It’s easy to understand the logic behind content marketing—that establishing yourself as a thought leader will build your brand and generate leads. But it’s one thing to appreciate the idea; it’s another to actually create a content marketing culture in a company to enable successful execution of the strategy.

The Content Challenge

Content marketing can take many forms—blogs, white papers, email newsletters, social media postings, You Tube videos, personal appearances, self-published print magazines, and so on. But where does all this content come from? According to a recent survey, this is clearly the biggest problem with implementation—with respondents saying that their greatest content marketing challenges are producing engaging content (36%), producing enough content (21%), and budget to produce content (20%).

Making It Work

The most important aspect of content marketing success is making it a fundamental part of your company’s operations. It can’t be an afterthought if it’s going to pay off. - Mashable.com reports on three success stories here.

The following steps can help you generate content and successfully implement a content marketing strategy:

Have strong upper management support. Management-driven support (e.g., job descriptions, financial incentives, awards, visible enthusiasm) is essential.

Convince employees of the value. Tying content marketing to the personal benefit of all stakeholders is the surest way to get participation.

Provide adequate collaboration support. Most of the content experts in your company are probably not skilled in writing, editing, video production, printing, social media, etc. You need to have employees, resources, and processes that content experts can use to turn their knowledge into useful, publishable material.

Keep control of your brand. You don’t want people producing content that’s not consistent with your branding. Provide editorial guidelines and practical brand-building suggestions.

Develop meaningful metrics to track success. Nothing encourages buy-in more than demonstrable results. Measurement also helps to justify content marketing costs and indicate necessary adjustments.

Include mechanisms for customer input. Content marketing works best when it’s interactive—drawing potential customers into a relationship with your company.

Reuse existing content. You can alleviate the content-supply problem by putting existing material to new uses. Often, it only takes a little modification.

Stay informed. The Web is full of information on content marketing, such as The Institute for Content Marketing’s 10 essential content marketing templates and frequent articles on sites such as techcrunch.com. Executives and marketers should stay on top of content marketing trends and strategies.

As stated extremely well in “Content Rules” you need to speak to your customers and prospects in a way that makes them appreciate your expertise and tells them about the benefits of your products/services not simply the features.

“The inherent tension in marketing is that companies always want to talk about themselves and what their products or services can do. Everyone else meanwhile, only wants to know what those products or services can do for them.”

Good content does not just appear, rather you need to work at it and make it part of the culture of your organization.  So start small but ramp up quickly because content based marketing will not only be a key part of your inbound strategy but should be key to generating leads and sales opportunities.

]]> http://www.michaelgcohen.com/2012/01/creating-a-content-marketing-culture/feed/ 0 http://www.michaelgcohen.com/2011/03/law-firms-can-start-with-facebook-recruiting/ http://www.michaelgcohen.com/2011/03/law-firms-can-start-with-facebook-recruiting/#comments Wed, 16 Mar 2011 05:42:10 +0000 Michael http://www.michaelgcohen.com/?p=1123

Being a lawyer by degree, articled and called to the bar and having spent my fair share of time in and around law firms I can say that the words digital or social do not really enter the marketing of most law firms. Of course every firm has a web presence and a few have even taken a leading role with iPhone apps, but the foray into real digital or social marketing has been slow if at all. Given that so much of today’s modern digital marketing is about creating content you would think that law firms which do …

Being a lawyer by degree, articled and called to the bar and having spent my fair share of time in and around law firms I can say that the words digital or social do not really enter the marketing of most law firms. Of course every firm has a web presence and a few have even taken a leading role with iPhone apps, but the foray into real digital or social marketing has been slow if at all. Given that so much of today’s modern digital marketing is about creating content you would think that law firms which do this incredibly well would be all over blogs and sharing links across the social web but there is little activity. So my small piece of advice to law firms is this, start small and start with Facebook for recruiting. You really cannot go wrong and the effort while not large in scale will pay dividends in the form of a connection with top notch law school talent. 

Attracting and retaining top talent is a challenge for any business but it is an especially important point for law firms to pay attention to right now. Top students are all using Facebook everyday, if they come to work at a place that tells them they cannot use Facebook they will immediately feel a disconnect between the old and new of the firm. Further, if you only have a passing attempt at a Facebook presence for your law firm now, step it up immediately. Top students are going to visit your website and learn lawyer bios, they will be able to tell you why your firm fits with them but I guarantee they will all feel a deeper and more immediate connection with your firm if you use Facebook as your landing page (print this on all your materials, both the firm website and your Facebook url) and get personal.

Facebook is not a place to repeat the content on your corporate website or in your printed brochures (are you really sure you still need to print these), students are smart and they will read all of that. Use Facebook as a place where you tell the students what life is like as a student at the firm. Share pictures from charity and other firm events. Rotate a current student each month to answer questions and respond to wall posts – I guarantee they will feel a tremendous sense of responsibility and will enjoy your trust in the brand to them. At the end of the day start small and think about how you can make Facebook the place that your corporate website cannot be, the place where the best and brightest students will also know behind the LLP are people and good, fun people at that.

Share your culture, make Facebook your landing page for recruiting, get people to “like” you…you will not be disappointed.

Photo credit – Associate Press

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Brent Leary recently wrote a post on the launch of Hearsay, the new social media company from former Facebooker Clara Shih (also author of The Facebook Era) and I thought it was most interesting to note that companies like State Farm and Farmer’s Insurance Group have already begun using the service. I’ll give a little upfront on Hearsay and then explain why I think it has found a real sweet spot that is missing in the Social CRM, Social Dashboard arena and why it makes for a perfect for tool for franchises and other similar business that have a head office and distributed local establishments.Hearsay says it is “the first social media platform for businesses with many local branches or reps.” It was built so that businesses and associations that have a head office location that wants to centrally control brand message can do so while still allowing local establishments of that business to leverage the social web with their customers, partners and prospects. This is especially important in regulated industries like finance, insurance and healthcare. With many local businesses and individual employees (including finance and insurance professionals) using social media with little to no oversight and when compliance is at issue you can understand why there is a need for corporate head offices to take some action and control.

With the ability to set corporate policies on social media accounts across the locally distributed businesses, companies have the ability to remain compliant while still allowing their employees to engage on social media. Further, by centrally distributing marketing content but allowing it to be localized by region, companies can run integrated campaigns and have real metrics upon which to build ROI and improve future campaigns. For the latest on Hearsay visit their Facebook page of course.

This is a big development in the area of Social CRM and Social Media Management because it really hits in a sweet spot, (that of a central command center for the enterprise that still allows for localization) that was missing a top notch product. While I can’t speak to the effectiveness of Hearsay in practice I can speak to the fact that it comes at a time when businesses in regulated markets are struggling for how to embrace social media in a way that is not cold and corporate while at the same time recognizing the ongoing usage by employees with very little corporate involvement. It may seem like a stretch but what if my broker “likes” a post on Facebook from a publicly traded company or favorites one on Twitter, did she just recommend that I buy that stock? While not every example is that dramatic there is a need for HQ to put controls in place and at the same time allow for individual usage. Hearsay seems to fit right in that niche.

Further, the ability to run a national social media campaign with localized content really gives companies the ability to tie social media metrics into their marketing and sales dashboards. The localization angle is important for many reasons. Of course language is among the top localization traits but it will be in the way that companies allow their local teams to utilize corporate assets where I think companies will reap the most benefit both in brand control and ultimately use of best practices.

Hearsay is an interesting company to watch and I think will be one that many companies – whether they be large enterprises, franchise or simply in regulated industries – will be looking to for unification and centralization of their social media marketing.

Check out the introductory video from Hearsay below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsupAdjvt5s

As if he were not an inspiring enough speaker alone, at the end of his first speech to Congress Tuesday night Barack Obama did something that every CEO should take note of – he took the time to not only shake the hands of named Congressmen and women, but seemingly as important to him he stopped shook hands with and even engaged in brief conversation with the “pages” who had attended.

This is the leader of the free world and nobody had to remind him that those young pages were a huge part of the movement which elected him. Nobody had to explain to him what a thrill it would be to be 20something and have the President shake your hand and ask what you thought of his speech. Which is why it was both natural and so very classy when Obama took the time to seek out the pages.

Take this lesson outside of the political arena and bring it to the corporate arena. Every CEO claims to have some sort of open door policy and each will tell you that they know and value their workers. They might even have a corporate communications person write thank you emails for them, but now stop and ask yourself a question – When was the last time the CEO walked the floor of your company? Does the CEO know anybody at the company (outside their inner circle) on a personal level?

If you work at an organization where the CEO is at the top of a large group it’s a good idea to ask yourself these and related questions and if you are the CEO of a company you shouldn’t have to ask the questions, rather you should know the answers and be proactive about ensuring the answers to the questions are always yes.

The point is that it is really simple to espouse an “open door I’m in touch with the workers on the ground level” policy but it is much much more important to walk the walk than talk the talk.

Barack Obama has a love fest going with the American public right now, he certainly did not need to score extra points by including the pages in his historical evening but the fact that he did so in such a seemless way makes you really believe him when he says he values every voice and is thankful for every vote.

Not every CEO can inspire the way Obama can simply through his presence, but you can certainly inspire by showing your team that you value them, care about them as people and that they can approach you any appropriate time. If Obama can spend an extra few minutes being a true leader, so can you.

This post was originally published in Feb of 2009 but has gotten a lot of hits lately so bumping it up to a “sticky” post for now

Changing the culture of any business is a difficult task but try setting a policy aimed at changing the culture of your business when your employees are for the most part twenty-somethings each of whom is making millions of dollars a year in salary alone.  That was the task that faced the National Basketball Association three years ago when commissioner David Stern first implemented a NBA Player Dress Code.

Despite what you think of the NBA, the league was at a cross-roads after the 2004-2005 season.  It was a league that had not had Michael Jordan on the marquee for years, did not have a superstar to replace him with (even Kobe Bryant had suffered public indiscretions) and to top it off the Indian Pacers and Detroit Pistons were involved in a brawl which started on the basketball court but ended up in the stands. That incident caused nine players to be suspended without pay for a total of 146 games (which led to $10 million in salary being lost by the players), five players were charged with assault, and all five were eventually sentenced to a year on probation and community service. Five fans were also legally charged, and one fan received a lifetime ban from attending Pistons games.

For a business that was trying to attract large corporate sponsorships, television deals and have individual arenas sell off naming rights the image of NBA players as thugs did not exactly gel.

In response, on October 17, 2005, NBA commissioner David Stern implemented a mandatory dress code for all NBA and NBA Development League players. Beyond the fact that the rule was novel to the NBA, it was actually even more  noteworthy because the NBA became the first major professional sports league to implement such a rule, although National Hockey League rules state that a player is supposed to wear a jacket and tie to games and on charters if not told otherwise by the head coach or general manager.

To say the reaction of the players, fans and media was mixed would be to be extremely kind to Mr. Stern. A quick Google search gives me reactionary quotes which read from the ridiculous  “I’m not really a suit guy, so I’m going to have some fun with it. I’ll wear, like, purple shoes, yellow slacks, a burgundy shirt, cut-up tie and a lavender sport coat. I’m going to mix it up.” – Ron Artest -  to the absolutely stupid “I don’t see it happening unless every NBA player is given a stipend to buy clothes.” – Marcus Camby

Fast forward three years to this past weekend when I inevitably flipped through the NBA’s All-Star weekend festivities and couldn’t help but notice that virtually every player not involved in the on-court activities was dressed in a minimum of “business casual” and most were wearing suits that cost more than my car. They looked classy. They looked like guys who make millions of dollars. They looked like the type of individuals you want to have representing your corporate brand and not only if brand is about flash and sizzle.

Of course everyone knows who Lebron James is and quite obviously he gets signed to do endorsement deals because the man can flat out play. However as a league what the NBA sells is a whole product. They absolutely rely on individuals to market that product but again the sum of the parts is what they sell. So while the dress code that was implemented three years ago may not have been met with great fanfare at the time, there is no doubt in mind that it has been a success. The players seem to have accepted if not embraced it (“I hear guys used to come to games wearing sweat suits…that just isn’t professional” – Kevin Durant) and even corporate partners of the NBA have picked up on the theme and used it in their advertisments (see the Reebok Allen Iverson commercial).

I guess my point is that every once in a while you have to step back and look at your business through your customer, partner and the public’s eyes, making your decisions based on what is best for the overall business, not what is going to rattle the fewest people. In the case of the NBA, the commissioner’s decision to implement a dress code was highly scrutinized (even called racist by some), but at the end of the day three years later there are few who would not call it a tremendous success.