Pro Blog Service

You are here: Home / Archives for podcasts

podcasts

By

Be Bold with Content Marketing Choices: Podcasts, Books, Graphic Novels!

There’s such a mountain of dreck and garbage in content marketing today that it’s burying all the good stuff. And that doesn’t include anything that’s generated by AI programs. Most of it is mediocre garbage created by barely-skilled practitioners who pray at the altar of First thought = best thought.

We miss out on all the good content because it’s buried by the same repetitive, 101-level nonsense — 5 Content Marketing Secrets (#1: Write good stuff) — that tens of thousands of other content marketers just sort of blurged out.

If content marketers want to stand out from the crowd, they need to be big and bold.

Fifteen years ago, when social media and blogging were just catching on, you could dominate your industry just by being on social media and having a blog.

Nowadays, you can’t not be online. You will be absolutely crushed by those companies that do. Imagine being dominated by another company that blogs once every three months and tweets every two weeks.

How embarrassing.

Enough With the 101-Level Content

That means creating stellar content. You can’t write the same introductory 101-level garbage that everyone else is. It’s been overdone, and you’re not going to stand out.

Do a quick Google search for your job or industry and the word “secrets.” Go ahead, I’ll wait.

. . .

How many results showed up? How many of them said the same thing over and over and over?

As you perused the results, were the top results from well-established brands with a major online presence and thousands of articles? Of course, they were. No one is going to supplant them without a lot of time, money, and effort. A lot of it.

When I did a search for “content marketing secrets,” not only were there 114 million results, but number one on the list was Hubspot, and the top info card was from ClassyCareerGirl.com.

So what sort of chance do I have of trying to rank #1 for that particular keyword? I would need to start a campaign that would take 80 hours per week, generate thousands of articles, and I would spend years doing social media promotion, and I would still be behind.

So rather than repeating that effort and writing the 114,000,001st “content marketing secrets” article, why not do something bolder?

Be Bold In Your Content Marketing

I’d love to see content marketers be big and brassy with their efforts. Don’t just limit yourself to blog articles. Do something out of the ordinary, something more challenging that not everyone else does. For example, you could:

  • Write a book on your subject. Not just a 30-page ebook either, but a serious tome about your specialist subject. Nothing says, “I know a lot about this” like a book.
  • Write a NOVEL about your subject. Remember The One-Minute Manager and Who Moved My Cheese? Those are technically non-fiction books called business parables. They’re stories that teach lessons through storytelling, not a dry recitation of facts. I’m currently working on a business parable for a client about his leadership philosophy.
  • Record a podcast. Some of the best practitioners in their field have podcasts, which is how they become leaders in their brands. There are podcasts on marketing, manufacturing, entrepreneurship, dental practice, and accounting. If you can think of it, chances are there’s a podcast. But there’s not your podcast.*
  • Write a graphic novel. I’d love to see a bank or wealth management firm teach kids about financial literacy, but with a graphic novel. Everyone’s got books and lesson plans to teach financial literacy, but no one has done it with a comic book. Now that’s bold!
    • Orson Welles directing The Mercury Theater On The Air.
  • Create an audio drama. If you’ve ever listened to old-time radio or modern audio drama (same thing, different names), then you understand the power of audio storytelling. Create characters, create a conflict (plot), and build a story around it. Hell, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck made a movie about a shoe! So don’t tell me you can’t tell a story about your field.
  • Better yet, make it an episodic soap opera. I would absolutely listen to a podcast about life at an insurance company that insures against superhero damage. You could use each episode to explain a small bit about the insurance industry — Acts of God, natural disasters, etc. — but make it fun to listen to as well.
  • Make a movie. See above about Damon and Affleck’s “Air.”
  • Do a weekly video series. Rand Fishkin, founder of Moz and Wil Wheaton lookalike, established himself as the King of SEO with his weekly Whiteboard Friday videos, which Moz continued with after Rand left the company. Create weekly whiteboard videos that show you explaining a particular topic or concept to your audience.

* Tip: Podcasts make great sales tools. Invite your sales prospects to be interviewed on your podcast. They may not take your sales call, but they’ll be happy to be on your podcast. And they’ll remember you and what you do later.

That’s how you can be bold. That’s how you can make content that’s better than the average, run-of-the-mill content that’s burying all the good stuff. You can make things that stand out and catch people’s attention in a way that regular blog articles — like this one, I know — just can’t do.

And if you have any questions about book writing, blogging, writing audio dramas, podcasting, or content marketing in general, let me know. I’ve done all of that, and am happy to give advice and recommendations.

Photo credit: McFadden Publications, Feb. 1939 (Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain)

By

The Future of Content Marketing Will Not Be Different

What is the future of content marketing?

I’m often asked, what will content marketing look like in the future?

People are surprised with my answer: Just like it does now.

It’s not going to be different, we’re not going to see some major new way of “consuming content” (I really loathe that phrase!), and there’s not going to be some new method of content delivery that we’re going to have to learn.

Because when you look at content at its barest essence, it’s just words, images, and sounds. That’s what it has always been, that’s what it will always be.

It was words, images, and sounds when cave dwellers drew on cave walls and grunted their delight. It was words, images, and sounds when the Ancient Greeks passed down knowledge with stories or told stories with plays. It was words, images, and sounds — well, not so much sound — when the first ever movie of a galloping horse was made or the world’s oldest surviving film, Roundhay Garden Scene, was made.

It was words, images, and sounds when newspapers, radio, and television all had their heyday and when they were replaced by blogs, videos, and podcasts.

Content marketing is no different from any other form of communication in our history. We’ve used words, images, and sounds to communicate the entire time. But the only thing that has changed has been the medium we use — the way the content gets consumed read, watched, or heard.

Content creation tools don’t matter

Eighty years ago, we had newspapers, radio shows, and movie newsreels. Television became popular 70 years ago, launching the Golden Age of Television.

And now, everything you could ever want — including samples of old newspapers, radio shows, newsreels, and TV shows — are all available on your laptop, tablet, or mobile phone.

You can read about how those media were made eighty years ago, or you can make and share a 21st-century version of it for other people to read, watch, or hear.

Because it’s still the same old words, images, and sounds.

And it won’t matter one bit how those are made. The secret to doing well at content marketing is to be able to do words, images, and sounds well.

You have to write well. You have to sound good. You have to know how to frame a photo or a video. You have to create things that are interesting. You have to know how to tell a story. You have to know how to capture your audience at the very moment they click your link.

The tools don’t matter.

I’ll say it again: THE TOOLS DON’T MATTER!

Years ago, I used to argue with people who claimed: “there’s no such thing as social media experts because the tools are too new.”

My response then is the same as it is now: I don’t have to be a tools expert, I have to be a communication expert. I have to be good at conveying a message in my chosen medium. The tools can change from week to week, and it won’t affect me one bit because I don’t have to master the tool, I just have to master the craft.

Think of it another way. A carpenter that has spent his entire life swinging a hammer isn’t less effective just because you gave him a pneumatic nailer. A chef doesn’t forget how to cook because you switch out her gas stove to an electric one. And writers aren’t suddenly reduced to creating doggerel just because they switched pens.

So when people think you need specific Mailchimp or Constant Contact experience to be an effective email marketer, that’s wrong.

When people think you need to know how to use Hubspot or WordPress to be an effective blogger, that’s completely wrong.

It’s like saying a photographer is not a good photographer because she uses Nikon and not Canon. Or that a writer is not a good writer because they use Apple Pages and not Microsoft Word.

The tool does not create quality content. WordPress and Hubspot don’t make you write well. Constant Contact doesn’t make you a good email marketer. The latest video camera doesn’t make you a good videographer any more than a great camera makes you a good photographer.

The tools do not make the artist. A good artist can make good art with crappy tools, but a bad artist cannot make good art with good tools.

So it doesn’t matter what happens to the tools: WordPress may go away. Hubspot may fall into the sea. YouTube could be eaten by a pack of hyenas.

None of that will change how content creators make their art.

If WordPress were to go away, bloggers aren’t going to be thrown for a loop or cast out on the scrap heap. We’ll just shrug our shoulders and continue to tell good stories on the new distribution method. And blogging itself won’t go away, it will just be called something else.

Podcasting won’t go away because there will be other ways to deliver episodic information and entertainment via audio distribution.

Videos won’t go away because — well, video’s just never going to go away. In fact, it just surpassed blogging and infographics as the most commonly used form of content marketing. (I’m still a little salty about it, thank you very much.)

The artists and creators will still have a way to make and distribute their work, even if the tools for that distribution go away, change, or die completely.

Remind me how is this about the future of content marketing again

My point is, when you ask about the future of content marketing, just remember, the core elements of content marketing — words, images, and sounds — are never going to change. We’re still going to read, we’re still going to watch videos and look at pictures, and we’re still going to listen to music and information.

The channels will change, the methods of production will change, and even the popularity of the content formats will change. (Freakin’ video!) But the need for quality content will never change. That’s the one constant you can count on.

So if you’re in the content creation business, just focus on improving your craft. Become the best creator you can. Learn your art so you can be one of the best creators around. Worry less about the technology, because that won’t affect whether you’re good at your job. And when the method changes, you’ll already know what you need to do.

Photo credit: Steve Shook (Flickr, Creative Commons 2.0)

By

Erik Deckers Interviewed on The Business of Story Podcast

I think I could just build a media career by appearing on every Jay Baer podcast he and his company produces.

Earlier this week, my interview on The Business Of Story was released — my third interview on Jay Baer’s third podcast. (You can hear my interview, “Top Tips from a Humor Columnist on How to Tell Better Brand Stories” here.)

Park Howell, a content marketing and storytelling professional, interviews different writers and storytellers, talking about to use proper storytelling in the business world. He’s interviewed screenwriters, film makers, editors, directors, makeup artists, and voice over actors (including Dick Orkin, the creator of Chicken Man, which I used to love!)

We had a chance to talk about humor writing, and how it can be used in the business world. Some of the topics we discussed include:

  • Why infusing your writing with humor will improve it dramatically
  • How to break down comedic theory to make it accessible and useable
  • Why you can absolutely can learn to be funny
  • How stories are more approachable and more memorable with comedy
  • Why some are hesitant to use humor in the workplace, but it is a misplaced fear
  • How to absorb lessons from great fiction writers

Anyway, give the show a listen and let me know what you think. And be sure to check out Jay’s other podcasts for more great marketing information.

(Update: Park and his Business of Story podcast were featured as a case study in the latest edition of Branding Yourself, which you can get on Amazon.com.)