Blogging Tactics & Strategies - Compendium

Content for SEO Infographic via Brafton.com

Chris Baggott — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 12:30:00 +0000

My New Favorite Infographic does a great job of explaining some of the very tangible benefits of executing well on your Corporate Blogging Strategies. Content Marketing, Story Harvesting, Social Signals all drive traffic......

Check this out in detail, send a link to your boss and while you're at it ... get a poster made and hang in on the wall of every department in your company.

Content is hidden in your organization everywhere. Embrace an internal content curation strategy and get that content into your blogs.

Today's Feature Client- Breckenridge Discount Lodging

John Joseph — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 19:00:00 +0000

When it comes to business blogging, an organization wants to make every post as engaging as possible. One specific Compendium client that does a wonderful job of engaging their blog visitors is Breckenridge Discount Lodging.

Here are some elements of Breckenridge Discount Lodging's (BDL for short) blog that are best practices all can model after.

User Generated Content- BDL utilizes Compendium's Web to post feature, which allows readers of the blog to share their own story (in blogging terms, contribute content). BDL can tailor these forms to fit each campaign and desire of their marketing team .

Relevance- BDL posts on a weekly basis, and is always documenting local events in their blog posts. BDL has become a repository of content regarding Breckenridge attractions, which draws readers to return to the blog time after time.

Calls To Action- Every blog needs clear CTA's to allow readers to convert. BDL has 4, easy to read CTA's on the right hand side of their blog template.

Social Sharing- While it is imperative that organizations share their blog content to all relevant social outlets, it is also a best practice to make it as easy as possible for readers to share content t on their own personal networks.

Granted, not all organizations have the appeal and wow factor as skiing in Breckenridge, every organization has the potential to create engaging and insightful blogging program.

Compendium Feature Thursday Replay

Allison Bowen — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 17:36:00 +0000

Have you ever sat down in front of your computer, logged into the Compendium application, and thought "Well, this looks different!" If you have, you're not alone - and you're not crazy!

Thanks to our extremely capable and fast-moving engineering team here at Compendium, we've been rolling out new features like it's our job (which actually, I guess it is!). Lately we've added features such as new social sharing, a new text editor, and a new content calendar, just to name a few. There's so many new features, that we've begun to notice a trend - our clients can't keep up!

Which is why we're introducing...

Compendium Feature Thursdays!

Now, every month, you'll have the opportunity to join our webinar and hear one of our Account Managers share the latest and greatest features we've released. With these webinars, you'll now be able to make sure you're always getting the most out of Compendium!

Yesterday, I was lucky enough to get to host our first installment of this webinar series. For those that were able to attend, thank you! And if you weren't able to, check out the video below for a playback!

We look forward to seeing you at our next webinar on Thursday, March 22nd at 2pm EST! Watch your email and the Compendium blog for a link to sign up.

3 Steps to Creating a Powerful Business Blogging Strategy

Lee Jorgenson — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 12:30:00 +0000

As an Account Manager at Compendium, I've had the opportunity to help many clients launch their blogging programs. Each process always starts with a conversation where we talk about the client's goals for their program.

While most clients have identified at least one or two reasons for launching a blog, many haven't fully thought out the entire strategy. As a matter of fact, I run into many companies who have even been running blogs for years without having a fully developed strategy behind the campaign.

Whether you are setting out to launch a brand new business blog or if you are simply trying to optimize the one you currently maintain, the 3 steps below will help ensure that your strategy is effective and measurable.

1. Start With Goals Your Upper Management Will Appreciate

Whether your strategy was driven by upper management or not, you will most likely need to report back to them at some point. Your goals may be to humanize your brand and engage your current customers, but you need to make sure your upper management is on board with those goals. Here are some common goals that your upper management will likely get on board with:

Generate x number of leads or increase lead generation by x percent.
Increase awareness by acquiring x number of organic visits from non-branded search terms
Engage your current customers and target audience by receiving x number of comments and y number of social actions (shares, likes, etc.)
Speed up the sales process by x number of days or y number of manual touch points
Increase the close rate for sales opportunities by x percent

The last two potential goals are very advanced and should be considered only by companies that have benchmark data and the appropriate systems in place. In addition, some goals can simply be a matter of functionally accomplishing something. For instance, some businesses simply need a quick channel for communicating with their target market and/or customers. However, these types of goals are still usually supplemented with some sort of measurable success metric.

2. Make Sure Your Goals Are Measurable

You may have noticed that all of the goals listed above were measurable. This is very important but often overlooked. If your goal is simply to engage your customers, how will you know whether or not you are successful? You won't unless you find a corresponding metric to monitor.

If you have an existing blog, try finding benchmark data first (i.e. average search visits per month, average comments per post or per month, average leads generated, etc.) and then create goals to increase production either by a hard number or by a percentage. This type of measurable goal strategy will help you determine whether or not each tactic you employ is effective.

USE CASE: I just had a client tell me that they wanted to increase subscriptions to their blog. After doing some digging, I found out that they wanted these subscriptions because they wanted to increase their thought-leadership among their current clients. After discovering this, we looked at the percentage of their clients that were subscribed to receive blog updates. This gave us a benchmark, and we were then able to determine a more meaningful goal - x% increase in subscribed customers.

In this instance, the client quickly decided that they would measure thought leadership by subscribers. After drilling into the heart of this goal, we found that measuring the percentage of engaged clients was a better measure of success.

In addition, they made the assumption that their clients wanted to receive blog updates. What if their clients preferred engaging by downloading printable guides that they could read on the commute home from work? We should then measure engagement not only by subscriptions but also by the number of client downloads of guides that the client offers on their blog.

Taking time to think through your goals will ensure that your entire strategy is in order. As you can see from the example above, even the types of content that you produce will be influenced by your goals.

3. Ensure that the Proper Technology is in Place to Measure Your Blog's Performance

At first glance, you may think this point is obvious. However, it isn't uncommon to finish steps 1 and 2 and then find yourself with a measurable goal that your current technology isn't able to measure. If you decide that your goal is x number of deals closed, you have to make sure that you have closed-loop tracking in place. I run into this a lot with clients that want to use existing landing pages to capture client information and feed it into their CRM. That is great, but some systems aren't able to read your analytics and determine where the lead originated from - every lead is captured, but there is no way to decipher the source.

For another example, think about measuring engagement by tracking social shares, likes, +1s, comments, etc. Are you simply going to have one of your team members surf your blog and count the social counters and comments by hand? Not likely. The new Google Analytics interface provides a way to report social sharing data, but you must configure it. You will also need to make sure you have a good way to report the number of comments you receive and be able to aggregate all of the data together.

After investigating what is technically possible for your organization, you may determine that your measurable goal is not currently trackable and implementing the additional tracking is too costly. If that is the case, go back to step 2 and determine another measurable goal. The next best goal will usually be just one step back in your sales funnel (i.e. if your goal is leads generated, but you can't track your lead source on your landing page form, then measure the number of visits to the landing page as your goal.)

There is a lot more to launching and executing a blog than just the three steps mentioned above, but these steps will help you determine your overall strategy and metrics. After completing these steps, you will be ready to start putting together your tactical plan. Interested in learning more about blog planning and strategy? Download our free whitepaper on the Five Ways to Guarantee Content Marketing Success.

Guest Post: You Create Content Every Day...use it

Chris Baggott — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 14:27:00 +0000

I've been working on a series called Solve Your Content Crisis and noticed my friend Lorraine Ball was practicing a lot of what I was trying to preach so I asked her to tell us all about how she thinks about her own Content Marketing Strategy. Hope you enjoy....

Want to make your way to the top of the search rankings for any key term? The recipe is fairly simple.

Write one new blog post every day - Be sure to include key terms.
Update Facebook twice a day
Send 2 - 4 email newsletters each month
Update your company Linkedin page every other day
Add three to five images to Pinterest daily
Update your Google+ page once a day.
Be sure to Stumble and Digg your content daily
Spend a minimum of 30 minutes a day on Twitter.

If you are like most small business owners, reading that list will give you a headache. If you do all of that, when exactly will you have time to work on projects for your clients? I will let you in on a secret, it isn't hard, if you know how to say it once, and share, share, share.

Here is an example of how we do that at Roundpeg. I start by looking at things we are talking about in the office. Questions we are answering again and again in conversation and in emails. The answers form the core content we will use in all of the outlets I mentioned above.

Here is an example of how it works: . Last week I noticed I was having conversations with lots of business owners who were telling me their customers ( women age 55+ ) were not on Facebook. After the third conversation in one week, and a follow up email, I sat down and wrote a blog post entitled "Your Grandmother is on Facebook". Just over 300 words, the core content was a few statistics I had been sharing in emails and presentations. I published the post.

Over the course of a week about 70 people visited the page and a few even shared a comment. I was pleased with the response, but this is only a fraction of our audience. Few members of our community (clients, prospects and friends) visit the Roundpeg website regularly. I knew it was very likely there were many people who might be interested in the content, but would have missed the post, so when it was time to work on our newsletter I used most of the content again.

Converting the content for the newsletter was easy. I added a few subtitles, and information in the side bar about our social media survey. So far more than 500 people have opened the email. Several even sent notes back on how much they enjoyed the content. I was pleased with the responses, but I didn't stop there. Posts on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Linkedin extended the reach of the content and created even more conversations. Oh, and I shared the featured image on Pinterest and shared the link on Stumbleupon. As a result, this same content has been shared, repeated, retweeted, and liked creating multiple credible links to our website. and putting our message in front of thousands of people. The bottom line? You create content every day. The trick is learning to share, share and share again.

Lorraine Ball: Entrepreneur, Geek, Social Media Enthusiast
As Creative Director, Lorraine is typically at the center of the managed chaos that is Roundpeg. With more than thirty years as a marketing professional (lie, tell her she doesn’t look that old) Lorraine keeps Roundpeg popping with a never-ending stream of new ideas. A native New Yorker, Lorraine is a Hoosier by choice, and is committed to fostering growth and entrepreneurship in her adopted city. When not at Roundpeg, Lorraine can be found sharing what she knows about marketing and social media in seminars and presentations around the country.
Follow @lorraineball

Content Marketing Retreat: Untapped Sources of Great Content

Chris Baggott — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 12:30:00 +0000

Every organization needs to have a Content Marketing Strategy. In that light, I was really blow away by the quality of the recent Content Marketing Retreat put on By Fusionspark in the Langley Center For New Media last month. Not only was the curriculum top notch, the attendees were equally brilliant and engaged.

I've been posting some of these ideas as a series on my blog called Solve Your Content Crisis. However if you would rather just watch this video I explain 8 content sources you might not have considered.

Chris Baggott from Fusionspark Media, Inc. on Vimeo.

If I can be of any help as you develop your own Corporate Blogging Strategies, please do not hesitate to reach out.

Give Your Blog a Little ... Personality!

Krystal Featherston — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 19:00:00 +0000

Have you ever been caught in one of those embarrassing situations where you recognize someone, but you can't remember there name? Well .. I have, and believe me it happens far more than I'd care to admit.

At a very least, faces help us identity and relate to someone. With that said, it's important to empower your employees to write about what they believe and they excel in. In addition to creating great content, it's important to give their content a "little personality," add a author headshot.

Including a headshot can help your readers ...

...to get to know the author, and offers a more personable impression

...to connect the virtual and physical world, people like to communicate with other 'people', not with companies

Adding a image next to each blog post is something that can be added to your blog. Compendium utilizes Gravatars to display Author's pictures next to their name in an Author list on the blog. These avatars follow you from site to site that to help identify your posts of comments on a blog.

Below are a few clients who have added images next to their authors content:

Compendium

MediaTile

Bizo

ExactTarget (accomplishing this look requires customization)

If this is something that you've like to add to your blog, you'll first need to create an account with Gravatar. Here are some instructions for setting up your account. After you created your account contact your Account Manager or help@compendium.com to discuss implementing Gravatars on your network.

Are your ready to give your blog a "little personality?"

A Guide to Social Sharing & Fair Use: Part Four

Clayton Stobbs — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 14:00:00 +0000

Part Four: Google+ (via John Joseph @plaidjj)

Google+ is all about connections, and the goal of it service is for it’s members to share all sorts of content with specific groups of connections. This service can be an extremely powerful asset in regards to exposing your message to a large audience. When it comes to sharing on Google +, you must make sure to abide by the Terms of Service that you agreed to when setting up your account. It is important to note that you cannot display any advertising for a third party on your Google+ page. By utilizing the Google+ service, you are inherently agreeing to abide by its stated Terms of Service stipulations. Of note in relation to blogging is the following Content and Conduct Policy’s, as outlined in the agreement you accept when setting up your Google+ account.

Malicious Products - Do not transmit viruses, malware, or any other malicious or destructive code. Do not distribute content that harms or interferes with the operation of the networks, servers, or other infrastructure of Google or others.

Personal and Confidential Information - Do not distribute other people’s personal and confidential information, such as credit card numbers, confidential national ID numbers, or account passwords, without their permission.

Spam - Do not spam, including sending unwanted promotional or commercial content, or unwanted or mass solicitation. Do not aggressively add people to your circles.

Ranking Manipulation - Do not manipulate ranking or relevancy using techniques like repetitive or misleading keywords or metadata.

Impersonation or Deceptive Behavior - Do not use our products to impersonate.

User Profile Name - To help fight spam and prevent fake profiles, use the name your friends, family or co-workers usually call you. For example, if your full legal name is Charles Jones Jr. but you normally use Chuck Jones or Junior Jones, either of those would be acceptable.

Account Hijacking - Do not access another user’s account without their permission. Do not use our products for phishing scams.

Google is looking to incorporate its social networking aspect (plus) into every aspect of its Google offerings, thus the power and utility of Google+ is still increasing as Google grows and matures. Because Google is always adding more services, it makes the Plus functionality far more than another simple social networking site. Google+ has been created in a simple way that not only encourages, but rewards, its users for sharing content. Content Marketing can be easily leveraged on Google+, as long as the terms of service are adhered to.

Do Daily Deal Providers Understand Marketing?

Chris Baggott — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 12:30:00 +0000

A couple of months ago I wrote a post called Stop Blaming Groupon. In that post we talked about how it's not enough to bring in new customers...you have to have a plan and strategy to retain them as well. I thought that this must be on the radar of Groupon and the other daily deal sites as a huge opportunity.

So it surprised me this morning when I read an article in IBD of an interview with LivingSocial CEO Tim O'Shaughnessy with the title: LivingSocial Aim: Full Marketing Platform. Pretty exciting title for me because I thought "these guys are finally getting it". That was until I read this paragraph:

"Ultimately, whether you're using a voucher from LivingSocial or you're going to some local business because your friend told you to, whether you go back is going to be predominantly predicated on whether you enjoyed your time there. Did you like the food or whatever? Did you like this product or service?

So fundamentally, that is the biggest part. We can bring the customers to you, but it's on the business to provide a good service so that people want to come back. That's a core part of the role of our merchant partners.

The reliance is on them there, but I also think we're consistently trying to give tips to (our) customers, telling them who their customers are, where they're coming from, how much they're spending — all those types of things."

Is it just me or does this represent a fundamental lack of understanding with regard to retention marketing? Perhaps a more positive spin might be: Does this represent a tremendous opportunity for some entrepreneur to build a business going in and developing a program for daily deal retention?

If the Daily Deal folks don't want this business then why not you? Most businesses lose money on a new customer in the first transaction. I've talked before about the dry-cleaning model that says you need three visits to start making money on a new customer. (especially with a coupon). In the SaaS business you usually don't make money on a new customer until into the second year. (see Constant Contacts S1)

All companies have acquisition costs. All advertising must be spread over the number of new customers in a given period...let's say a month. Yellow Pages, Groupon, Newspaper, Signs, Social, TV....whatever. Companies must take their total Marketing budget and divide it by the number of new customers. Then they have to look at the total dollars spent by those new customers minus the cost of service.

Do that math and you will see that for almost every business, new customers are money losers if they don't come back.

This is where you need a retention strategy and to me it seems that this is a great business opportunity for the daily deal providers. Like every other business, they invest a lot in building a relationship with that small business...do they then just "hope" the experience is good and that customer will reorder?

Is there not an AMAZING opportunity to work with those local businesses on retention campaigns?

LinkedIn: Guide to Social Sharing & Fair Use

Lee Jorgenson — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 13:00:00 +0000

Before creating an account and participating on LinkedIn, you should be sure to fully understand the intended use of the site. While LinkedIn is considered a social site, it describes its purpose as the following: The mission of LinkedIn is to connect the world’s professionals to enable them to be more productive and successful. To achieve our Mission, we make services available through our website, mobile applications, and developer platform, to help you, your connections, and millions of other professionals meet, exchange ideas, learn, make deals, find opportunities or employees, work, and make decisions in a network of trusted relationships and groups. When examining the statement above, you can see that LinkedIn is meant for professionals.
This is extremely important to recognize when posting and participating on LinkedIn. For example, it may be acceptable to post a status update on Facebook that mentions partying all weekend, but that would not be a wise decision on LinkedIn. In addition to using common sense regarding LinkedIn’s professional nature, you should also be mindful of their full list of “DOS and DON’TS”.

Here are some paraphrased highlights from their full list that can be found by clicking the hyperlink in the previous sentence:

It is imperative that you comply with all laws and use the site in a professional manner.
It is imperative that all of your information is accurate and that you update it as necessary.
It is not acceptable to act unprofessional or post anything dishonest or objectionable on the site.
You should not invite anyone to your network that you do not know
You should not upload a photo that is not your likeness or a head-shot
Spam and any unwelcome communication is not tolerate

Should you post something that is inaccurate, that infringes on someone else’s intellectual property, or that is unlawful, or should you notice someone else partaking in this behavior, LinkedIn has outlined a process for dealing with these situations. By simply filling out and turning in the appropriate form, LinkedIn will process and handle each complaint filed.

Finally, it should be noted that LinkedIn also includes company pages. Company pages are created automatically simply by several LinkedIn users listing the same company as their employer. When this happens, your individual profile is listed on the company page, and you are directly linked with your company. It is also important to note that anyone in the company can update the company’s page until someone takes control and designates an administrator. This is a significant concern for companies since their representation on LinkedIn is not fully under their control until this is done. Given the recent concerns over SOPA, neglecting your company’s page on LinkedIn and allowing someone to misrepresent your company could be extremely harmful. Each company should establish an administrator quickly to ensure that no unwanted changes are made to their page. To do so, the following steps should be taken:

First ensure that you have a confirmed company email address on your LinkedIn account.
Navigate to your company’s page
Click “Edit” in the top right of the Overview Tab
Select designated users under the “Company Pages Admins” heading

Arizona River Runners mentioned by Forbes and Yahoo! as Best 2012 Vacations

John Joseph — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 13:00:00 +0000

Ever dream of rafting the Grand Canyon? Have you ever wanted to feel the roar of the mighty Colorado River and sleep underneath the stars in an area that few have ever ventured? Compendium client Arizona River Runners has been guiding trips down the Grand Canyon since 1970, and is one of the most respected and esteemed organizations of its kind.

I would like to give a huge kudo's to the ARR team for recently being mentioned by two major publications as offering trips of a lifetime. Yahoo noted Arizona River Runners as being one of the 5 Trips that will Change your Life, and Forbes went as far as to state that a trip with ARR is one of 10 Bucketlist trips for 2012.

Yahoo noted that this trip "is especially popular with families and offers plenty of “unplugged” time, resulting in an unforgettable and often life-changing experience for all ages. Spend your adrenaline-filled days enjoying the exhilaration of the rapids, while nights mean camping under the ultra-clear skies and swapping stories around the campfire."

Arizona River Runners uses our blog to share past participants experiences and stories with the rest of the online community. Their Compendium blog is a great way for families to send in pictures and tell the ARR team just how touched and moved they were by their rafting trip. During the colder months, the ARR team utilizes their blog to discuss more broad topics, such as the history of rafting the canyon, what the guides do during the winter(and believe me, these guides are doing some crazy, crazy things all over the world), and working/living in an eco-friendly environment.

To read what people have to say about the Grand Canyon and their ARR experience, check out this testimonials page here for proof of the wonderful experience that Hundreds of families have every summer.

Solve Your Content Crisis: Idea #2

Chris Baggott — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 19:45:00 +0000

We are talking about giving a rocket boost to your Content Marketing Strategy. Most companies struggle with the creation of content while overlooking some amazing sources that are usually not contemplated.

My last post talked about Employee Blogging. Today I'm going to suggest perhaps the most overlooked source in every organization.....Email Email is the prime example of what I call "Single Use Content". Great content that lives in only one channel and then dies quickly.

Think about it. Email flies around every organization all day long. Questions get asked and answered, problems get solved. The idea is ridiculously simple: Have an email address that employees can BCC their email directly into their blog. (Compendium puts this in a draft folder for further editing)

Check out the two screenshots below from a travel company. They get prospects and customers asking them questions which of course they answer in direct emails. Now with a simple BCC these emails turn into a fantastic Content Curation Strategy....instant blog post!

Do you see how obvious and easy this is? Do you think this would work in your corporate blogging strategy? Even my dry-cleaner can probably get a couple of posts a week from email.

What about love letters? Does anyone ever send you an email telling you how great you are? EVERY SINGLE LOVE LETTER IS BLOG WORTHY!. Sorry to shout, but the typical scenario is for these to either get forwarded around via email or printed and put on a bulletin board.

See this post? An inbound email forwarded into my blog. how simple this is? Is it not blog worthy?

As marketers we all struggle with Content Curation Strategies. We struggle our Content Marketing Strategy and yet hundreds of content elements are passing through our organizations all the time. Stop Single Use Content and leverage your business email for blog posts.

New Feature: Updated Text Editor

Stephanie Kime — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 17:23:00 +0000

Today we are very excited to announce that the text editor has received a face lift. With this new editor, you will see several new features, including:

The ability to add a YouTube video with the click of a button,
The ability to insert various heading sizes
The ability to maximize the size of the text editor with the click of a button,
A more advanced and streamlined “Insert Image” button, and
Last but not least, the ability to copy and paste content from Word (yes, we’re now allowing you to do this with the click of a button!).

In addition to these new features, we’ve also eliminated many of the bugs and issues found in the old text editor. That being said, we’re always looking for ways to improve the product and appreciate your feedback. Please let us know if you have any additional questions or feedback and we're happy to help! Interested in getting a full look under the hood? Request a demo now!

Did you know 48% of Business Blogging Content is Modified Prior to Publication?

Corey Kime — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 13:00:00 +0000

Many people have done research and studies on the effects of blogging related to the type of traffic blogs bring, what it can do for the visibility of your brand, and ultimately what kind of effect it can have on sales for your business. While all of this information is incredibly useful and can serve as a great benchmark for your companies blogging efforts, corporate bloggers (particularly people who are in charge of the quality and polish of a business's message) should be just as interested in learning about how corporate blogging works, and particularly the processes administrators use to make their content better. That's what I'd like to begin to tackle today.

With Compendium being a business blogging software for over 400 blogs, we get to see tons of interesting data not only on incoming traffic and social sharing to name a few, but we also get to see data on how bloggers and blog administrators interact with each other and what the results of those interactions are. So recently I took a look at our data and uncovered an interesting stat:

On average, 48% of content that gets published to a company's blog gets edited by a blog administrator prior to approval.

These edits could range anywhere from minor grammatical errors to add a little more professionalism to a post to more significant changes that help the post have a more unified message with what the company is trying to convey. I found this to be interesting because it shows another distinction between corporate blogging and a person's individual blogging, and that is the imporantance of moderation. Having that added layer of moderation for your company's blog can help take the unique voices of 5, 25, or even 250 individual writers and give it a unifying theme around your corporation's message.

This doesn't mean that a blog administrator should slice and dice a writers post to the point of the original writer barely recognizing it, because that would lead to a discouraged writer that feels they aren't adequate to write for their company. However, making some edits that help get a post more in line with what message you are trying to convey as a company is definitely something that should be apart of your standard process as it relates to publishing content on your corporate blog.

Solve Your Content Crisis: Idea #1

Chris Baggott — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 15:00:00 +0000

I'm going to help you solve your content crisis over the next few posts.

Many businesses either start out and fail, or never start at all on a content marketing strategy because they get stuck on sourcing credible and, more importantly, valuable content. I'm here to tell you that you can Humanize your Marketing, drive more leads and grow your business by following these simple Corporate Blogging Strategies.

The First thing you have to do is think of your blog as the Hub of your content marketing strategy. Blogs are the only repository where every speck of content your organization produces is welcome. Not all content is "Twitter-worthy" or "Facebook-worthy"...but I challenge anyone to tell me of content that isn't "Blog-worthy"

Most organizations are overflowing with great content. Most marketing folks are just not looking in the right places.

So lets begin with Overlooked Content Source number one: Employee Bloggers.

I'm starting here because this is the most obvious yet most overlooked.

Look, you hire smart people, you let them talk on the phone and send emails...you let them actually talk to customers and prospects. Even if you didn't, lets assume they like their jobs, think they are doing interesting work, care about the products or services you offer etc...

Let them Blog! When an employee comes through your door you give them their email address, you give them their phone extension and you give them their blog login credentials. The above is a not-very-good screenshot of email marketing company ExactTarget. ET basically permits all of their employees to blog and a great many of them do. Smart people talking about what's happening in the industry, the problems they are solving, how they think about the industry and fun stuff going on within the organization. This is empowerment with a capital E. People are much more loyal and productive when they feel like they are respected and contributing.

Check out this great post by one of our developers...some one I affectionately think of as an introvert. You wouldn't traditionally think of him first when contemplating a Content Curation Strategy, but he's smart, thoughtful and interesting nonetheless.

Ok, so you might be looking at the ET blog and saying "But that's B2B". Well employee blogging works great in a B2C environment too. Take this above example from Sears. They actually have a blog button on their in-store employee kiosks. When an employee sells a dishwasher or something they can simply click on the blog button and the system automatically pulls up a text box for them that includes a picture of the dishwasher and the store address for Geo-targeting. All the employee has to do is tell the story of why Mrs. Johnson bought the Dishwasher.

Keep in mind that you must have some kind of workflow layer for employee blogging to work. You can't let every thought or idea go live without some filter where you can edit, add appropriate links etc....

So many companies rely on 'policies" with employee bloggers. The problem with counting on policies is that you can only address a problem after the fact. Get a system with built in workflow and prevent problems in the first place.

Keep going! Click through for Solve Your Content Crisis: Idea #2....