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.
The #ContentChat Bulletin: Have You Found Your Happy Place in the Content Community?
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Do you have the peer support and network you need to grow and sustain your content marketing career? That’s one of the things my colleagues and I included in the content maturity assessment we launched as The Content Academy for Operations and Strategy (CAOS for short) at the Content Marketing World in San Diego. In the midst of questions delving into how much leadership buy-in you have for your content strategy (and whether it’s documented), this question may have caught some of those taking the assessment off guard. And that’s OK! In the six months we spent developing the assessment, we spent a significant amount of time talking through the elements that made content successful in our past in-house and agency jobs, and the pitfalls we saw with our clients. While Carman, Pamela, and I have had very different roles over the past three decades, we all had one big thing in common—we connected with other content professionals through social media, conferences, and both local and online communities. Building these friendships—and sometimes partnerships—with our peers helped us see possibilities we hadn’t considered for our content and our teams. We traded outcomes and frameworks and helped each other make the business case for taking a more strategic approach to content. By harnessing the smarts and experiences of our peers, we were able to accelerate timelines for making big changes in content operations. And, just as importantly, we had people who understood what it felt like when a new CMO came on board and forbade the use of the Oxford comma or decided content should report to the product team or implemented Jira as our new content planning tool. For me, one of those early content communities was the #ContentChat Twitter chat. It feels like a lifetime ago that we would gather every Monday at lunchtime on the West Coast / Coffee break time on the East Coast, and share our best practices and favorite tools and resources from the clickety-clack of our desktop keyboards. While there ain’t no going back to the old days of Twitter chats, today we have Slack and Discord communities, Threads, MeetUps, and so many other ways to find our content people and learn how to do our best work, together. Each year, we publish a series of posts in December that act as our gift to the content marketing community. This year, I want to curate a list of our #ContentChat community’s favorite content communities. And I’m also planning on activating our ContentChat MeetUp as a regular recurring place where we can share challenges and resources and share in that sense of community. But to do this, I need your help. Hit reply and let me know the names + URLs of your favorite content communities, and give me the scoop on what makes them special. I can’t wait to create a collaborative resource to help the content community find new ways to connect. BTW if you want to benchmark your organization’s content maturity, take a look at our assessment overview, and set aside 10 minutes when you won’t be interrupted so you can give the questions some thought. After all, it’s an assessment, not a Cosmo Quiz. There are no right or wrong answers—just the honest ones. We’ll help you understand where you are now with your content and where to go next. If you provide your email address, we’ll even send you a tailored list of resources to help you get to the next stage. I can’t wait to be part of your content (r)evolution. Coming Up on #ContentChatContent Chat is my weekly LinkedIn Live video chat focused on sharing expertise and ideas amongst the content marketing community. Join the conversation on Mondays at noon Pacific / 3 p.m. Eastern. RSVP for our upcoming conversations by clicking the chat date below to get a reminder and to access the chat.
Get Involved with #ContentChat
Join My MarketingProfs B2B Forum session!If you’re in Boston for MarketingProfs’ B2B Forum next week, I’d love to see you at my session on Nov. 13 from 4:50-5:35 p.m. I’ll be talking about the essential building blocks to scale content creation. I’ll share the foundational elements you need in place to ensure a smooth integration of AI into your marketing operations, helping you achieve a consistent brand voice across every customer touchpoint. I'm also looking for gluten-free friendly folks to have dinner with throughout the conference. So, please say hi! Content Marketing + Related JobsVP, Content, Writer. Sr. Content Marketing Manager, Whatfix. Content Marketing Manager, Kharon. Sr. Content Marketing Manager, Nylas. Content Marketing Strategist, OpenText. Content Marketing Specialist, Presto. Send Us Your Content Jobs!If you have a content marketing contract position, full-time job, or freelancer opportunity, reply to this email and let us know. We are always happy to share jobs with the community at no cost. ICYMICAOS Content Maturity Assessment. The Trust Insights RAPPEL AI Prompt Framework. AI & the Human Connection: Highlights from Content Marketing World. Costco Has a Magazine and It’s Thriving. [#ContentChat Recap] Writing Great AI Prompts for Content Marketing. Don't forget tomorrow is Election Day here in the U.S.—be sure to let your voice count! Cheers, Erika |
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.
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