Lessons from Obama, Facebook Goes to the Dogs, Blogging and Swearing

The Strategist picks the day’s most relevant and interesting stories about the world of content from around the web. Here’s what you should be reading today:

Learning Marketing from Obama’s Win

Todd Wasserman of Mashable writes about the lessons that marketers can learn from President Obama’s second term win Tuesday.

Big Data was crucial —New York Times writer Nate Silver used it to predict Obama’s win. The Obama campaign also used Facebook ads, made great use of social media sites like Reddit (remember the thread that blew up on the site?), Twitter, and Facebook.

Kibbles ‘n Bits’ Facebook Game

Kibbles ‘n Bits has released a retro 8-bit game on Facebook designed to promote its dog food products.

According to ClickZ, it targets 40- to 45-year-old women who own dogs and are active on Farmville and other social games on Facebook.

Joan Voight writes, “One key advantage of using a vintage and nostalgic game is to indirectly remind consumers that Kibbles ‘n Bits products, owned by Del Monte Foods, have been around for about 30 years.”

Blogging and Curse Words

Heather Lloyd-Martin of Success Works debates whether or not being herself and cursing in her blogs is valuable. The bigger argument is whether or not people value bloggers being real and conversational.

She points out Erika Napoletano of Redhead Writing and Johnny B. Truant, both accomplished writers, who curse in their works. One of the key factors in figuring out whether or not a blogger should write how they talk in real life is to determine what his or her audience will tolerate.

Freelancers and the Election

Shane Snow (of Contently) reports in and the Washington Post on freelancers and solopreneurs in America and how the election results might affect them.

Snow says that although freelancers are quickly becoming an integral part of the U.S. work force, they are often over-looked. They “face unique challenges in finding work, managing cash flow, filing business taxes, getting paid promptly, and navigating regulations,” he writes.

While President Obama reallocated money during his first term to track the freelance movement, it remains, overall, ignored.

NaNoWriMo: Are You Doing It?

November is National Novel Writing Month, where writers all around the world work on finishing novels that are at least 50,000 words long.

According to Writer Terence Toh, “Established in 1999 by American freelance writer Chris Baty, NaNoWriMo attracted 256,618 participants worldwide last year with 36,843 exceeding the 50,000-word minimum required.”

Books written during NaNoWriMo include The Night Circus and Water for Elephants.

Content Marketing on Google+

Shannon Mallon of Content Marketing Institute gives suggestions on how to succeed with content marketing on Google+. Brands need to have a presence on the site by setting up a Gmail, a profile, and posting regularly.

She points to H&M, which has over 1.5 million followers on the site and posts teasers of upcoming clothing lines, photos, and videos from YouTube. Companies should build communities by creating circles and producing Hangouts, and promote content by posting it on external websites.

Google+ is highly effective because all the content automatically shows up on the search engine: “Anytime you post content to Google+, Google immediately indexes it, giving you faster exposure. What’s more, your content is more likely to appear in your contacts’ online searches, thanks to personalized search.”

Older Obama on Businessweek Cover

The Huffington Post reports why Businessweek chose to portray Obama as an older man with gray hair on the cover of its latest issue.

On the cover, it says “The Next Four Years.” Editors chose to put out this cover because “no matter how successful he is, the hardest job in the world will take its toll.”