Joshua Nite

B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks: How We All Can Do Better

Joshua Nite B2B Marketing, Content Marketing

B2B content marketing is having a moment—a moment that’s rapidly becoming a movement. We’re finally breaking free of the idea that “professional” means “boring.” Transparency and authenticity are becoming more than just buzzwords. Unique, emotionally compelling content used to be the outlier; soon it will be the norm.

It’s thrilling to see B2B content marketers find a new groove. As a creative, comedic weirdo myself, it’s a great time to be in the business. However, these industry-wide changes do come with significant challenges. As B2B marketing evolves, we need to continually adapt our procedures, KPIs, even our philosophy of marketing.

The whip-smart marketers at Kapost just published their 2017 B2B Content Strategy & Operations Benchmark. They surveyed hundreds of B2B marketers in diverse industries, from small businesses to enterprise organizations. Here are the challenges their research identified, and how B2B marketers can adapt to thrive.

B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks: How We All Can Do Better

How to Choose Dynamic Images for Your Blog Posts

Joshua Nite Content Marketing, Digital Marketing

I’m a content writer, not a graphic designer. My job is to make the words dance, to convey useful information in an entertaining way.

As such, for a long time visuals were just an afterthought for me. Yeah, a blog needs a header image. So after I’m done writing I’ll slap something on there, check that box, and send it off to the client.

As content continues to proliferate, though, that laissez-faire approach isn’t enough. Your potential audience has far more content available to them than they’ll ever be able to read. That means they’re actively looking for reasons not to read your content. A weak—or worse, missing—visual is a perfect excuse to move to the next thing.

How to Choose Dynamic Images for Your Blog Posts

Funny Content, Serious Business: How to Use Humor in Content Marketing

Joshua Nite B2B Marketing, Content Marketing

Everyone likes a good joke. Everyone wants to be entertained. But when it comes to using humor in content marketing, people still hesitate. We are, after all, not here purely to entertain. Our content needs to serve a business purpose, inspire action, and rack up the sweet, sweet conversions.

Can potential buyers really take your brand seriously if you make them laugh?

I call this the Roger Rabbit/Goodfellas conundrum, best expressed by these two quotes:

How do you get the Roger Rabbit benefits of making people laugh, without becoming a Joe Pesci-esque laughingstock?

It can be done. You can still be funny and do serious business. The question is not whether to use humor in your content, but how you use it.

Funny Content, Serious Business: How to Use Humor in Content Marketing

LinkedIn Native Video: What Works, What Doesn’t, What Marketers Need to Know

Joshua Nite B2B Marketing, Video

Video content is eating the internet. It started with video-specific platforms like YouTube and Vimeo. Then Twitter and Facebook added support for live and pre-recorded video. Now these insatiable moving pictures are becoming serious business: LinkedIn now supports native video.

What would compel a buttoned-down, professional networking site like LinkedIn to embrace video? Simply put, people—even businesspeople—want to watch. Fifty-nine percent of executives say that if text and video are available on the same topic, they’re more likely to choose video.

There’s no denying that marketers should embrace video content as a general rule. If your audience wants video, it’s wise for your brand to be the one supplying it. But why publish natively on LinkedIn?

Here are the upsides, downsides, and what-you-need-to-know-sides.

LinkedIn Native Video: What Works, What Doesn’t, What Marketers Need to Know

How to Find the Stories in Your Data for Compelling Reporting

Joshua Nite Content Marketing World, Google, Online Marketing, Web Analytics

Our hyper-connected digital world is defined by an overabundance of data. Everything’s measurable, trackable, and quantifiable. Want to know how many people died on screen in your favorite movie? Or how much ice cream the average American eats per year? The data’s at your fingertips.

The ready availability of data is great for marketers. It helps us optimize performance, personalize content, and prove our value to the business.

But data in a vacuum isn’t informative or useful. It’s not about the facts and figures themselves; it’s about how we shape that data into compelling stories.

As an Analytics Advocate at Google, Adam Singer has years of experience finding and revealing the meaningful narrative in datasets. His presentation at Content Marketing World 2017 was all about how to create clean, informative, compelling data visualizations.

How to Find the Stories in Your Data for Compelling Reporting

How adidas Put Culture at the Core of Their Content Marketing Strategy

Joshua Nite Content Marketing, Content Marketing World

Jean Giraudoux once said, “The secret to success is sincerity. Once you can fake that, you’ve got it made.”

It’s a funny indictment of how to take exactly the wrong approach to authenticity. But too often, brands and marketers miss the sarcasm. We target an audience, then carefully cultivate an image to appeal to them. We create the appearance of a culture that matches theirs. And then we’re surprised when our target audience sees right through it.

What if we stopped trying to fake sincerity and turned the whole process inside out? Instead of crafting a culture to match an audience, why not attract the audience that matches your culture?

How adidas Put Culture at the Core of Their Content Marketing Strategy

Tips for Making Video Content that Earns Attention from Andrew Davis #CMWorld

Joshua Nite Content Marketing World, Online Marketing, Video

The inimitable Andrew Davis is the best-selling author of Town, Inc. and an in-demand marketing speaker. After his presentation at Content Marketing World 2017, I can see why.

He made me feel stupid. And I’m incredibly grateful.

The best presentations make you feel stupid in retrospect. Of course! It’s so obvious that this is the way to do it! Why haven’t we been doing it this way the whole time? Feeling stupid after-the-fact means you just got smarter.

You see, video content marketing has gone from the next big thing to the current big thing. Brands that pump out a ton of text-based content are now flooding the attention marketplace with video. And just as we had to learn how to make content work for marketing, we’re all still figuring out how to make effective marketing video.

Tips for Making Video Content that Earns Attention from Andrew Davis #CMWorld

Final Boarding Call for Content Marketing World: Don’t Miss these 10 Presentations

Joshua Nite Content Marketing, Content Marketing World

Does anyone look forward to getting on an airplane anymore? Sure, you may be excited about where you’re going or what you plan to do when you get there. But anyone happily anticipating the screening, boarding, and flying part—well, I’ll have whatever vitamin supplement they’re on.

If you’re headed to Content Marketing World, odds are there’s a flight in your immediate future. Fortunately, this trip is definitely worth the hassle. Just keep in mind how much you’re about to learn, how many amazing marketers you’re about to meet, and you can smile your way through the unpleasantness.

Final Boarding Call for Content Marketing World: Don’t Miss these 10 Presentations

Why HTTPS Matters for Content Marketers: Website Security, SEO, and Customer Trust

Joshua Nite Google, Search Engines

Full disclosure: As a content marketer, I’m still trying to round out my technological knowledge. The complex inner workings of the internet might as well be some combination of elves, gnomes, and unicorns. As long as it delivers my content (and a steady stream of memes and status updates), it doesn’t matter how the internet works, right?

But it’s time for all content marketers to get at least a little technical. There are new marching orders from our overlords at tech giants like Google, Facebook, and Apple, and they’re going to directly affect your content marketing strategy.

The issue is a web security protocol called HTTPS (Hyper-Text Transfer Protocol Secure). Other terms you might encounter are SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) or TLS (Transport Layer Security). Or you may just know it as the little green padlock in the top corner of your web browser:

Why HTTPS Matters for Content Marketers: Website Security, SEO, and Customer Trust

How to Get Started with Video Content Marketing (Without a Blockbuster Budget)

Joshua Nite Content Marketing, Visual Marketing

Back in my day, all online content was text-based. If you had two animated .GIFs on a website, you had to wait 30 seconds for the site to load. Four .jpgs on a site would crash your browser. We were grateful when posts were just words! We didn’t whine about “visual stimulation” or “content variety” back then, let me tell you.

Of course, we also dressed like this:

So maybe we didn’t get everything right. For better or for worse, the early days of the Internet are long gone, and modern consumers want video content. Over half of all people online watch videos daily. And they’re not just watching cat videos and Jimmy Fallon clips: 59% of executives say if text and video are available on the same topic, they prefer the video. And 54% of senior executives share work-related videos with colleagues weekly.

How to Get Started with Video Content Marketing (Without a Blockbuster Budget)

20 Jokes Only a B2B Marketer Will Get

Joshua Nite Online Marketing

Lately, there’s been a big push for adding humor and personality into B2B marketing. I’m all for it—not only does it play into my natural strengths, it means that B2B marketers can bring more creativity and fun into their day-to-day.

It may be hard to cast off the idea that we on the B2B side have to be buttoned-down, professional, and above all, inoffensively bland. But if our content is going to stand out in the crowd, we’ve got to get in touch with our funny bones.

With that in mind, here are 20 brand-new jokes that only a B2B marketer could love. As I said in my last funny post, there’s nothing like a good joke: And these are, believe me, nothing like a good joke.

20 Jokes Only a B2B Marketer Will Get