Erika Heald

About Erika Heald

Erika Heald is a content marketing expert and executive ghostwriter. As founder and lead consultant at Erika Heald Marketing Consulting, she helps organizations define and document content marketing strategies that drive business growth. Erika led and grew high-performance content marketing teams at Highwire PR, Anaplan, and Achievers. You can also find her on her blog erikasglutenfreekitchen.com or hosting the weekly #ContentChat Twitter chat on Mondays at 12 noon Pacific.

How Can a Fractional Chief Content Officer Level up Your Content Marketing?

May 25, 2022 by Erika Heald Leave a Comment

$A pizza with a slice taken out of it and the words "should you hire a fractional chief content officer.$
Once you’ve gotten started with content marketing and seen how it can build long-term relationships with your ideal customers, chances are you’ve started to think about adding a Chief Content Officer or another content marketing leader to your marketing team.

But as someone who has fielded pitches for these roles for the past ten years, I’m going to tell you why it may be a much better investment to hire a fractional content marketing leader instead.

The Rise of the Fractional Marketing Leader

If you’re a marketing professional who has spent any time on LinkedIn in the past year, you’ve probably started to see a number of Fractional CMOs in your news feed. While the fractional chief marketing officer title may still be a little unconventional, the services they provide aren’t.

In a nutshell, fractional CMO services are a pithy way for marketing consultants to describe what they do when they have an ongoing engagement with a marketing team to provide marketing leadership as an external—yet embedded—part of the marketing department.

But what, exactly, IS a fractional CMO?

A fractional Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) is a contract or freelance marketing professional who is hired on a part-time basis to run a company’s marketing team and oversee its marketing efforts. The “fractional” element is a reflection that this unconventional hire provides the level of marketing leadership your company needs, but at a fraction of the cost of hiring a full-time salaried employee with benefits, bonus, time-off, and other benefits.

Yet the CMO isn’t the only fractional marketing role that growing teams deploy to define and execute their marketing strategies. There are a number of roles that employ fractional marketing talent.

While I haven’t officially used that title for my work, I’ve typically had one or two fractional content marketing leadership engagements at a time since I first started my consultancy.

As a fractional chief content officer, I typically owned:

Auditing current content and social media content
Defining content marketing plans
Documenting editorial calendars to support those plans and demand marketing campaigns,
Creating all types of content to execute against the agreed-upon content strategies

The first of these engagements I took on was for the productivity software platform Redbooth HQ. While doing some client prospecting, I came across their job listing for a part-time marketing manager. Even though their post was for a part-time employee and not for a freelancer, I made my pitch in my cover letter and scored an interview with their marketing director.

Unlike the full-time candidates for the position, I came to my interview with a slide deck that outlined the opportunities I saw for the team from a content marketing standpoint, and why I, despite intending to remain a consultant, was the right pick.

For more than a year, I worked as an essential yet external member of their marketing team. I wrote content under my byline, ghostwrote for executives, managed freelancers, and collaborated with their SEO agency. I was a one-woman content marketing team—and we both loved it. That’s when I decided I never wanted to go back as a full-time content marketing leader in-house.

How are fractional content marketing leaders a benefit to the marketing organization?

At the point in my career when I took on my first fractional content marketing role, I’d led content and communications teams in-house for many years. While I loved many aspects of being an integral part of an organization’s marketing leadership team, I also saw a few recurring drawbacks:

Marketing organizations can become very set in their ways when it comes to how the budget is distributed. This can make it difficult to get a budget for content marketing innovation and experiments, especially in risk-averse cultures.
In smaller organizations, the content marketing role can necessarily be very production-focused. There often isn’t enough strategic, leadership-level work for a full-time, senior content marketer.
I love mentoring and growing the talent on my teams. But if the day-to-day work isn’t evolving and there isn’t room for trying new things, I get bored. And who wants to spend 8 hours or more per day feeling bored? Not this gal.

These were my top reasons for going out on my own to found Erika Heald Marketing Consulting. I wanted to be able to pursue interesting new digital marketing, social media, and content marketing opportunities. And I wanted to be able to share my expertise and learnings with a growing marketing team, to help them create processes and frameworks that would help them scale their marketing efforts quickly.

Taking on fractional marketing assignments proved to be the key for me to having the endless cross-pollination that comes from working with multiple clients in different markets while still having an ongoing impact on a team. For the growing marketing teams I’ve supported over the past 10 years in these fractional roles, I provided the support and guidance of an experienced marketing professional without a senior leader’s compensation package being on their books.

Is a fractional content marketing leader right for your marketing team?

While I’m a champion of fractional Chief Content Officer roles, it doesn’t work for every company culture or stage of marketing maturity. To assess how well this type of arrangement would work for your marketing team, ask yourself these questions—and answer them with brutal honesty:

Do we expect our marketing leadership team members to be in the office for a specific amount of days, or during specific times?
Is there budget and internal design resources allocated to content creation and distribution?
Is much of our content creation reactionary or in response to specific internal requests?
Does our senior management team value content marketing as a business driver?
Is our content strategy focused exclusively on SEO and organic search?
Do we have a culture that allows room for trying new things without being assured of a set ROI?
Are meetings frequently held on nights, weekends, and in the spur of the moment?

If you answered mostly yes to the odd-numbered questions and mostly no to the even-numbered questions, your culture would likely benefit more from a full-time employee in this role. But if the opposite is true, you should consider hiring a fractional content leader to help scale your content marketing program.

Where to find a fractional marketer for hire

OK, now comes the (somewhat) hard part: finding the right person for the job. While it can’t hurt to use your traditional recruiting channels to find applicants for this role, you’ll also want to consider doing some outreach on marketing Slack communities, specialty marketers for hire collectives, your leadership team’s LinkedIn feed, and content marketing email newsletters (like the Content Chat Bulletin) that include freelance and contract opportunities.

I regularly take on roles like these too, so get in touch if you’d like to schedule a call to learn more about my capabilities and how our consultancy can support your content marketing efforts.

11 Smart Data Sources to Strengthen Your Content Creation

April 13, 2022 by Erika Heald Leave a Comment

Trusted data sources and real-world examples bring stories to life—which is critical for strengthening trust in your brand and building your brand relationships.

Thoughtfully selected data fulfills the “show don’t tell” mantra, demonstrating impact and backing up your claims with reputable sources. In addition, the best data will tap into your readers’ emotions and humanize your brand.

My friend and former colleague Caroline “Cazi” James, a principal at the technology public relations agency Aircover Communications, shared that she uses quantitative data to build better stories and identify topical trends for her clients. “Data matters. Bringing hard statistics to the table can mean the difference between presenting a story that reads like ad copy and developing a credible hard news story that moves the needle for your company.”

But as any writer has learned, a Google search won’t always provide the relevant or punchy stats you’re looking for.

Don’t fret! Read on for my favorite ways to find authoritative data to enrich your marketing content.

11 Ways to Find Data for Your Marketing Content

These data sources are perfect for your content marketing needs—just be sure to use data from the last three years when possible, to ensure the findings are still relevant.

These sources can also help you refine your content strategy and uncover the best stories to tell next.

Audience Surveys

Using free survey tools like Google Forms, JotForm, Typeform, or SurveyMonkey allows you to quickly gather insights from a select audience. Simply share surveys across your existing communication channels, including email, online communities, and social media. For example, a marketing automation platform provider could survey its marketing audience to find statistics like “75% of marketers spend more than 3 hours a day on manual data entry.” Just be clear about how you gathered the data and who the sample represents.

Andy Crestodina and his Orbit Media Studios team survey bloggers annually to gauge the evolution of their content strategies. Similarly, when I worked at Achievers, I surveyed more than 800 of its community members to create this widely-viewed SlideShare presentation and an e-book while crafting my content strategy.

Customer Data

Anonymized and aggregated insights from your customers, the challenges they face, how they use your product, and their results from using your product can all make your claims feel more tangible. So don’t neglect this often-overlooked data source to enrich your content.

Mailchimp’s email marketing campaign benchmarks article is an excellent example of how to turn customer data into useful content, as is this SEO benchmarks by industry post based on First Page Sage’s proprietary data.

Customer Case Studies

When customers drive significant results using your product, put them on a pedestal. Showcase their results for prospective buyers hoping to accomplish similar goals. When crafting your customer case studies, ask questions like:

“How long did it previously take your team to complete [specific task]?”
“What were your main challenges when completing [specific task]?”
“What results did you achieve after adopting our solution?”

The answers to these questions can provide helpful anecdotes and data that will add color to your content and directly appeal to your customers’ challenges.

Take a page from customer case studies from Slack (like these I wrote about Autodesk and FOX Sports) and lead with attention-grabbing stats and relatable quotes that can add value to other content (like its customer support articles). See how Salesforce approaches customer case studies and includes key customer stats and accomplishments in other Salesforce content for more inspiration.

Government Data Sources

The U.S. and world governments provide access to regional data that is perfect for most types of marketing content. Check out the U.S. Census Bureau, Data.gov. UN Data, and World Bank Open Data to access a range of open data, tools, and resources.

Industry and Nongovernmental Research Groups

Brands like CB Insights have become wildly popular by aggregating and analyzing public data for specific industries. CB Insights, for example, focuses on business technology and has become known for its research on the state of venture capital and industry-specific breakdowns. Many marketers rely on ChiefMartec for trusted data, while Pew Research provides a wealth of data on hundreds of timely topics and publishes ongoing social media usage research.

Team Up With a Partner

Can’t find the data you’re looking for? Ask your business partners. They may have commissioned research or be willing to share data as long as you attribute it to them. Not only will they appreciate you sharing their data, but they may even return the favor if you eventually commission your own research (something we discuss below).

Another option is to field a proprietary survey with a complementary partner, like Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs do with their annual B2B Content Marketing research report.

Research Portals and Databases

Like industry and nongovernmental research groups, privately-owned research portals and databases are a reliable resource for data points across myriad topics, sectors, and regions. Notable sites include Statista, Netline, Ebsco, Pubmed, and Kaggle.

Social Media Polls

Many social media sites, including Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram, have built-in polling features. Use these capabilities to gather quick insights from your social media communities.

We often share polls during our #ContentChat Twitter chat to gauge our community thoughts, and brands like Indeed have successfully driven engagement through polls on LinkedIn.

Consider creating ongoing polls to spark consistent engagement and enable you to compare data across your polls.

Partner with a Research Firm

Custom research is costly, but it can be an extremely effective way to raise your brand awareness and position you as a leader in your space. Research firms like Ipsos, Mantis, Researchscape, Vanson Bourne and countless others can help you create, commission, and analyze custom survey and research projects. This data can bolster your thought leadership and address a range of your content marketing and public relations goals.

Cazi reinforced the value of survey partners in a recent conversation with us. “Many executives do not want to share their data for marketing purposes,” she said. “There can be privacy concerns, and sometimes it requires a huge expenditure of internal resources to acquire and analyze the data. This is where outsourcing to third parties can help. Aircover Communications regularly partners with The Harris Poll to conduct surveys on our clients’ behalf. We’ve found this tactic effective for collecting data efficiently and adding an element of newsworthiness and credibility to our clients’ stories.”

Several subreddits focus on data, data visualization, or data analysis. Check out r/datasets, r/analytics, and r/dataisbeautiful as starting points.

Website Analytics

Your company website can show you what information your visitors best respond to, how they’re getting to your site, and where they’re going within and from your site. Google Analytics is beneficial for getting valuable website data, including its Tag Manager and Data Studio (which can visualize the same data from your Analytics page).

Consistently Create Data-Backed Content to Increase Your Reach

Savvy marketers know how to turn disparate data points into rich narratives that appeal to their community’s needs. As you continue working data into your content, you will have an easier time connecting the dots and knowing how to reinforce your points. To make this as easy as copy+paste, create an information repository working document to save all the best stats for ongoing reference.

Once you’ve created content with a rich blend of data and insights, nominate the piece or your entire content marketing program for a Content Marketing Award. The annual award program recognizes content marketing excellence across various categories, including best use of original research in content marketing. The 2022 submission cycle closes in May, so you’ve got plenty of time to get your winning submission together. And if you do, I hope it ends up in one of the categories I’m judging this year!

How to Use Content Marketing to Ignite Your Business Potential

November 18, 2021 by Erika Heald Leave a Comment

We’re now two years into the pandemic, and it’s more apparent than ever that content marketing is still an important way—if not the best way—to meet the ever-growing needs and expectations of brand customers. But don’t just take my word for it.

The 12th Annual B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends report from MarketingProfs and Content Marketing Institute found that content marketing will take center stage for many marketing teams in 2022:

66% of B2B marketing teams will increase their content marketing budgets in 2022
21% of teams will invest at least half of their entire marketing budget on content marketing alone

I’ve seen first-hand how content marketing can build brand awareness, strengthen customer loyalty, build an engaged community of raving brand fans, enhance executives’ thought leadership profiles, and drive a consistent lead pipeline.

To explore how brands can best engage in content marketing, I joined Anthony Gaenzle and the #AGMarketingChats community to discuss what content marketing is and how brands can create the right content marketing strategy for them.

Check out the chat highlights below for an overview of content marketing, and read the entire conversation here to learn how to find the right content marketing distribution channels for your brand, create and utilize visual content, and more.

P.S. Don’t miss #AGMarketingChats Thursdays on Twitter at 11 a.m. Pacific/2 p.m. Eastern.

What is Content Marketing?

At the highest level, content marketing involves helping a brand’s prospective and current customers throughout their buyer and customer journey.

The goal of content marketing is to empower your audience with content in their preferred format. These formats can include blog posts, video, social media content, email newsletters, and more to help them overcome their challenges.

Content marketing usually sits within a brand’s overarching marketing team and overlaps with many business units, including public relations, customer success, and sales teams. The best content marketing teams directly engage with each of those business units to partner on content creation.

How Can Brands Get Started with Content Marketing?

Virtual Presentation Guide: How To Deliver An Outstanding Online Session

November 5, 2021 by Erika Heald Leave a Comment

Let’s face it: we’ve all attended a lot of meh formerly live now virtual-only events over the past 18 months. But we mostly cut everyone some slack, because, after all, the world was catapulted into the world of digital-only experiences in 2020 with very little warning.

But thanks to inventive event professionals and the rise of new virtual event technologies, online and hybrid event experiences have significantly improved this year and can now easily replicate—or even improve upon—many of the most beloved aspects of in-person events. Combined with the notable benefits of virtual events and continued uncertainties around the future of work, experts agree that virtual and hybrid events will remain popular throughout 2022 and beyond.

While many event planners have focused on enhancing the virtual event attendee experience, one area that could use some work is the quality of support they provide to their event speakers. Even the most seasoned in-person conference speakers will encounter new challenges with virtual or hybrid presentations. Luckily, there are plenty of ways to get ahead of these obstacles and deliver an outstanding online presentation.

In this blog post, let’s explore how virtual event speakers should prepare for their sessions, including our tips for success based on expertise from the #ContentChat community and my recent virtual event speaking engagements for MarketingProfs, CMSwire, and more.

The Key Differences Between Virtual and Live Event Audiences

While no two event audiences are alike, it’s crucial to remember that all virtual audiences are often more distracted than in-person attendees. This means online event speakers need to take extra steps to actively engage their virtual attendees throughout their session.

In my most recent online and hybrid speaking engagements, I’ve noticed three main differences between virtual attendees and in-person attendees:

Low crowd energy: An in-person audience has a natural energy and excitement that the speaker and attendees alike feed on. Virtual audiences, however, are harder to read. At best, as a virtual speaker you are looking at a sea of webcam streams without audio or the ability to readily parse any non-verbal reactions from those attendees. But more often than not, you are literally talking to an image of yourself and your slides on your screen.
More distractions: Online attendees are more responsive to digital interruptions on their phones or laptops during your session. At a live event, attendees still have these devices in-hand, but they are more likely to just use these devices to take notes and share Tweetable moments during your session.
Less patience: Virtual attendees are a little bit more impatient than in-person attendees. After all, they haven’t re-arranged their schedules and hopped on an airplane to focus on their professional development for a few days. They are in their usual work environment with many competing priorities. These attendees are more likely to click out of a session than an in-person attendee is likely to walk out of an in-person presentation.

Our friend and marketer Maureen Jann, co-founder of NeoLuxe Marketing, says that speaking to a virtual audience can feel a lot like talking to yourself, so “you need to be super comfortable with telling an invisible person a great story, and that’s tough.”

A1: Speaking to a virtual audience feels a lot like talking to yourself. You need to be super comfortable with telling an invisible person a great story and that’s tough. #contentchat
— Maureen Jann (she/her) (@NeoLuxeMo) October 18, 2021

Don’t view these audience differences as a major hurdle in delivering an engaging online presentation, though. They are simply elements that you should be aware of—and we explain how to overcome these challenges next.

6 Details To Confirm Ahead of Your Online Speaking Slot

Thorough preparation is key for a successful virtual event speaking session. The virtual event technology landscape is diverse, and each event platform or setup will carry different considerations for speakers.

Your goal will be to use the features and functionality at your disposal to engage your audience throughout your session. It’s important, as you draft your script and presentation deck, to design each element of your presentation to maximize its value, accessibility, and enable attendees to engage with the content.

To do so, ask each of these questions as you start to work on your presentation, so you maximize the engagement tools at your disposal:

Are sessions live or pre-recorded?

Will you present live-streamed to an audience, or will you pre-record your session? If you are presenting live, you will need to thoroughly practice your presentation to avoid potential day-of issues with your slides and to make sure you leave enough time for audience Q&A. If your session is pre-recorded, you can plan to spend your session slot engaging directly with your session attendees through the event platform’s chat capabilities as your recording plays.

What is scheduled before your session?

Does your session follow a short break, a long networking lunch, or a prolonged set of back-to-back break out sessions? This context can help you understand what mindset your attendees enter your session with. If your audience has been sitting for a while, you will have to work harder to get their attention, so it’s great to start off with audience participation like a poll or short activity. If they’ve been in social mode before your session, start off with a startling piece of data or other Tweetable insight, to seamlessly meld into their social activities while shifting their focus to your session.

Is there dedicated audience Q&A time?

How much time from your session is designed to be saved for answering questions from attendees? This will help you effectively time your presentation. When you have an engaging session, and introduce numerous new ideas to your audience, it’s only natural they will want to ask follow-up questions. If the schedule doesn’t allow time for live Q&A, offer up your preferred social handle or method of content as a way to keep the conversation flowing.

What are the participant-to-speaker chat capabilities?

How can session attendees engage with you and session attendees? Does the event platform have a built-in direct messaging feature? These details can help you understand how you can directly engage with session attendees during the flow of the presentation.

Is there a moderator?

Will a moderator from the event team join your session to help coordinate audience Q&A? Or, are you expected to keep an eye on text chat and answer questions throughout the session? It’s also important to know if attendees are able to ask questions live via voice, which usually works best at the end of the session.

Will the session be available for replay, and when?

Will session replays be available for all attendees? If so, when will they be available and where are they posted? This can help you set attendee expectations for when they can review the content, and give you a timeline for your post-event promotion strategy.

Once you know the answer to each of the above questions and have reviewed any speaker prep resources from the event hosts, you are ready to start building your presentation.

How to Engage a Virtual Presentation Audience

Once you confirm the core details for your session, you can begin to build a presentation that fits within those time requirements and within the event platform’s technical capabilities. While there’s no denying the innate challenges of presenting to a virtual audience, the #ContentChat community has shared a number of ways to effectively engage virtual audiences. Here are a few of the most-mentioned activities designed to drive engagement during your virtual presentation:

Add polls and audience questions. Include polls and questions in your presentation. If presenting live, wait for answers in your live chat before moving on. If your session is pre-recorded, schedule a Tweet with poll functionality to go live roughly when you will get to that part of your presentation.
Be available for live Q&A. If your session is pre-recorded, be available for live chat questions on the event platform or via social media to engage with questions both during and after your session. If you are presenting live, time your session to leave 10 minutes at the end for Q&A, and provide alternative methods of continuing the conversation with you after the event. For example, I always share my Twitter handle, and invite attendees to join a future #ContentChat Twitter chat.
Create a collaborative doc. If your event platform provides basic capabilities for messaging and attendee collaboration, consider creating a shared document that everyone can access and brainstorm on. If it doesn’t have those capabilities, create a Google doc and share the link in your presentation deck.
Offer post-session meetings. Maureen Jann recommends you offer a 30-minute meeting with attendees to answer any questions they have. Share a Calendly link for attendees to easily schedule time to meet with you.
Use personal or “fun” images and examples. We do not recommend you include gratuitous pictures of puppies and kittens to keep your attendees engaged, but strategic and relevant use of cute or fun images or pop culture examples can keep your audience engaged. For example, when I talk about working-from-home, I often share a photo of my home office mates—who just happen to be adorable bulldogs.

P.S. Here’s that slide with Kupo from #MPb2B for reference. #ContentChat pic.twitter.com/xi6cbrvzKU
— Erika Heald | Content Marketing Consultant (@SFerika) October 18, 2021

Provide a session roadmap. As simple as it may sound, you want to tell your audience what they will learn right up front, including what resources you plan to share. Then, provide waypoints as you go so they know you will deliver on your promise. This can help alleviate attendee anxiety and enable them to fully focus on the presentation. Otherwise, you may have a flurry of questions throughout the session about things you haven’t gotten to quite yet in your presentation flow.
Use unique visuals or props. Most virtual presentations are just the speaker talking to their webcam with an accompanying slide deck, which is perfectly OK. However, anything that deviates from this standard will naturally grab your audience’s attention. Consider using custom visuals for your slides, or use props that complement your session content. I still remember the surprise and joy of seeing Ann Handley present virtually using a set of hand-drawn slides.

The above are just a few key ways to engage your virtual audience, but there are so many other ideas you can explore. What engages you as an online event attendee? Do you have examples you can share? Let us know in the comments or Tweet us @ErikaHeald.

A Day-of Speaking Checklist for Hitting Your Online Presentation Out of the Park

Regardless of if your virtual speaking session is pre-recorded or live-streamed, there are several steps you want to take on the day of your session to maximize its success (and limit the potential for last-minute hiccups).

Be sure to check off each of these steps on the day of your presentation:

Update your computer so it does not update and restart during your presentation.
Sign in to your event’s video conferencing software and double-check your surroundings. Declutter anything that is in view of your webcam that doesn’t make a positive impact.
Run through your presentation one last time, ideally with a trusted colleague or team member that can provide feedback. This is especially important if you had someone help you build your deck or write your script.
If you consistently run over the allotted time for your session, remove a portion of your presentation and include it as a bonus resource for download.
Pre-schedule social media posts that promote your session. Create posts for the morning of your event, 15 minutes before your session starts, and the start of your session. And don’t forget to add some Tweetable moments to go out during your session, too!
Verify the event hashtag and any associated social media communities that you should monitor.
Double-check the links to and permission settings of any resources you plan to share with attendees.
Breathe. You’re going to do great.

How to Extend the Value of Your Digital Session

It takes a lot of time to prepare and present at an online event. And you don’t want your efforts to be one-and-done with your return on investment.

Once your session is over, repurpose your slides and script to create a series of social media posts that spotlight actionable tips from your presentation. If you created any attendee downloads, be sure to re-share those on social media, too.

If you were unable to answer all of your attendee questions, or if attendees seemed especially interested in specific parts of your presentation, create new content that explores those areas. This can include a detailed blog post, an e-book or workbook, or a conversation on social media.

If the event hosts allow it, you can even share your session transcript as a blog post so that anyone can find and access your presentation’s insights.

Practice Makes Perfect With Virtual Presentations

Although this may sound cliché, virtual presentations truly get easier with practice. It can feel awkward or uncomfortable to see yourself on camera at first, but I promise this gets easier with time.

By following the steps we detailed above, you’ll have all the preparation you need to confidently present your virtual session and extend its value well after the event is over.

If you have more questions about how to prepare for a virtual presentation, or if you’d like to explore how virtual speaking opportunities can support your thought leadership efforts, send me and my team a message. We’re here to help!

P.S. For even more tips + tricks for creating an engaging virtual presentation, head over to Twitter and check out Tweets from our recent conversation on the topic.

How To Enable Two-Factor Authentication For Your Facebook Account

October 24, 2021 by Erika Heald Leave a Comment

This Summer, after being added to a client’s Facebook Business account, so I could access their analytics as part of a social media audit, I found myself locked out of Facebook messenger. I kept getting notifications that I had messages to read, but I couldn’t actually read any of them.

Eventually, after I attempted to use Facebook to sign in to another app, I found out what was going on—Facebook had flagged me as a business user, and was requiring two-factor authentication on my account.

While I voluntarily have this level of security on other online accounts, it’s not something I opted into for Facebook. But, nevertheless, it’s now something I have to do every time I use my Facebook login anywhere.

You see, this change in Facebook’s functionality—requiring anyone using Facebook’s Business Manager or advertising on Facebook—started around the same time that Apple updated its iOS privacy settings, making it easier to manage—and block—the data that you share with sites like Facebook.

Now, if you don’t allow Facebook to recognize and track your browser, you have to enter an authentication code every time you log in to Facebook or use your Facebook login on another site. Here’s how Facebook positions it:

“We need to be able to remember your computer and browser information so we can recognize it the next time you log in. Some browser features block this. If you’ve turned on private browsing or set up your browser to clear your history every time it closes, you might have to enter a code every time you log in.”

Facebook has pushed out the two-factor authentication requirement to many Facebook page owners, after classifying their pages as business pages. Often, the page owners have no idea what’s going on, and many even consider abandoning their pages and Facebook altogether when they stop being able to access their messages. It was seeing one of my favorite page admins struggling with this process that inspired me to write this post.

Right now, if this happens to you, you have two choices: ditch Facebook or turn on their two-factor authentication. So, if Facebook is an important part of your business, and you need some assistance with figuring out what to do, read on!

What is two-factor authentication?

Given that we live in a primarily digital-first world, having good online security is crucial to protect your data. Two-factor authentication is an incredibly useful line of defense against potential wrongdoers online.

Two-factor authentication is sometimes called two-step verification or dual-factor authentication. These all mean the same thing. Two-factor authentication relies on two elements to confirm your identity when you attempt to access your online accounts from an unrecognized device. Your password is commonly the first factor, and the second factor can be something like a text message with a code to a trusted device, an application that confirms your identity, or something like a fingerprint or face scan.

If someone were to gain access to your account passwords, your two-factor authentication setup can help to stop this person from actually accessing your account. After they use your password to attempt to log in to your account, they will be asked for the second form of verification.

Facebook provides more background on its two-factor authentication here.

How to Enable Your Required Two-Factor Authentication on Facebook

Facebook’s new verification process will first impact Pages with “large followings” in the US, with similar features headed to Instagram soon. We anticipate that two-factor authentication will soon become a standard for all pages on the site.

Setting up two-factor authentication on Facebook can be done in just a few clicks on either the mobile app or through the desktop site. It can be difficult to know where to go, though, so we’ve broken the process down into steps below.

If video is your preferred learning method, you can watch this video Alek on our team recorded to provide a walkthrough of the steps to enable Facebook two-factor authentication on your desktop computer.

How to Enable Facebook Two-Factor Authentication on Your Desktop Computer: Method 1

On the desktop browser, follow these steps to enable two-factor authentication for your Facebook account:

Go to “Settings.” This link should take you there directly.
- Click the dropdown box in the top right menu.
- Select “Setting & Privacy” from the dropdown.
- Select “Settings” from the new menu options.
From the “Settings” menu, select “Security and Login” from the left side (directly below “General”).
From the “Security and Login” menu, scroll down to the “Two-Factor Authentication” section and select “Use two-factor authentication.”
Select your preferred two-factor authentication method:
- Authentication App: If you select this option, you will scan a QR code or enter a code into your preferred third-party authenticator app.
- Text message (SMS): Choose this option to receive a text message (SMS) to receive a verification code.
- Security key: In place of a code, select this option to use a physical security key that you insert into your computer to verify your identity. I use this Yubico security key (Amazon affiliate link) for some of my enterprise client applications.

How to Enable Facebook Two-Factor Authentication on Your Desktop: Method 2

You can also follow these steps to access the two-factor authentication settings on desktop:

Go to “Privacy Shortcuts”
- Click the dropdown box in the top right menu.
- Select “Settings & Privacy” from the dropdown.
- Select “Privacy shortcuts” from the menu.
Select “Use two-factor authentication” from the “Account Security” header
Select your preferred two-factor authentication method (see below for options)

How to Enable Facebook Two-Factor Authentication on Your Mobile Device

You can enable two-factor authentication for Facebook on your mobile device following these steps:

Select “Menu” in the bottom right corner.
Scroll down to and click the “Settings and Privacy” menu.
Select “Settings” from the dropdown.
Click “Password and Security” from the new menu.
Select “Use two-factor authentication” from the “Two-Factor Authentication” section.
Select your preferred two-factor authentication method (see below for options).

Authentication App Options for Facebook’s Two-factor Authentication

If you choose to use an authentication app for two-factor authentication, Facebook recommends two applications: Google Authenticator and Duo Mobile. We recommend you look into other options, too, so that you feel fully secure with your online identity.

As noted by PCMag, you want an authenticator app that will back up the account information in case you lose or replace the phone that you set everything up on. Google Authenticator does not enable this.

While I use Duo Mobile and it generally receives positive reviews, reputable media outlets like The New York Times, Gizmodo, and PCMag all praise Twilio’s Authy as a great authentication option. Microsoft Authenticator and LastPass Authenticator are also strong options depending on your exact needs.

How to Succeed in Your First 90 Days As a New Content Marketing Leader

June 23, 2021 by Erika Heald 2 Comments

Congratulations! You’ve just been hired as the leader of a content marketing team. Now what?

It can be intimidating to step into any new position, regardless of if you are new to the company or just to the role after a long tenure. Then there’s the fact that marketing roles in particular have an increased importance to help teams recover from the initial shock of the pandemic and deliver sustained value for customers.

But don’t take that as meaning you have to overhaul your team’s content strategy right after you walk in the door. There is a misconception that the first 90 days for new leaders is a make-or-break period where they need to immediately generate value or risk losing their position. The truth is that they’ll need at least six months to achieve real impact.

Use these first 90 days to get acquainted with the team, digest the full scope of duties under your new role, assess your team’s shortcomings and opportunities, and then chart a path for success. Here is an overview of how to make the most of your first quarter as a new content marketing leader, based on my own successful in-house and external 90-day plans.

What To Do In The First Week As A New Content Marketing Leader

The first week as a content marketing lead or equivalent role should primarily focus on onboarding, with only light involvement in the strategy and planning elements of the position.

Day One Onboarding Schedule For A New Content Marketing Leader

In general, Day 1 will involve paperwork and familiarizing oneself with their new workspace. Your human resources or similar team will have a few required documents and protocols for you to review and sign on the first day.

We recommend the following schedule for day one as a new marketing leader. If you see any of these areas missing from your team’s planned schedule, introduce these elements into any free time during the first day or week:

Office Tour: If your team primarily works in-person at a company office, start with an office tour. Note where important rooms are, including the break room and bathrooms, and where to find printers, copiers, and medical supplies. If you plan to work remotely for a company with a physical address, ask for a video tour of the office so you can better picture where your team works. If your company does not have a physical office, you can instead start the day with an extended chat with a team member to get to know them and the company better.
Introductions: End the tour at your new desk or office location, and ensure you can log into your work computer or access other required equipment. Familiarize yourself with the workspace, greet any nearby colleagues, and get ready to say hello to the entire team. Send a new hire announcement via your team’s preferred communication channel(s). Include your background, the responsibilities and goals that come with your new role, and any other details you think the team should know. Consider recording a video introduction to further showcase your personality.
HR Paperwork: Your HR team will need you to sign a variety of documents related to their new role and conditions with the company. Ensure you save a copy of all paperwork, both digital and physical, for future reference.
Setup Accounts/Login: Learn how to use your new work equipment, access all necessary accounts, and how to use your video conferencing platform. Review the processes for booking conference rooms, and bookmark any guides or how-to documents that your team shares.
Update Social Media Channels: Update your social media channels to reflect your new role. Be sure to update any channel where you may have a presence, even if you no longer prioritize that channel. Consider deactivating any irrelevant accounts to streamline your efforts and easier maintain your social footprint.
Lunch With Team: Coordinate a casual lunch with your new team, a leadership colleague, or a member of the HR team. This is a chance to genuinely get to know your colleagues in both a personal and professional capacity. If your team is hybrid or remote, consider hosting a virtual lunch hour, and send out delivery service gift cards everyone can use to have lunch on their new boss.
Company Culture Overview: The company culture is possibly one of the most important things for any new hire to quickly learn inside and out. How does the team operate? What motivates them? How do they celebrate with one another? Ask a member of your HR or executive team to discuss the company’s mission and values, and how these translate into the day-to-day operations.
Supervisor 1:1: Connect with your new supervisor to learn more about what is expected of you in your role, how you fit into the team’s overall strategy, and where you should focus your attention in the coming weeks. Ask them what success will look like at your 90-day check-in.

A Typical First Week As A New Content Marketing Leader

Your first day will go by quickly. Anything you are unable to address should carry over to the rest of the first week.

Spend the next days, in part, reviewing any existing marketing plans, materials, and documentation. Get a clear understanding of upcoming campaigns or launches, as well as any hurdles that the team is facing. What opportunities for success can you see over the next six months, and what challenges will they need to overcome? How does the team track its activities?

Specifically, ask to review the following materials (if they exist):

Brand style guide
Marketing plans for both the previous and current year
Editorial calendar for the current year
Quarterly, annual, and monthly marketing dashboards or KPI reporting
Team roles and responsibilities document or job descriptions
Marketing SWOT analysis
Company blog, social media, and other channel-specific guides or audits
Buyer personas and customer buyer’s journey maps

In addition to reviewing existing materials, schedule 1:1 meetings with each of your direct reports, your peers, and content marketing stakeholders across the organization. The goal of these meetings is to gain an understanding of content marketing’s role in your organization and start building relationships that will help the team be successful. Align on how to best work and communicate with your stakeholders inside and outside of the marketing team, and seek to understand their top priorities.

By the end of your first week, you should be able to answer (or know where to find the answer to):

Who are my direct reports, what are their roles, and how do they support the marketing team’s goals
What tools and technology does my team use for marketing, and how do I access those tools
When is the marketing team’s next big campaign or launch, and how is the content marketing program supporting it
What challenges does the content marketing team currently face

A 90-Day Plan For New Content Marketing Leaders

The first week will likely pose more questions than it answers, and that’s to be expected. The goal is to get a high level view of everything you influence, and the following weeks will dive into specifics—what are your team’s goals, and what will they actually do to accomplish these?

During the first month, become familiar with the nuts and bolts of your Martech stack and how your team conducts its work. Explore how your team creates content and how content distribution strategies vary (or not) across different types of content.

Months two and three will involve activating your team’s plans. As you start working on essential marketing activities, like content creation, social media management, and other forms of stakeholder communications, you can compare those initial conversations with the realities of how your team gets things done.

Observe how the team works when there is a task at hand, and identify any potential internal struggles that your team encounters. The goal is to simply observe how the team operates and note some areas you want to follow up on. Wait until you have a full reading of the team before attempting to introduce new processes or revamp how the team works (if that is even necessary). While you may be tempted to immediately change up the way the team works, absolutely no one wants to hear “this is how I’ve always done it” from a new leader who hasn’t yet given the team the opportunity to show you their working style in action.

The 3-Month Content Marketing Strategy

As a new content marketing leader—in addition to lots of relationship building, watching and learning how the team works together and what their existing processes look like—it’s a good time to review existing content strategy documentation and audit your content marketing channels.

Here are the strategy elements I always review and update or create documentation for in my first 90-days on the job:

Content Inventory and Audit

Audit the team’s blog and any other external content hubs. This helps you become familiar with your team’s content strategy and identify pieces of content that should be refreshed. We explain how to complete this audit step-by-step and provide a free content audit template in this post. At a high level, capture the title, date, and key KPIs for the past year of content on your blog. KPIs can include page views, comments, social shares, and clickthrough rate.

Blog Channel Plan

Once you have an idea of your most successful blog content, review the team’s plan for the next six months of blog content. Apply any learnings from your audit that the team may have previously overlooked when developing its plan. Review the priority topics, planned posting cadence, and key details about your blog creation process.

Blog Editorial Guidelines and Guest Posting

One final company blog-related onboarding element is your team’s editorial guidelines and guest post solicitation strategy. Seek to understand the ideal guest authors for your company blog, the preferred format of their content—including word count, topic areas, and formatting considerations—and your plan to build a relationship with them. It can help to develop a blog post planning and submissions template for both guest bloggers and your internal team members, incorporating your best practices and blog strategy.

Contributed Content Strategy

What are the key media outlets and industry websites your team hopes to place its content in? What is the goal of these activities, and what is your team’s approach? Document this strategy, if it is not already written.

Social Media Channel Audit

Review the success of the team’s social media activities, and assess how the team can refine its approach. We share a free template to get you started and plenty of tips from other marketers in this #ContentChat recap. For this audit, you will document all of the brand’s social media channels, review engagement levels on the content, and assess your competition’s social strategy.

Social Influencer Strategy Review and Documentation

Social media influencers are increasingly powerful as a marketing avenue. Does your team have a social media influencer strategy? If not, ask them to begin researching potential influencers that your team can work to engage with on social. If a plan is currently in place, what has its measurable impact been? How much traffic has it driven to your website, and has any of it turned into sales?

Conference and Events Strategy

Discuss the team’s conferences and events strategy. What events will the team attend, and what does the engagement look like (i.e., will you exhibit, speak, or attend)? How is success defined for these engagements?

(Re)Branding.

Once you’ve internalized your company mission and values, review your team’s website, social media channels, and other content properties to see if they align with your company’s intended branding. Should the team update its company descriptions, profile or header images, or other ways that the company is positioned? Have you defined and consistently used a unique brand voice that differentiates your content from that created by the rest of your industry and competitors?

Get Your Content Marketing Leadership Role Off on the Right Foot

If you address all the foundational elements of your new role in the first 90 days, you are better prepared to activate your team and launch content that will drive actual results. You are also ready to revise—or draft for the first time—core documentation of the content marketing team’s mission, vision, and values, and how that will be put into action in your content marketing program. This core content marketing documentation includes:

Style guide. What is your brand voice and personality, and how do these carry through in your communications? What branding elements should the team be aware of? Ensure you can access your team style guide, and connect with a member of your design team to answer any questions.
Content strategy. Building on your blog channel plan, how does the team coordinate its entire content ecosystem and related workflows? What templates or documents does the team use to submit requests or draft works?
Integrated editorial calendar. Where can you get a cross-functional look at your team’s editorial plan? A shared document is essential to discourage departmental silos that cause duplicate efforts and wasted team resources. The calendar should detail the key editorial topics, planned pieces of content by channel, and upcoming subject matter expert, customer, or other interviews that will inform the content.

It’s important, as you develop this documentation, that it comes from a place of trust and understanding. Collaborate with the content marketing team members on this documentation, and solicit their feedback for process improvements. Show that you’re here to work with them and find solutions to their challenges, not to overhaul everything they know for no reason. Meet with your supervisor and colleagues at least once every-other week to ask about how they are doing, how you are performing, and any ways that they can better support the team in your role.

To help get you started on the right foot, use our 90-day planning grid for new content marketing leaders. It discusses the main activities for day, week, and month one, as well as 31-90 days into your role.