That said, content from family and friends is the most shared and most trusted. Then again, Bernie Madoff was somebody's friend and family member.

https://www.slideshare.net/adobe/2019-adobe-brand-content-survey

That's the Content Marketing Quickie for this week. I want more downloads but you're probably too busy to do my marketing for me. Just make sure you're subscribed, and I'll go buy a Google ad or something. And we'll be here next week.

In this week's episode of the Content Marketing Quickie: the most trusted source of information by consumers, trends to watch out for in B2B email marketing, how to get more social media shares, and how Facebook is commoditizing video production.

Hey, it's Stiles from Brand Content Studios and here's your Content Marketing Quickie for the week of May 7, 2019. Let's see what you guys did to the industry this week.

-Want a job in content marketing? Well you should be in good shape. There were 23,846 job openings in it last year. But what content marketing skills are in the most demand? You need to know this so you can go on Coursera and at least learn enough terminology to bluff your way through the interview. Fractl studied ads on Indeed to figure out what hirers are looking for. And while that's a fun parlor game, what makes this less than informative is that the people writing job ads for content marketing positions mostly have no clue what they want, need, or should ask for. They also don't know the proper terms. And they usually print out a glossary of responsibilities they expect one person to handle alone. But anyway, here's what the Indeed ads are showing. They're mostly looking for junior level positions. Then comes senior level positions, then interns, who'll make $37,000 to $43,000. For senior roles they want to pay $60,000 to $90,000. Um, I can tell you I'm more expensive than that. They want 2-3 years' professional experience including from the interns who are just coming out of school. Nobody said you had to use logic in your want ads. The skills they want to see are social media, content creation and SEO. The senior positions are going to want you to also be a strategy and management rock star. But overall, content creation is the big ask, across all formats and channels. They want you to be brilliant for their $37,000 investment. But don't forget the soft skills. Especially interns should be good at going to get soft serv ice cream for the office. No that's not what I mean by soft skills. We're talking about those interpersonal skills, a willingness to work hard, and being really good at details. Unfocused lazy jerks will probably have a harder time landing one of those multiple content marketing gigs.

https://www.business2community.com/content-marketing/study-reveals-the-skills-you-need-to-get-hired-in-content-marketing-02192325

-Congrats to my pal Steve Pratt and Pacific Content for getting acquired by Rogers Media as this little burst of podcast acquisitions continues. Hey, everyone's finally realizing that audio is a legitimate format that people like…imagine that. If only we had 99 years of evidence from radio that that was the case! Need more proof? Edison Research is always good about rounding up the numbers in terms of how podcasting is used, how it's growing, and what kind of people are listening to it…and here are the latest figures from their survey of American listeners. 70% are now aware of podcasts, so that about 197M people. 51% have listened to one, hopefully this one. Nearly a fourth of us listen on a weekly basis. One article pointed out almost 4x more people listen to podcasts weekly than watched the Game of Thrones season premiere. And you may have noticed podcasting didn't get nearly the media coverage the dragon show did. It's mostly still guys that listen to podcasts, 36-29%, but I'm not supposed to assign genders so forget that statistic. But it is okay to call people rich and people who listen to podcasts are far more likely to make over $75,000 a year, so you've got a nice affluent audience with air pods in just waiting for you. Here's a big one, podcasting is now the most listened to form of audio at 28%, overtaking AM/FM radio's 24%. Those DJ's don't really play your song requests anyway…the robot says what's going to be played. This next stat surprised even me, and I try to never allow my eyebrows to go up. 93% listen to most of an episode. Hey I love video, but video can only dream of that level of consumption. People don't skim, they really listen. Most people listen on mobile, which wasn't always the case, it used to be desktop. But listening on smart speakers is up to 10% now. Alexa, play me one of NPR's 12,000 podcasts. So you get it, people like podcasts…but why exactly? They say the number one reason is you can listen while you're doing something else, it's the only content format that lets you multitask, which people love to do. I'm changing my oil right now.

https://www.convinceandconvert.com/podcast-research/2019-podcast-statistics/

-Facebook continues to confound and confuse. They had their big F8 party where Zuck told us what they're going to do next and what they're going to do is redesign the app and website in a big way to be more about groups. Groups will be promoted and integrated in as many places as possible throughout this year, so get ready to adapt to a new look and a new experience. In the app, no more blue bar at the top. The logo and nav icons are there now. The icons for Stories are bigger cause they're pushing that, but the status update box isn't as prominent because Facebook doesn't want to be about that as much now. Zuck wants it to be more about private communication. Private meaning, I guess, groups. They'll encourage you to join them all over the app. Facebook says groups are among the most "meaningful" ways people use Facebook. I disagree, but I do like to get warned on my neighborhood group if there's a coyote roaming around. All this also smells like a tactic to get you to connect with more people. Maybe every friend you've ever had in your life is already a connection and Facebook isn't happy you've maxed out. So they'll have a "Meet New Friends" feature so you can connect with people you don't really know who are in your groups. Which is…LinkedIn! What does this mean if you're a brand? I'd start figuring out which groups directly relate to what you sell and focus on making educational content that adds to the discussion there.

https://mashable.com/article/facebook-app-website-redesign-groups/

-In the true spirit of the Content Marketing Quickie here's a really quick story that's impactful and doesn't really need to be expounded on. How confident do you think marketers are that their content marketing is working? Well I'll tell you. A mere 10% are confident they're making an impact. Heinz Marketing shows 63% say their content marketing strategy is either ineffective or only partially effective. The trend ain't good either, that's way up from 35% who said that in 2017. There's a lot broken folks, and it needs fixing, it doesn't need more baseless hype.

https://www.thedrum.com/news/2019/03/15/marketers-lose-faith-the-efficacy-content-marketing

That's the Content Marketing Quickie for this week. Talk about these things with your friends and coworkers, and God forbid you tell them about this podcast so they become listeners too. That would just be crazy. We'll get caught up again next week.

Hey, it's Stiles from Brand Content Studios and here's your Content Marketing Quickie for the week of April 30, 2019. I took a vacation last week, sue me. Let's see what's going on.

-Step right up my friends and behold a marketing technology elixir that's so powerful it's guaranteed to put a song in your heart and a spring in your step. Yes this amazing marvel of modern technology has what's good for what ails you, no matter what that might be. Sure it's a little expensive but can you really put a price on dreams coming true and complete peace of mind? In the old days what you just heard was called a snake oil sales pitch. Today, some think a lot of the marketing technology that's rolling through town is also, a lot of snake oil. It's a $100B-plus business. And if you've ever seen one of those infographics that shows every platform and player in it, your eyes are now probably glazed over like a Krispy Kreme. Mike Doyle at retailer City Beach is calling it out. He says these tools are complex, you get bit with implementation costs, and these platforms require staff expertise and the learning curve that comes with it. He thinks there's a shakeout coming…or there should be. Gartner says Martech is now the biggest budget allocation in marketing budgets at 29%. The tech tools are being bought, but are they really helping anybody? Andy Lark's the former CMO of Commonwealth Bank and Foxtel and he says marketers in big companies are "really struggling". Is it because they're stupid? Nope. It's the tech products. He analyzed 50 martech systems over two years and found very few could actually deliver on their claims. They automate spam and call it marketing automation. Even if these tech platforms did work as promised, the buyers can't get the maximum value out of them because they aren't set up to do so. They don't have a data flow system up and running, and, here's the hammer I keep banging, the ability to create good content to run through these systems is nowhere to be found. There's a lot of content stuff, it's just lousy and doesn't inspire anyone to do anything. So why are all these marketing tech platforms still out there and still selling? Because nobody who bought into one wants to admit they made a mistake, and the platforms know it. Lark says, "Marketers are being asked to do more with less, so they buy into digital hallucinations."

https://www.afr.com/business/media-and-marketing/cmo-brief/shakeout-in-100bn-martech-sector-as-marketers-struggle-20190321-p5160w

So to follow up on that first story, let's take a look at CMI's 2019 Content Management and Strategy Survey on how marketers are using tech tools. The verdict of that survey agrees…marketers are awash in tech tool options, too awash. Well here's the good news, businesses are getting a little more serious about taking a strategic approach to content as opposed to just putting on the lame show and hoping for the best. 76% take a strategic approach and 59% have a documented content management strategy. Well, I say that's good news but 59% is still a crazy low number for people that actually have a plan. Most say their content strategy includes business goals, roles and responsibilities, measurements, desired outcomes, workflows, timeframes, and governance. The bad news is most businesses are struggling, there's that word struggle again, to use tech tools that actually help them activate content at scale. The CMI survey shows 42% have "not yet acquired" the right tech to manage content. Another 42% got the tech but aren't using it to its potential. The numbers show a lot of marketing technology was bought in 2018, kind of a boom year for that sort of thing, but marketers don't seem to be getting better at using what they have. 78% said "we have some systems in place, but there's a lot of manual work." Meaning scalability ain't happenin'. Now what's the underlying gremlin that's driving this latent dissatisfaction? It's the digital hallucination we mentioned earlier. There was, and is, a belief out there that if you spend enough, you can flip a switch and the robots will do all your marketing and qualified leads will rain down on you forever. Need proof? In 2019, marketers are spending 29% of their budget on tech and 28% on humans. Half even said their business had "too much technology." The reality that's settling in is, if you don't have humans that know how to make other humans care enough to take desired calls to action…all your shiny, top dollar marketing technology is a ghost town.

https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2019/04/content-management-technology-research/

LinkedIn took a step toward looking less serious and getting more like Facebook, rolling out its own versions of Reaction Buttons so people can express themselves beyond a simple Like. They said it's because LinkedIn users were asking for more ways to express themselves and make themselves understood. Were they really? Apparently, just saying you like something is wholesale unclear and confusing. Does a like mean you like like it or love like it or like that you posted it or like it cause it changed my like life? Who knows? So here they are, the new expression list is the obviously inadequate Like, then there's Celebrate to praise a promotion or achievement – you can't like that, you need to celebrate it. There's Love, which is way more than like but don't love too much because that's inappropriate in a business setting. There's Insightful which means you think there were some really deep thoughts. Lastly there's Curious, which signals you'd like to learn more about the topic and start getting spammed on it. So how did LinkedIn arrive at these particular expressions? They analyzed the top words people used in comments, and apparently you used the word "curious" a lot. LinkedIn has not responded to my suggestions for additional reaction buttons including "Hire Me Dammit", "Inflated Resume Available on Request," and "Yeah I Get it, You Want to Be a Speaker/Author for a Living."

https://www.business2community.com/linkedin/linkedin-rolling-out-reaction-buttons-02194635

Want to know the future? Your usual palm reader is on vacation? Well don't worry because some members of the Ad Age Collective have predicted what's going to impact content marketing most in the next couple of years. Maggie O'Neill at Peppercomm says brands will increasingly have to take a stand on divisive social matters. Sounds like a reckless unnecessary risk to me but that's what Maggie sees coming. Hootsuite's Greg Perotto says social media will go beyond marketing and become an integral part of how businesses deliver customer experiences. Troy Osinoff at JUICE says look out, data's going to get scarcer and that'll make it harder to target and retarget. Why? Because the tech giants will have to adapt to growing oversight about how they get and use data and because we're all getting queasier about where and how our data is used. Kurt Kaufer at Ad Results Media predicts podcasting will rapidly expand, an easy prediction since that's already happening. But he adds better measurement and attribution will have advertisers jumping in at an unprecedented rate. Fuze's Brian Kardon thinks AI will play a greater role in campaign decisions. Again, not really a prediction but somebody had to stick the AI buzzword in there somewhere. It's a law now. And my new hero Michael Lisovetsky at JUICE says all this tech will only make human creativity more important. The platforms and tech will grow commoditized but brilliant people with great ideas will always be rare and have tremendous value. The prediction is our industry will finally wake up to that.

https://adage.com/article/executive-collective/future-media-and-marketing-eight-predictions-industry-pros/2165846

That's the Content Marketing Quickie for this week. It's always like this, it's short, you'll get something to talk about at networking events, and it'll get at least half a grin out of you. So hopefully it's worthy of you subscribing. And we'll see what happens next week.

Hey, it's Stiles from Brand Content Studios and here's your Content Marketing Quickie for the week of April 16, 2019. Let's see what changed while you weren't looking.

-Podcasts are hunky dory and everything, but one of the lingering issues with them is discoverability. Or to be more precise, searchability. We learned in last week's Content Marketing Quickie – see, I told you you'd learn something in a short period of time if you just subscribe and listen – that YouTube is actually the largest platform for podcast consumption by far. Which makes me feel stupid cause I have yet to put this one back on YouTube. And, you've heard that behind Google, YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world. But to make all that work to the maximum degree, all those spoken words in podcasts need to be written words. That's where transcription comes in. And here's the news. Google's Podcasts app is automatically transcribing shows. That means not just searchability of the content, people can look for certain episodes about certain topics on your podcast without having to memorize the name of your show or the episode title. Are you telling me Content Marketing Quickie for April 16, 2019 isn't a memorable title? The head of product for Google Podcasts says, "Google's really good at giving you text and video related to your search query. There's no good reason why audio isn't a first-class citizen in the same way." Well, here's the problem. Sorry, there's always got to be a problem. Android Police checked these new auto transcripts and as you probably already guessed, there were loads of errors. We're all so different and we all talk funny and for all the hype around Echos and Alexas and Siris, the machines just don't seem to be able to make out what we're saying. Next week I'm doing the podcast completely in pig latin.

https://searchengineland.com/google-brings-search-to-podcasts-through-automatic-transcription-314798

-Who doesn't love data? He was the most popular character on Star Trek: The Next Generation. But we love that other data too, the kind that tells you whether or not your content is working for you or if it's just a money sucking pure crap waste of time and effort. And what should you be looking for anyway? Michael Brenner's group had a post recently that gives you the basics and here they are. 1. Traffic, that includes total unique visitors, pageviews and unique pageviews. It'd also be nice to know where your traffic is coming from. 2. Sales or conversions. What counts as a conversion? Well that's up to you Skippy. It's whatever gratifies you or whatever you count as a win, but for the most part, if the content consumer takes a desired action afterward, that's a convert. 3. Engagement

How long do they stay? How many pages do they go to during their visit? 4. Social media engagement. Yeah likes are ego boosters but what you really want is shares, that means whatever the content was really struck a chord. It's also nice to know how much traffic your site is getting from social platforms so you'll know if it's worth the trouble. More on that in a second – cause a big can of worms has just been opened up about that. 5. SEO performance. Where are you in search rankings for your keyword phrase and are you trending up or down? Google Analytics is frankly meh when it comes to that, but Google Search Console is worth checking out if you haven't. You'll see which terms you do rank for and how you're trending. Now take all of this with a measure of salt or a spoonful of sugar or a tranquilizer dart to the neck, because success is what YOU say it is. Everyone has their own goal for their content, or they should, and who cares what other people say it should be doing?

https://marketinginsidergroup.com/content-marketing/metrics-to-measure-content-performance/

-I watch a lot of YouTube, mostly things getting blown up in slow motion – which you think I wouldn't have the time for what with the slowness of that. And maybe you've noticed like I have that it's getting harder and harder to find videos that aren't front loaded with ads, multiple ads, longer ads, many unskippable. I wonder how long people have to say that ads that interrupt, pop up, or generally prevent you from getting the content you want will meet with irritability and ill will before marketers and platforms start listening. My personal guess is 67 years. YouTube introduced 6-second video ads in 2016 and everyone seemed cool with it. I mean, they were ads but it is what it is – they didn't generate a lot of actual complaining and what's more, they worked! After a year, Google reported "70% drove a significant lift in brand awareness, with an average lift of 9%. Over 90% drove ad recall with an average lift of over 30%." So when you find something that works, you go with it right? Of course not! We've got to fix what isn't broken, nothing can just be fine. MediaRadar looked at all online video ads in January and February of 2018 then 2019 and found, you guessed it, a rise in longer video ads. The number of 6-second ads was down 20%, and the number of 30-second ads went up 19%. Well here's the problem, longer ads work too! You can't skip them so the view through rate is a forced 100%, and since there's more information in it, the resonance is higher. Our only hope, the 15 second ad, which is now the most common at 40%. The hope is that maybe that's the sweet spot of volume of information conveyed before viewers hate you.

https://digitalcontentnext.org/blog/2019/04/09/are-youtube-video-ads-getting-longer/

-And now the thing I mentioned earlier about social media that's kicked off quite the ant bed, pitting brother against brother, Hall against Oates, ant against ant. Lush set everyone's heads on fire when they announced, they're ditching their social media channels in the UK. That's Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. They've had it. They're done f'ing around with algorithms, going through middlemen, paying for access to their own audience and not being in control of the conversation. Instead they'll drive people to the site, email, and phone for more one-on-one conversations. But they aren't acting like social doesn't exist, it's still a thing. But they're switching their social strategy to all influencer marketing. And another but, they're just trying this is the UK. Their channels in North America, which is just upwards from South America, will remain. Needless to say, many people who make their living as social media gurus and practitioners and Facebook defenders went into full Lush Derangement Syndrome…slamming the company saying the only reason they're giving up on social is their content sucked and they were doing it wrong and they're failures because they didn't buy the expert's latest book. But actually, Lush was doing fine. Their Facebook and Instagram channels got over 10m video views and were growing 42% month on month. They're just done. They said, "We don't want to pay to be in your newsfeed." Now the question looms, is this gonna start something? Will other brands start re-examining the value proposition of social media? Will ongoing PR problems with the social media platforms make brands think twice? Will this lead to a boon for other distribution channels? And how am I supposed to get all the way through Avengers Endgame without a bathroom break? We'll just have to see

https://www.thedrum.com/news/2019/04/09/lush-abandons-social-media-its-getting-harder-talk-customers

That's the Content Marketing Quickie for this week, your call to action this week is to do the hokey pokey and turn yourself around then subscribe to the show so you don't forget it. And we'll see what happens next week.

Hey, it's Stiles from Brand Content Studios and here's your Content Marketing Quickie for the week of April 8, 2019. Let's see what changed while you weren't looking.

-Are you one of those people that talks to the commercials when they come on TV? "Hey cartoon of lower back pain illustrated by little lightning bolts around it, that's exactly what I feel like! Can your solution really help me?" If so, sure your family is very worried about you but you'll love this news. When you're listening to music or a podcast on Pandora, you might soon be able to talk to the ads you hear, and they'll listen. Maybe you'll say, "Hey ad, please email me more information about what you're talking about." Or maybe you'll say, "Not interested. I don't believe that non-stick frying pan is really coated in diamonds." Later this year, in the year of our Lord 2019, Pandora will do a beta test with Instreamatic, which is a company called Instreamatic. The ad unit will listen and respond to voice commands. Will it work? Probably as well as Siri, Alexa and all those things who I'm sure always completely understand what you're saying so you don't have to repeat it three times. But Instreamatic says it uses those magic letters AI to anticipate your intent — sometimes even before you say anything to the ad. It will assume it knows what you want better than you do. But check it out, this ability to dialogue with ads has the potential to solve what's been a really huge, even a large problem for audio ads. You can't click them. It's called the "Click Challenge," which sounds like a game show that would be hosted by Howie Mandel. But by being able to tell the audio ads I love you or I never want to hear from you again, it helps marketers know they need to change their creative or improve their targeting. And of course it means streaming audio like podcasts can get full credit as an advertising medium that works. Instreamatic colluded with a Russian broadcast, and that experiment showed this can even increase ad revenue. They ran voice-activated ads in December that represented just 1% of the impressions, but…those few voice-activated impressions brought in 10% of total audio revenue for the show for that month. I don't have any ads in this podcast, but you're welcome to yell at it if you want.

http://www.insideradio.com/free/pandora-listeners-may-soon-be-talking-back-to-the-ads/article_712b6420-5567-11e9-bdc4-6fce638705c4.html

-Hey CMO, what's the trouble kiddo? Did you have a bad dream? Is something bothering you? The answer is yes it is. CMOs do worry, in secret. So Kapost did a survey at the CMO Summit in Denver, Denver – Home of the people who live there, asking CMOs what keeps them up at night. The answers were honest and not entirely surprising, so if you're a CMO, see if you agree and when you wake up in a panic, you'll know you're not alone. They worry Is My Messaging On-Brand? Most CMOs said no, it's not. We can't be sure we're on brand or on message, and that's IF we even have a clear brand personality or key messaging someone is watching out for. Yet they find the prospect of a content audit big and scary. C'mon it's a good thing, it's not like a tax audit. SiriusDecisions says 65% of all content is completely wasted because the company doesn't know it exists, doesn't know where to find it, or it's old, or it's now wrong. Another thing they worry about is Are My Teams Aligned? Accenture says 4 in 5 marketers don't even know for sure what their content objectives are. Teams in silos are winging it and doing their own thing and shoving stuff out ad hoc, they're checking the box. And they worry Is Everyone on My Team Working toward Strategic Goals? The answer is most likely not. Marketing teams think only about the channel or team they're supporting in the moment. Strategy, if there even is one, get sacrificed quickly just to get stuff out the door. The result is very confused customers getting weird and disjointed experiences from the brand.

https://marketeer.kapost.com/marketing-leaders-questions/

-Ah, the ability to fast forward and rewind to wherever you want to be while watching a video. Pretty basic thing right? Instagram didn't think so, cause you can't do that when you're watching a video there. Oh sure they let you do it for videos on IGTV, but on the ones that show up in your feed, not so much. And it's not like they don't know it's wanted. Users have been asking about it and for it a long time, scratching their heads, asking, "Why is this not regarded as important by you guys?" Well if you ask long enough, good things might happen. The scuttlebutt skinny word on the street is they're testing putting a seek bar on videos in the feed. But just in the feed, not as part of an Instagram story. So if you're an Instagram fan you can go on just about every other video platform there is and start practicing; forward, backward, forward, back. What control! What raw power!

https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/29/18286805/instagram-video-seek-bar-scroll-playback-feature

-Email is a pretty darn solid distribution channel for content. And if you don't believe that let us help you with 13 email marketing stats put out recently by Convince & Convert. Actually I'm only going to give you 7 because this is the Content Marketing Quickie and I don't want to change it to the Longie. 1. The average subject line is a little over 43 characters. Short & powerful people. Long subject lines are a real issue on mobile and with many email service providers who won't even show long ones. 2. Over 347B emails will be sent and received by 2022, that' 78B more than 2018. So it's competitive out there and your only hope is great email content. 3. 68% of Millennials say promo emails influenced a purchase. In fact it was the most effective of all the methods studied. 4. 56% of emails are read on iPhones or Gmail. So avoid large image files and long paragraphs. And Gmail users can Snooze you now, so you need to convey some sense of urgency. 5. The average email open rate across all industries is 20.81%. It ain't a great number, but at least now you know if you're average. 6. 73% of email marketers send emails at least weekly. Frequency's a gamble. You win if people like them and you're staying top of mind, you lose if your emails are bad because people will eventually be annoyed enough to unsubscribe. 7. 55% of consumers like emails with relevant products and offers. That's kind of a no brainer but it does show personalization and showing items that match preferences is the game, and it's a data game. Isn't that right Dave? See, I tried to personalize. Surely one of my listeners is named Dave.

https://www.convinceandconvert.com/digital-marketing/email-marketing-statistics/

That's the Content Marketing Quickie for this week. Be that person that turns your followers on to something half decent, share the link to this podcast and then you can discuss whether or not I'm annoying. And we'll see what happens next week.

Hey, it's Stiles from Brand Content Studios and here's your Content Marketing Quickie for the week of April 1, 2019

-A new study of B2B buyers shows they want random, one-off content pushed out to them by vendors, and they want that content to be all text and focus only on the sales proposition vendors want to say. They say if they get this, they're likely to buy immediately based just on what they're told. Okay so now we've got the obligatory April Fools story out of the way. And it would be funny except for that's actually how a lot of companies are still approaching content. They're living the dream but make no mistake, they are dreaming.

-I know what you want from the Content Marketing Quickie, I'm not stupid. You want to hear all about European law! Well straighten up your beret and pull up a hot plate of bangers and mash because here it comes. This actually made a lot of news and does potentially affect you because, it kind of changes how you're allowed to put content on the internet. That's right I'm talking about the EU Copyright Directive. Governments love directives. At issue, how do you balance the ability to share and spread content, and most of us want that more than anything, for our content to get shared and spread so more people will see it, how do you balance that with the content creator's right to totally control everywhere their content is seen and get paid for every instance they want to get paid for it? I think this should have been called the EU Have My Cake and Eat it Too Directive. Make no mistake, not unlike my choice to not color my hair, this issue is extremely controversial. Over 5M signatures and rising on a change.org petition opposing it. For the good that does. Some experts like the head of Mozilla's EU public policy, Reagan McDonald, say the EU sets standards and you can count on those policies finding their way to the US. Why? Because the discussions around the responsibilities of internet platforms have pretty much run parallel. So here are the hot parts of the Directive. Article 11 says web platforms and news aggregators will have pay publishers if they use even small parts of their content in search results. So think Google, Flipboard, Feedly, all those guys. It's being called a "link tax." Do YOU want search engines and aggregators to be incentivized NOT to show your content? Yeah I didn't think so. Then there's Article 17, which says for-profit platforms have to make sure copyright-infringing content isn't on their sites. So expect a lot of scanning and tracking tools to be on content and be used to vet content before it goes anywhere. If you're a smaller startup platform that can't afford all that, well, I guess you just don't get to compete. Now if you want to figure out how all this jibes with fair use law in the US for editorial or satirical use…be my guest.

-You know it appears this video marketing thing just might work? But everyone likes proof and they like stats to show the bosses so they can be convinced the sky is blue, so here are some video marketing numbers we got from Oberlo for 2019. 85% of all internet users in the US watched online video monthly on any device. It's like a habit or something. 54% of consumers want to see more video content from a brand or business they support. And let's just underline that part… "that they support." I will watch your home movies if you're a really good friend, but I'm much less likely to do so if I don't even want you in my house. 87% of marketing professionals use video as a marketing tool, so now you know if you're the lone holdout. Videos are a consumer's favorite kind of content to see from a brand on social media. But if you want to keep giving them things they don't like, you are free to do that. 88% of video marketers are happy with the ROI of their video marketing efforts. It gets them 66% more qualified leads per year. A typical person will spend 88% more time on your website if there's video on it, and if they get a choice of reading text or watching a video, they pick the video 72% of the time to learn about a product or service. When it comes to search engines, there's Google, but then coming in second is YouTube, on which over 1B hours a day of video gets played. Because once you start watching those ASMR videos, you just can't stop, you'll break the cozy. And lastly, 10% will remember a call to action after reading it in text. 95% will remember it if it's in a video. I don't know how many will remember a call to action if it's in a podcast. So stick your finger in your belly button then let me know if you did it.

https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/10-video-marketing-statistics-for-2019-infographic/550274/

-Pretty cool how you can target very specific audiences with Facebook ads right? But what about the untargeted? How do they feel? Did you hurt their feelings or worse, are you ostracizing them and cheating them and trying to cut them out of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? I guess it's no surprise in these times of ours that that's become an issue. Does your ability to target the audience you want discriminate against everybody else? Are you evil or aren't you? Tell me! Here's what happened. The US Department of Housing and Urban Development has charged Facebook with discrimination. That's because Facebook doesn't have enough problems. The filing says the way they do ad sales violated the Fair Housing Act of 1968 because some users are excluded from targeted audiences because of gender, ethnicity, religion, nation of origin, geographic location, familial status and/or physical disability. ProPublica started looking at this in 2016 with a story in which their reporters were able to use Facebook's targeting to buy an ad for housing that excluded all users "with an 'affinity' for African-American, Asian-American or Hispanic people." So you can target but, no you can't.

https://www.adweek.com/digital/u-s-government-charges-facebook-with-discrimination-based-on-ad-targeting-practices/

-We talked a bit last week about the best B2B content to build trust. Now we get some more info about what consumers do and don't trust. Mantis Research found 58% say whether or not they read an email depends on the trust they have in that publisher. They have to trust that you send them something worthwhile, and they have to trust you'll let them easily unsubscribe if you just can't seem to make any good content. But the study showed trust is low…and falling. Same old story, brands have a love affair with their own content and think they're crushin' it, but their audiences mostly see it as clutter.

https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/333805/who-do-you-trust-email-newsletters-beat-social-me.html

That's the Content Marketing Quickie for this week. Be that person that turns your followers on to something half decent, share the link to this podcast and then you can discuss whether or not I'm annoying. And we'll see what happens next week.

Hey, it's Stiles from Brand Content Studios and here's your Content Marketing Quickie for the week of March 25, 2019

-Don't worry everyone, the stability of the world and the validity of news and information is safe in the hands of Generation Z. Naw, I'm just kidding with you. We are completely doomed. Now you'd think with all the garbage Facebook and Twitter have gone through, all the scandals, all the suspicion, all the shady stuff, all the content censoring and manipulation, all the dropping stocks…you'd think that social media would be about the last place you would go to get trustworthy information. Nope. Not Gen Z. Comscore says they lead the way at 55% in turning to social media for their primary source of news. That might be because social media has totally consumed their lives and they see it as the only way one would get information, or maybe they just like what they're seeing on it and are loving the echo chamber. Colby Atwood at Borrell Associates said, "They believe if it's important enough, the news will come to them." And social is what makes that happen. So that's terrifying. If they rely on the news "finding" them, they're relegating themselves to being like undiscerning hogs that gobble up whatever slop someone pays to dump in front of their snouts. As you go up the line to Millennials, Gen X'ers and Boomers, the trust in social media seems to go away with age and maybe wisdom. But here's where none of them seem to be going to get their news, portal sites like MSNBC and Yahoo! Gordon Borrell also talked a bit about what they call the overpopulation of media, saying there's got to be a shakeout, a thinning of the herd coming soon. They point out there are still 2 newspapers or weeklies for every county in the US, over 10,000 radio stations, 4 class A TV stations for every TV market, over 1,000 cable channels, 660,000 actively produced podcasts – now I feel guilty for making this one, 495 new TV shows that debuted last year. But you think your prospects are going to spend their time with your kick ass white paper instead. Bless your heart. Our world today is an overwhelming glut of content of questionable value and quality getting feverishly pushed out in a growing and chaotic number of ways. Wow, what is a brand to do as audiences keep dispersing and diffusing like our ever-expanding universe? Borrell says they're using fewer companies to buy more kinds of media, that's what. 90% of advertisers are hedging their bets by bundling traditional and digital advertising. I'm going to assume you're starting to see just how powerful the ability to build and hold an audience is, right?

http://www.insideradio.com/free/borrell-consumer-news-habits-radically-evolve/article_2f6a74a6-4c73-11e9-96e0-ab49befea4fc.html

-Well if social media is our destiny for how future generations get their information, better buy some video ads on social media right? eMarketer says social video ad spending in the US, hey that's where I live, should reach almost $14.9B in 2021, up 44% from 2019. That'll mean social will account for almost one third of all video ad spending. And what a spending spree we have going on where video ads are concerned. That's expected to go up 62.1% between now and 2023. Who stands to gain the most from that spending? Facebook and YouTube. Makes sense, because those are the platforms video viewers prefer according to AudienceProject. YouTube gets 90% of viewing, Facebook 60%. But eMarketer also found Twitter and Snapchat won't do bad in that video space either. Twitter's US video ad revenues will pass $1B two years from now. Why is all this happening? Because video works. Don't tell anybody, that'll just be our little secret. Brightcove says 76% of adults in the US, UK and Australia bought a product after seeing a video and 66% of Millennials engaged with a brand after watching a video on social.

http://www.insideradio.com/free/forecast-social-video-ad-spending-to-shoot-up-by/article_e377f9ca-4a14-11e9-a477-774716b244b2.html

-Want to be a trustworthy B2B brand? Then how about listening to what B2B marketers say are the main things they do or don't do with their content that helps them build trust? Vennli went around asking them that question and here's what they learned. First of all, if you're posting a lot of data from Gartner and Forrester and all those guys, you might think that's helping you because these are all well known, well respected names. Turns out you're right, they are well known and well respected, but the trust people have in them doesn't necessarily translate into your readers having trust in you. For instance, I'm telling you about this survey by Vennli, but that doesn't mean you trust me. Good move, because I'm a very suspicious character. Vennli's CEO Marty Muse says B2B brands should worry less about 3rd party articles and make their own content that doesn't deal in industry vagueries but speaks right to their prospects' pains and needs. As for the best tool to do that, 57% said brand content is the best way to build trust. Then comes a strong social media presence at 44%; TV/print/digital advertising at 40%, and customer references or testimonials at 40%. What ranked closer to the bottom? Well we already mentioned analyst reports, but that was followed by word-of-mouth and press coverage.

They went even further to find out what kind of brand content drives the most trust in a B2B brand. The winners were sales support documents, followed by case studies, customer support documents and videos.

https://www.chiefmarketer.com/original-content-builds-b2b-brand-trust-report/

-Yeah, you might be making content. Might. But are you making content that's worth anything or is it just adding more low value noise to the ocean of low value noise? Media Update's Jenna Cook has 5 things you can think about and grade yourself on that I thought was…well kind of elementary, but it makes a lot of sense and an absurd number of companies don't do any of this so off we go. 1. Is it original? If others have the same kind of thing you're putting out there and there's nothing entertaining or distinctive about your host or brand voice…congratulations, you're not special! 2. Is it relevant. You hear that word a lot but it boils down to, do the people you're sending this to really care? I mean, really care. Is it concise? I don't call this the Content Marketing Quickie for nothin'. Is it consistent? Content comes at such a high pace and volume now that your one and done piece of content will be forgotten like, 5 minutes ago. You build an audience by getting them addicted to what you're putting out. And finally is it actionable? Did you seriously not think to tell your audience what you wanted them to do with what you just gave them?

https://www.mediaupdate.co.za/marketing/146325/five-ways-to-tell-if-your-brands-content-is-valuable

That's the Content Marketing Quickie, you should know by now if you hate it or want to get it every week, so subscribe or give it some word of mouth…which we just learned doesn't lead to a lot of trust. And we'll find out what happens next week!