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The #ContentChat Bulletin

Erika Heald is the host of the weekly #ContentChat LinkedIn Live video podcast for content marketers, held Mondays at noon Pacific. As a B2B marketing consultant, she helps organizations define and execute content marketing strategies that drive business and professional growth. As a creator, and gluten-free blogger helping people discover gut-friendly farm-to-table food. She frequently speaks at B2B marketing industry events on employee brand advocacy, content strategy, customer experience, AI readiness, and social media topics. You can find her on her blogs erikaheald.com and erikasglutenfreekitchen.com.

Featured Post

The #ContentChat Bulletin: AI Didn’t Break Your Content Strategy—It Revealed Its Gaps

Everyone wants AI to repurpose their content magically. Turn a webinar into a blog post. A blog post into LinkedIn posts. A case study into sales enablement. And when it doesn’t work cleanly, we blame the prompts or the tool. But if your AI-generated repurposing feels messy, inconsistent, or exhausting to supervise, the issue usually isn’t the technology. It’s the infrastructure behind it. Repurposing isn’t just a productivity tactic. It’s a content maturity diagnostic. When derivative...

I've always been a "don't let the carrots touch the mashed potatoes on the plate" kind of person. In the early days of social media, it meant having a handful of different Twitter accounts, each focused on different facets of my interests. It took years before I friended work colleagues on Facebook. I've been keeping up that vigilance here, too, for months. But this Monday, I am beyond tired. So, I am going to share something with you that I shared on my personal accounts late last week....

I launched my book, Content Foundations, two weeks ago, and have gotten to catch up with so many of my favorite people to talk content strategy and governance. What was interesting (and not so surprising) is how many folks confided that they couldn't imagine being able to find the time to write a book. But here's the thing: those same people are always creating—podcasts, presentations, blog posts, books. But too often, we treat each piece of content like a one-time special edition of one...

Does this sound familiar? "We're creating more content than ever with the help of AI… but it doesn't get any easier." More channels. More contributors. More AI-assisted drafts. More pressure to publish faster. AI was supposed to lift us out of our never ending list of low-value to-dos. And yet, here we are struggling with more friction, more rework, and more "this doesn't sound like us" conversations. That's not a creativity problem. It's not a tools problem. And it's definitely not an AI...

It's been a heck of a year, which makes it even more essential to pause and reflect on our intentions for next year. No, I'm not talking about setting New Year's resolutions—it's about using reflection as a strategic checkpoint to assess what's working, what's not, and how to align your 2026 content strategy with your brand's evolving goals and voice. For the past 15 years, I've made a point of walking through a set of intentional reflection prompts to help me enter the new year with focus...

If there’s one thing the MarketingProfs B2B Forum reinforced this year, it’s this: community isn’t just a byproduct of great content—it is the strategy. Yes, the sessions were outrageously insightful. But it was the hallway chats, the LinkedIn follow-ups, and the in between times that turned insight into action. Those real-time conversations sparked ideas I’m already building into my 2026 content plans and governance materials. When your community actively shapes your voice, priorities, and...

I recently hosted a really fun and empowering webinar for the MarketingProfs team on how to use AI to personalize content without losing your brand voice, as part of their Marketing Writing Bootcamp: AI Edition. I received my best-ever rave reviews from attendees who felt that it really connected with them and their significant challenges at work. I mean, one attendee wrote, "It was the most helpful, actionable webinar I have ever attended." Can you imagine how wide my smile was reading that?...

Four weeks ago tomorrow, my partner brought home a one-week old kitten that had been found abandoned at the elementary school where he is a school nurse. When we couldn't find him a placement with any local rescues, he brought the little one home to me. The kitten was so small you could close your palm around him, and his eyes were sealed shut. But man, could the little fluff ball scream! I've never raised a kitten (though a childhood kitten had kittens, but Flossie did all that hard work...

One of the recurring themes I heard at MAICON last week was presented in Paul Roetzer's opening remarks: “Within 1–2 years, AI model advancements and agent capabilities will force a radical transformation of talent, teams, and organizational structures. Leaders face conflicting pressures to take a responsible, human-centered approach to AI adoption, while leveraging AI for near-term gains in efficiency, productivity, creativity, and profitability.” While many organizations have focused on the...

As a content marketer, I absolutely NEVER feel like my team and our resources is enough to do what has to be done. So how does a nonprofit organization like Slow Food USA stay on message and create a vibrant community across hundreds of local chapters, and pull together an event like the recent Terre Madres America with only two staff members, neither of whom is a content person? That was the biggest question on my mind as I volunteered at the content-rich, exceptionally inspiring event a...