Here’s what you missed while searching for content marketing conferences with a 24/7 open bar:
Are you at risk for getting improperly seduced by the marketing automation? Justin Lambert reports:
For anyone responsible for lead generation and nurturing, the idea of automating your marketing holds serious appeal. Just imagine a steady stream of qualified leads being sucked into the top of your funnel and automatically working their way down until they’re paid customers—all with little or no effort on your part. Amazing, right? And that, my friend, is part of the problem. Read it.
Lil Jon is bringing the art of the web series to Instagram in a series and it’s magical, writes Jillian Richardson:
Adidas Originals and Champs Sports are also getting into the short story game, but they’re not using Vine. Instead, they’ve launched a video series on Instagram targeting high school varsity athletes called Adicolor TV. If you’re not exactly sure what that looks like, it pretty much means professional athletes dancing, Lil John speaking his own personal language, and trippy visuals. The series of videos is an intriguing experiment in combining the frenetic aesthetic and appeal of Vine with the type of serialized storytelling usually found on YouTube. Read it.
There’s little that people love more than a good parody; just look at how The Onion has been able to build an empire on the foundation of satire. Herbert Lui examines four that will inspire your content strategy and get you out of that boring-blog-post rut.
Thought leadership is a much-maligned buzzword, writes Huge’s John McCroy, but we’ve yet to come up with a better term. And it’s something brands need to master:
The best thought-leading marketers continuously build their brand through stories and events, giving life to their brand’s value across a vast ecosystem of paid, owned, and earned channels. GE lives for innovation. IBM brings its smarts to the planet’s biggest challenges. Google realizes the most powerful marketing and advertising insights through its data. You see these brands’ stories wherever you look.
That ubiquity doesn’t happen naturally—it’s earned through telling great stories. Here are four critical factors to establishing a successful thought leadership presence for your brand. Read it.
Want a great marketing campaign? Just make fun of hipsters, says Julia Kupper:
You see them everywhere; you probably know one, and you might even be confused about whether or not you are one. Our generation’s subculture of “hipsterdom” is pretty flimsy in comparison to other post-war styles, such as the hippie, punk, or grunge movements.
Besides displacing hard-working families and old-times residents, the urban-based hipsters haven’t accomplished much in the way of rebellion over the last decade. So it comes as no surprise that people have started to dislike this kale-eating, grandma’s-sweater-wearing kind. And brands are no exception. Read it.
Image by
Daniel Hathaway
