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Conversations and resources for small business, startup, and solopreneur content marketing and social media.

How to Create A Thought Leadership Platform that Earns People’s Trust

January 18, 2021 by Erika Heald Leave a Comment

Of all the buzzwords and phrases surrounding marketing—unlike the desire to “go viral” or an obsession with “growth hacking”—”thought leadership” remains a concept of great potential (and confusion) for brands.

A joint Edelman and LinkedIn study reinforced the value of thought leadership and showed that thought leadership could have a significant impact on a company’s long-term viability:

Nearly half of business decision-makers spend one hour or more a week reading thought leadership content, with almost one in four spending four or more hours
Based on the quality of this content, half of the decision-makers say it is useful in influencing their purchasing decisions
42% are willing to pay a premium to work with an organization that produces thought leadership versus those that do not

However, the issue is that 74% of teams have no way to link sales or wins to their thought leadership. And simply producing thought leadership content does not guarantee success, as poorly crafted content can even decrease a company’s reputation.

So, what exactly is thought leadership, and how can brands engage in these activities in a successful way? Let’s explore the essential elements of a thought leadership platform and the activities that your team can pursue.

What is Thought Leadership?

An individual or brand reaches “thought leader” status when they become commonly associated with a specific topic or area of interest. Thought leaders are trusted voices in their space, and people look to them for their take on the latest trends, predictions, and cross-industry implications of the thought leadership topic of interest.

Many immediately recognizable thought leaders also happen to be C-suite leadership at global companies. For example, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff is praised as a thought leader in cloud computing. IBM Executive Chairman and former CEO Ginni Rometty is a thought leader in quantum computing. But any person can become a thought leader regardless of their title or the size of their company.

An important thing to understand is that thought leadership is built through a series of consistent and calculated efforts that enmesh your brand and spokesperson in whichever space you target. It is not a finish line to cross or a box to check off your to-do list. Further, you should not expect to become a thought leader overnight. Thought leadership activities take several months—if not years—before they translate into ROI.

Can Brands Be Thought Leaders?

A quick point of clarification: thought leadership requires a spokesperson driving the activities. There are a few reasons for this. First, thought leadership involves an element of trust and respect that is earned, and people more readily trust other people, not brands. Second, thought leadership requires a person whose experience has given them a unique point of view. Further, contrary to the author’s byline on some company blogs, a brand doesn’t create content—people do!

Your brand needs to claim its unique position in its industry. A successful thought leadership strategy hinges on having a trusted and engaged thought leader to embody and give a face to your brand’s thought leadership position.

17 Marketing Industry Events You Need to Attend in 2021

December 30, 2020 by Alek Irvin Leave a Comment

Industry events and conferences can be immensely valuable for brands and individuals alike, presenting opportunities to catch up on the latest trends, network with other professionals in the space, and learn how to more efficiently drive results.

With the massive shift in favor of digital or hybrid digital/in-person event experiences in 2021 and beyond, it’s easier than ever to access a range of events tailored to any marketing need. Which presents a time management challenge: how do I find the right events for my needs, and how can I optimize my time at an industry event?

To help, we’ve collected more than 15 marketing industry events to attend in 2021, covering everything from content marketing and demand generation to social media strategy and sales enablement.

Once you find events that pique your interest, check out this post to explore what type of event engagement you should pursue. Keep in mind that the majority of these events have a fee to attend (great content takes resources). And those registration fees typically increase as the event draws closer, so you should act fast to lock in a low rate.

Or, if your team is planning its own event, read through these tips on how to make the digital event experience engaging for your audience.

If we’re missing your favorite marketing industry conference, let us know in the comments! We’ll update this post throughout the year to keep you updated as new events are announced, so keep this bookmarked so you can check back as more are added.

15 Free Chrome Browser Extensions Every Digital Marketer Should Add

December 28, 2020 by Alek Irvin Leave a Comment

A marketer’s day often involves a dizzying mix of tasks, bouncing from writing blog posts and crafting social media content to recording a podcast or designing a digital event experience.

Efficiency is the name of the game when balancing such a diverse to-do list, and savvy marketers know the value of digital tools to help them complete whatever content needs they face.

Luckily, some of the best tools are free to use and available through any marketer’s best friend—an internet browser. These digital marketing browser extensions provide a seamless experience and fast track almost any content needs. The hardest part is finding the right browser extensions for marketing, so we’ve asked the #ContentChat community and other marketing pros about their picks.

The Content Marketer’s Toolbox: Browser Extensions to Download

We recommend these browser extensions (in alphabetical order) to help with the range of tasks that content marketers face in their day-to-day.

Of note, this list focuses on those extensions available through the Google Chrome browser, but many are also available on other top browsers like Safari, Mozilla Firefox, and Microsoft Edge.

Spelling & Grammar Browser Extensions

Writing is the bread-and-butter of any marketing role, so a spelling and grammar check browser extension is a must-have.

There are several options to fit this need, and Grammarly is highest-recommended by our community. That said, each free option has varying capabilities, and some writers will naturally appreciate the interface of specific tools over others. We recommend you explore each of these to find the option that works best for your needs:

Digital Marketing Browser Extensions

Content creation is just one part of a marketer’s role, with search engine optimization, graphic design, and other tasks taking increasing priority. These are some of the top browser extensions to meet a range of digital marketing needs:

Alexa Traffic Rank: Need a quick look at a website’s traffic? The Alexa Traffic Rank extension is perfect for a general gauge of how popular a website is. The tool shows global traffic rank, plus the rank in whichever country the site best performs. This is useful when researching high-authority domains or trying to prioritize different opportunities based on traffic. As with most free tools, the details are limited, though, and we recommend you explore paid options if this tool is short of what you need.
Bitly: Quickly create and share shortened, trackable URLs. This extension gives you all of Bitly’s website features within your browser.
Calendly: This extension expands the value of your free Calendly account and enables you to view and schedule meetings right from your browser.
ColorPick Eyedropper: The design-minded content marketer will love ColorPick, as it gives the hexadecimal, RGB, or HSL color code of anything on your screen. The extension can also help you create a color palette based on the color you select.
ColorZilla: Unsure if ColorPick is right for you? Give ColorZilla a try! The two provide similar features with a different user experience, so your pick will depend on how design-focused your role is.
Dictanote: This note-taking and organizing tool is notable for enabling speech-to-text so that you can take notes by talking.
Evernote Web Clipper: “Better than a bookmark,” this tool lets you save web pages, articles, and PDFs that you can then annotate and organize in just a few clicks.
GIPHY: Why say it with text when you can say it with GIF? Send GIFs and stickers easier than ever using this tool.
Headline Studio: Expanding on the immensely valuable CoSchedule headline analyzer, the Headline Studio extension allows you to draft and analyze headlines on any website. The tool even has a built-in thesaurus and word bank so you can add unique power, emotional, and uncommon words that make your headlines pop.
LastPass: If you struggle with remembering your passwords or need help creating unique passwords to strengthen your online security, LastPass is a great tool that securely stores and auto-fills your passwords.
SEMrush SEO Writing Assistant: Although this is technically an add-on for Google Docs or WordPress, we couldn’t skip recommending this incredible SEO tool. It checks your content for SEO-friendliness in real time based on your target keywords, with everything from a plagiarism checker and tone of voice analysis to a link checker and recommended keywords.
Serpstat: This SEO tool gives a page and domain analysis in just a few clicks, including top keywords, optimization information, and more.
WhatFont: Ever wonder what font a web page uses? WhatFont has you covered.

Extensions That Meet Any Digital Marketing Need

The above tools are just a few of our favorites, but there are plenty more that you can try. Google Chrome has a writing essentials page with 40+ extensions that could help supercharge your writing, for starters.

Did we miss your favorite browser extension? Let us know in the comments! Tell us the extension name and how it makes your day-to-day more manageable, and we will update this list as relevant.

How to Complete a Marketing SWOT Analysis for Smarter 2021 Planning

December 9, 2020 by Alek Irvin Leave a Comment

When marketing tactics are falling flat, teams have various ways to investigate why they cannot meet their goals. Social media account, blog, and other channel-specific audits are invaluable for informing targeted adjustments. Still, there is one incredibly valuable—although resource-intense—way to explore how each of these and much more is factoring into the team’s success: a marketing SWOT analysis.

A marketing SWOT analysis is the most effective way to understand your holistic marketing program’s results and identify ways to increase the likelihood of meeting your goals (and staying in business). The process is thorough and can be daunting for those unfamiliar with the steps. Still, there are several ways to stay focused during your analysis so that it can drive meaningful results instead of trapping your team in an endless analysis paralysis loop of evaluation and brainstorming.

What is a (Marketing) SWOT Analysis?

Simply put, a SWOT analysis is a framework that your marketing team can use to assess your team’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT).

Strengths and weaknesses generally involve internal factors that your team controls, whereas opportunities and threats are external factors, like general market conditions and your competitive landscape.

The SWOT framework helps inform many business planning processes—and you’ll almost always want a cross-departmental team to inform the analysis—but we’re going to focus just on marketing applications here.

We recommend that you conduct a formal SWOT analysis at least once a year. You can complete more frequent mini-analyses to help you stay ahead of the trends. This also allows you to pivot sooner rather than later if there is evidence that your strategy may underperform.

Why Should Your Team Conduct a Marketing SWOT Analysis?

This strategic process ensures that your team is taking a full look at the factors that could impact your success, both internal and external. During the analysis, your marketing team will get a 360 look at your organization and leverage insights from other departments to ensure you’ve considered all angles and priorities.

Here are just a few ways that a marketing SWOT analysis can benefit your team:

Hard data is better than assumptions. Teams should not build a year-long program simply based on someone’s gut feeling or because “this is how we’ve always done it.” The SWOT analysis will gather data to either reinforce or challenge assumptions, allowing your team to make informed decisions.
Organizational alignment drives efficiencies. Because the SWOT analysis involves members from your entire organization, teams can become better aligned on their priorities and understand what each group is focused on and creating.
Overcome creative hurdles. If your team feels stuck on what to do next or how to approach a new campaign, a SWOT analysis can often fast-track your brainstorming and find a more viable solution to drive the desired results.

Employee Experience: Taking a Page from the Customer Experience Playbook

February 14, 2020 by Erika Heald Leave a Comment

Companies across industries are racing to provide the ultimate customer experience, with many viewing it as the main battleground for earning today’s business.

The investment is paying off for brands that are transforming their customer experiences—companies on average report a 4% higher revenue growth, complemented by a 1.9x higher year-over-year growth in customer retention, repeat purchases, and average order value compared to businesses that are not investing in the customer experience.

These results are not easily earned, however, and the process involves advanced data analysis to track the customer journey and optimize each step. Often, there are three or more pre-purchase customer touchpoints that marketers have to track, and purchase cycles can easily take more than four months for some industries.

Despite these hurdles, companies are doing everything they can to win on the customer experience. But what if companies applied these same strategies to transforming another key experience in a company—the employee experience? In many cases, a company’s employees are not receiving the same focus as the customers, and it’s hurting your bottom line.

To truly be future-ready, companies must invest in both the customer and the employee experience to reach optimal business performance. Luckily, you can take a page from the customer experience playbook to transform your employee experience.