How do you define quality content? Ask a movie studio or a television executive, and you may hear something like this: “Quality content is that which attracts the biggest audience.” In other words, the content itself matters less than the number of people who consume it. This attitude certainly accounts for much of reality

How do you define quality content? Ask a movie studio or a television executive, and you may hear something like this: “Quality content is that which attracts the biggest audience.” In other words, the content itself matters less than the number of people who consume it. This attitude certainly accounts for much of reality

The reason why business owners have so much trouble creating content for Instagram is because they feel the have to choose one type of post over the other, or they simply can’t come up with enough ideas to conjure up a well-balanced mixture of content.

"With social media now well into its teen years, there’s no excuse for brands to approach with a passive attitude or get news ‘out on the socials’ as an afterthought."

Frequent, big, emotional ups and down in content make it more engaging. For example, a 31.75% increase in volatility in movies is associated with a 1-point higher rating on IMDb.

How to make writing a little easier without lowering your standards for high-quality, well-researched content that makes an impact.

Recruitment marketing in 2021: flexibility, adaptability with Stories Inc. storytelling best practices + Yearly Content Flex Plans.

Stories Inc. shares the best content for your employer brand to connect with the best candidates seeking information about your culture.

Gong gives salespeople “revenue intelligence.” Devin Reed moved from sales to content marketing to help the startup create more content that sells.

Understand the benefits of repurposing content and discover 20 ways to repurpose the content you already have.

There's probably nothing I like more than someone who is being willfully contradictory, to zig when it seems the world says to zag. To wit, Emily Firth's article on why employee-generated content will NOT save your employer brand. She makes solid points (its over-used because it seems like an "easy" way to create content, but since there's rarely a solid plan with what to do with said content, or even how to nurture it, it rarely yields anything useful), but I see this as someone waving us away from the extreme end of an idea. Employee-generated content (when done right, where there's a "care and feeding plan" in place to nurture it, etc), can be useful. It just isn't a silver bullet.

Just as great conversationalists get invited to parties, great content is a welcome guest in an email inbox or a social media feed. And, because content marketing is so critical for B2B companies, being a great guest who gets invited back is just what you want to be.

I am fully aware of my bias towards content marketing, but I think EB pros can learn a lot from them. So here are top thought leaders in the content space giving their predictions for 2020. Things to note: Trust as a social process, deeper investment in video AND AUDIO (you mean like podcasts?), leveraging data into the content planning process, and email newsletter making a comeback.

This week's long read comes to us courtesy of Tracey Parsons: How to personalize your content journey to increase conversions. One of the big takeaways is that there are a LOT more ways to establish context and triggers than "applied" or "set up interview." And if you can define more context, you can define more personal messaging.

To encourage consumers to take action, you'll want to use direct response copywriting. Here, we'll dive into tips and examples to inspire your efforts.

And since we're talking about content in employer branding, Beamery has a great guide to building a recruiting-focused content marketing playbook.

You you content marketers and lovers of narrative-driven employer branding, have I got some gold for you... but I'll tell you more in a minute. That feeling, right there, where the writer yanks the rug out from under you and doesn't immediately satiate your curiosity? That's emotional power, something referred to as an "open loop," a glitch in your own cognition you can leverage to create more engagement and emotional connections with people.

What's the future of brand storytelling? Google collected some smart thinkers and posed that question. And while there was a lot of talk of "digital-first," I wonder if their own recruiters and employer branders would 100% agree.

Content marketing guru Ann Handley calls out branders for building mostly mediocre marketing. And for my money, employer brand marketing can take a few lessons from this article on how to make marketing that rises above the obvious.

Everyone loves the Wendy's social media accounts. How does a square burger chain dance so gloriously on the line of impropriety that other brands can't even get near? They embrace their position as a "challenger" brand. Specifically, they don't shy away from the core idea that you need some kind of conflict in order to create a meaningful narrative.

Welp. LinkedIn, the pinstriped social media platform, is taking cues from the cool kids like Snapchat and Instagram and developing a "stories" function on their platform. I look forward to more CEOs dancing in their offices to Carly Rae Jepsen and corporate mandates Ice Bucket Challenges...

Marketing Land is a daily, must-read site for CMOs, digital marketing executives and advertising campaign managers.

If you occasionally feel like you tell the same employer brand story over and over and over (guilty!), you might appreciate some different ways to tell a story. Take any profile, article, posting, or video and re-tell it in a new format and it will feel fresh and news (I mean, George Lucas was just retelling a samurai story in space and he's a billionaire).

How did Pixar, already known as a fantastic story-teller, change how it approached story and brand issues to reach the next level? By building an internal "brain trust." (For the record, so much of what we see as "great creative" isn't about inspiration, but about the systems and processes we put in place to foster that creativity.)

If it seems like all the emails you've been getting all seem to say the same stuff, it's not just you. Here's a poem someone based purely on the first lines of recent emails (it's a winner).

Speaking of "pivot," how deep are you in pivoting your content strategy? Here are two good guides on how to make a quick change of direction from Hubspot and Talent Brand Alliance.

Speaking of "pivot," how deep are you in pivoting your content strategy? Here are two good guides on how to make a quick change of direction from Hubspot and Talent Brand Alliance.

There are some nice examples here, but the real power is in the headline: Content is king as brands make themselves useful. Useful?!?! Wow. But it's a fair shot. Brands are so often seen as fuzzy-bunny nice-to-haves, the thing you invest in once things are nice and cushy. True of consumer and employer brands, the Covid pivot means brands themselves are reinventing what they can be to the company. And for us, it is absolutely true.

Predictions on how content marketing will likely change in the near term is a guidebook for all your employer brand tactics (what, did you not know you're a content marketer? Oh indeed you are). Example: social and video look to continue their rise, but now that most google searches are mobile, how are you going to react?

You know I'm a story fan, so you might not be surprised to see that I loved this piece on creating a villain in your own brand story. Who opposes your company? Who are you trying very hard to NOT be? What are you working to vanquish? Villains don't just offer an element of drama, they serve as a driving purpose to your own brand, offering a suggestion of how far you'll be willing to go to defeat the enemy.