Content Catchup: The Best Branded Content of 2014, BuzzFeed’s Secret Weapon, and More Must-Read Stories

This week’s must-read stories, for when you’re going over the river and through the woods to sit around with your family on Easter staring at your phone…

The Best Branded Content of 2014 So Far

Some people consume a lot of reality TV; I consume a lot of branded content. (It’s a pretty strange life, to be honest.) And I can say one thing with certainty: It’s getting a lot better. Here, I examine some of the best efforts so far this year. Read it.

What Brands Don’t Understand About YouTube

According to Touchstorm’s Video Index, only 74 of the top 5,000 channels on YouTube belong to brands. The Content Strategist’s Amanda Walgrove breaks down what brands don’t get about the platform:

“For brands, YouTube creators offer built-in audiences of loyal and engaged viewers. They’re are the ones you want to learn from—and work with. Having built their own multi-channel networks from scratch, they’re the most successful people in the space, and they know how to make a creative and conversational sell.” Read it.

State of Content Marketing 2014

In our latest report, Contently co-founder Shane Snow weighs in on the state of the content marketing industry. If you work in the industry, it’s:

“Revolution. That’s the term Brian Alvey, the man who built the software underlying three generations of digital publishers, uses to describe a buzz that has reached a crescendo over the last twelve months: Advertisers don’t want to just make ads that run alongside other people’s content anymore; a surging number of them want to be publishers themselves.” Read it.

How Red Bull, AmEx, and Dove Win By Proudly Branding Their Content

At Contently, we always hear brand publishers wondering about how strongly they should brand their content. It’s one of the industry’s biggest questions, and Celine Roque weighs in, looking at some brands who do it well—starting with this amazing hook:

“If Beyoncé worked in content marketing, she might sing, ‘If you liked it then you should have put your brand on it.'” Read it.

This Data Scientist Is BuzzFeed’s Secret Weapon

The Content Strategist’s Sam Petulla tracked down BuzzFeed’s secret weapon—Ky Harlin, the viral darling’s director of data science. Then, he grilled him for his secrets. See what he found out. Read it.