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A Breakdown of the Top 5 Sessions for Content Marketing at INBOUND14

  
  
  
  

Two weeks ago, I entered the Boston Exhibition and Conference Center in awe. It was my first time at HubSpot’s INBOUND Conference, and as a content marketer just starting my career in marketing, there was certainly a lot to take in. I watched Simon Sinek give an inspiring keynote on leadership and learned about how different neuro signals can affect your work. I talked to Boston businesses about how they’re using inbound methodology. I raced from session to session with my laptop and iPod to jot down notes in Google Drive and tweet my top takeaways.

It was an overwhelming experience, for sure. One factor I noticed across the board was the focus on the ever-elusive future - the future of CRM, the future of B2B marketing the future of storytelling. There was even an event called FutureM that coincided with INBOUND14. Why was everyone so preoccupied with the future of marketing?

Because they were focused on change - change in inbound marketing, change in storytelling techniques, change in work attitude.

With this over-arching idea in mind, I’ve picked out the top 5 sessions I attended at INBOUND14 for content marketing. I will share one thing I plan on changing in my marketing practices because of what I learned.

The Perfect Post with Peg Fitzpatrick and Guy Kawasaki

Peg Fitzpatrick (@PegFitzpatrick) and Guy Kawasaki (@GuyKawasaki), Canva social strategists and evangelists, shared their keys to the perfect social media post. Their biggest emphasis? Pictures, pictures, pictures. Your social posts - whether they be on Twitter, Google+ or LinkedIn, must pass the re-share test: Would someone who’s never seen or heard of you share your content? Why - is it bold, valuable, and brief?

After crafting a social media post that follows these guidelines, research which hashtags you should use so that your post will be seen. Then, finally, schedule and spread out your post for the optimal number of views. Cross-post across platforms in order to reach your audience on every network they’re active on.

The Change I’ll Make: Go ahead and post that same content multiple times. Peg and Guy recommended sharing the same post 4 different times throughout the day - yes, with the same wording and picture - to see maximum views and clicks.

The Future of Content Is Writing. No, Really with Ann Handley

Ann Handley (@annhandley) of MarketingProfs spoke about how marketers - and everyone in business, really - use writing to tell our customers who we are. Words are our ambassadors, so good writing is customer-centric, empathetic thinking. It’s less about grammer (although the grammar nazi in me is cringing) and more about storytelling.  Unfortunately, only 38% of marketers feel like they’re “solidly awesome” at content marketing according to Ann.

To overcome the challenge of creating and measuring engaging content, Ann’s advice was to focus on experience, on relevant and inspiring stories, and on useful practices for your customers. When you sit down to write content, ask yourself what your readers will be asking: So what? Then answer. Then repeat. This helps make the customer the hero of your story; tell it from their point of view. 

The Change I’ll Make: Write to one person. Picture your buyer persona - Marketing Molly, Sales Sam - sitting in front of you, throwing questions at you. Answer those questions with precision in your writing.

The Future of Storytelling with Ekaterina Walter

Ekaterina Walter (@ekaterina), author of The Power of Visual Storytelling and Global Evangelist at Sprinklr, presented on the future of storytelling in marketing. Her main point? Story is all about emotion. And she didn’t just tell us - she showed us, with a heartbreaking video advertisement about gratitude. Even though this ad came from a corporate establishment, it had a human voice, and that’s important. Authenticity is important.

B2B brands should act as an enabler, a sponsor of stories. We’re never the protagonist; our deeds are told through others’ experiences. Get others invested in your company story by empowering them to further that story, to be a part of something bigger than themselves. Self-centered marketing is no longer the norm; now, we must tell stories across channels in different formats, including video, text, and pictures.

The Change I’ll Make: Be zen. Take a deep breath, and really delve into what your customer or viewer wants to see in their content. I’ll play on their terms, telling stories they want to hear, not stories I want to write.

Move Over Big Data, Here Comes Big Content with Jake Sorofman

Jake Sorofman (@jakesorofman) of Gartner shared some insights that expanded upon Ekaterina’s presentation: content marketing and the structure of stories that stick. He shared a few formulas to creating story context: follow the S.I.R. model, which s tands for situation, impact, and resolution. In other words, provide context, implications and proposed solutions for customers. The story’s impact on the buyer is the most important in this model.

What Jake focused on were the three C’s of content marketing: creating, curating, and cultivating through a calendar-driven yet responsive schedule. However, he also added a fourth C: context data. 

The Change I’ll Make: I’m going to start analyzing my viewers through attribution models to see who they are, why they’re coming to our blog, and when they’re doing it, and using that data to better my content marketing.

Bold Talks with Joe Pulizzi

I was so excited to see Joe Pulizzi (@JoePulizzi) of Content Marketing Institute on the INBOUND14 Bold Talks stage. He did not disappoint. His presentation was out of the box: it wasn’t about actionable metrics or models or formulas to content marketing success. It was about how you, personally, can be productive in content marketing and turn “some day” into today.

Obviously, Joe Pulizzi’s goal was not only to educate, but to inspire. His talk focused on the two little things that make all the difference in content marketing: writing down your content marketing strategy goals and reviewing and consistently referring to that plan on a consistent basis. Joe did this with his career: he began with the end in mind, referring to written goals every day.

The Change I’ll Make: I’ve flitted between several different to-do list apps, from WeekPlan to WunderList to Google Tasks. Now, though, I’m back to the good ‘ole pencil and paper for my daily goals. I’ll also continue to refer to our goals for monthly and yearly content marketing efforts.

Honorable Mentions

You didn’t think I could just end it there, did you? There was so many great sessions at INBOUND14 that it was hard to choose my favorites, so here are some honorable mentions Tweet Smarter with Anne Mercogliano and Russ Laraway, Cracking the SEO Code for 2015: Tactics to Love and Leave with Rand Fishkin, and Content - Not More, But More Relevant with Jason Miller.

What were your favorite takeaways from this year’s INBOUND conference? As a marketer, would you make any changes to your strategy based on what you learned?

Allison TetreaultAllison Tetreault is the Marketing Content Coordinator at AG Salesworks. She writes, designs and promotes new marketing content every month, monitors and produces updates for social media networks, gathers important data from marketing and sales efforts, and maximizes the potential of content marketing efforts. Follow her on Twitter and read her articles here.

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