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: Why Marketing Content is not Content Marketing
|
It's probably an anomaly that it's taken nearly 10 years of volunteering with shelter animals to have one of them happily poop on me. But that just happened. She was a Frenchie with coloring very similar to my own Kupo's. I'd been giving her all the scritches and scratchies. She'd been having an amazing time. Then, all of a sudden, she hopped up onto her bed, moving as far away from me as was possible in her kennel. I misinterpreted it, at first, as her being overstimulated and done with our interaction. But once I realized I now had fresh dog poo on my legs and shoe, I realized it was something altogether different. I left her enclosure and cleaned myself up. Then I headed to the bin of clean blankets and grabbed one for her bed and another for the floor. I wadded up the floor blanket with its deposits on it and grabbed her bed blanket. In her stress over what had happened, I now could see that she'd wet her bed. I cleaned up her room, added in the new fresh bedding, and gave her some more love. As I walked across the building to take the soiled linens to the laundry, I was stopped by several people who asked what was going on and then thanked me for swapping out their bedding. "Of course! No problem!" I replied. Their thanks were nice, but it got me to thinking. Are we at the point where so few people go above and beyond their job description that when someone does, it's remarkable? Or maybe I'm just surrounded by exceptionally lovely people who want to acknowledge a volunteer who expresses empathy for a sweet mama dog. Regardless, it reminded me of something I think too many people who hire others to be in charge of editorial, founder brand, or thought leadership and comms may have forgotten. Content marketing uses content to connect with people by helping them. Full stop. You may be helping them in their work lives (B2B) or their personal lives (B2C), but it's about THEM. How your content helps that person achieve their goals. To relieve some stress. To get whatever it is they are looking for done. But, most importantly, it's not about your brand. And it's definitely not about your multitude of product features. So many current job descriptions for content marketers seem to misunderstand that marketing content is not the same as content marketing. You can push all the product messaging you want at someone, but they are never going to share that content with their colleagues. It's only when you are outrageously helpful and connect with them on a human-to-human level that your content will break through. Keep this in mind as you work to scale your content with AI. The humans are still the most valuable part of the equation! 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. Follow me on LinkedIn or RSVP for our upcoming conversations by clicking the chat date below to get a reminder and to access the chat.
Until next time, stay safe and be well! 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.
On our road trip to Sea Ranch earlier this month, we listened to the Dungeon Crawler Carl book one audiobook. We've both read the entire series, and thought it would be fun to listen to the much-raved-about audio version while we were in the car for 4+ hours. It was amazing. The voices were on point (and hysterical). And it truly added a whole new dimension to the story. I know many people who regularly listen to audiobooks to squeeze in some book time while commuting or doing mundane...
Kupo and Bulleit enjoying the view on one of our walks in Sea Ranch last weekend. My partner and I trekked to the Coast this past weekend with our bulldogs, taking a long weekend road trip to celebrate my birthday. I wanted to listen to and see the ocean, and have a hot tub available for soaking whenever I wanted. We found a great vacation rental in Sea Ranch that ticked all the boxes. When we arrived and started unpacking, I noticed a few things that made this vacation rental a lot different...
If I were giving today’s #ContentChat talk in person, I wonder if I’d be met by picketers holding signs reading, “Boycott all writers who use AI!” Everywhere I’ve gone online over the past two weeks, I’ve seen increased hostility toward AI use, like the Threads post from someone outing another writer for using AI. As it turns out, though, they were using it to create ads to sell their books—not to write the books themselves. Yet, this was somehow still grounds for ruining all the authors’...