There’s a trick smart news organisations use to attract audiences away from their opposition: value adding. Value adding is about going the extra mile to deliver your audience something extra. It’s going above and beyond the basic, drilling down on the detail, giving the reader, … | Continue reading
Out the back of the Lush offices, in the lesser explored creative area, there sits an Italian who is known around these parts as lo Stregone — or in Aussie, the Wizard. He arrived at Lush in 2015, not able to speak much English but armed with a show reel that caught the attention … | Continue reading
You’ve probably seen examples of businesses using location services, but have you considered how you could use them in your own business? Adam Mullett, marketing manager from NGIS, shares terrific examples of how marketers can use mapping tools to tell better stories and provide … | Continue reading
Rio Tinto uses it. MasterCard uses it too. So does REIWA, the UN and Deloitte. It’s a technology that has been around for decades but has dramatically advanced in usability in just a few short years. We’re talking about mapping technology. And before you think it’s not needed at … | Continue reading
Often when I explain to my friends and family what I do for work, particularly when discussing how I incorporate blogs into a content marketing strategy, I find myself explaining the difference between native advertising and content marketing. They’ll ask me, “Is that like when ( … | Continue reading
Journalism is changing fast. Newsrooms are shrinking, news is published online first, and the “hungry beast” that is publishing requires more content than ever before. So how do we communicate with journalists effectively to give our story pitch the best possible chance of succes … | Continue reading
Are you using pop-up boxes on your website? You know what I’m talking about — those forms that magically appear when you visit a site for the first time (or every time) encouraging you to sign up for a newsletter or some other form of regular content. When and where they show up … | Continue reading
Let’s face it, we are all time-poor these days and, yes, we all hate having meetings for the sake of it. But believe me when I say you do not want to skip your editorial meeting when you are running a Brand Newsroom. The editorial meeting is really what holds your content marketi … | Continue reading
Are you too sexy for LinkedIn? That’s the question photographer Julissa Shrewsbury posed in a recent blog post designed to get people thinking about what the images they use on social media say about their level of professionalism. It got the Brand Newsroom team thinking about pe … | Continue reading
The newspaper industry began in earnest in the 1650s, and ever since publishers have been developing and refining editorial workflow processes. While technology has come and gone over the centuries, changing the way things are done, the goal has remained the same — to get the new … | Continue reading
Global content marketing expert Rebecca Lieb is this week’s guest on Brand Newsroom, as the team discusses the performance of content marketing. ROI, Rebecca says, is about way more than just sales. A strategic advisor, research analyst, keynote speaker, author and columnist, Reb … | Continue reading
What are the core values of your business? Part of effective communication through content marketing is knowing what your brand is and what it’s not. The purpose of your organisation should be the driving force behind any messages you transmit, so it’s absolutely imperative this … | Continue reading
There’s a weird thing that happens when you tell a stranger at a party that you’re a journalist; you always get asked the same two questions. The first is ‘who do you write for? ’ It doesn’t matter what answer you give here, the person will invariably succumb to an uncontrollable … | Continue reading
Humans are hardwired to interpret the world visually. It makes perfect sense — primitive man had to spot the lion in the long grass quickly to keep himself safe. After millions of years of evolution, it’s no surprise that in an age when lions are the least of our worries (well, f … | Continue reading
Much of what you were taught in school about writing is not applicable to the web. For starters, readers do not read your copy — they scan bits and pieces. And they scan very quickly, so it’s crucial to grab their attention in as little time as possible. Even if you feel you’re n … | Continue reading
Editorial workflow can be messy. There are too many stages involved, too many approvals, and often something like 15 interested parties getting out their red pen to make unnecessary changes. It shouldn’t be this hard. So how do you streamline your editorial workflow processes to … | Continue reading
How long do you think a typical person will spend looking at your website? A couple of minutes to flick through a few of those pages that you spent so long on? Sorry to disappoint you, but people spend an incredibly short amount of time on a given web page. Most studies indicate … | Continue reading
How often have you watched a corporate video only to find yourself bored by the 30-second mark? You’re not alone. Corporate videos are a big investment — it’s insane how many of them completely fail to engage their intended audience. Surely it’s not that hard to tell an engaging, … | Continue reading
Brands have fallen over themselves to build social media profiles to reach their consumers, but is social really providing a return on investment? Where is it that most brands are going wrong? And how do you give your company the best chance of social media success? This week Nic … | Continue reading
Have you considered how your marketing messaging affects the governance of your company? Until I attended the Company Director’s inaugural Governance Summit, I hadn’t thought about effective messaging beyond the marketing and sales functions. The two-day summit taught me effectiv … | Continue reading
It’s something I have experienced firsthand — the power of a team over the power of one. For many years I worked as a freelancer, running my own business. In many ways, it was great. For a start, I was the lead editor in my own little empire. But I was also the motion graphics... | Continue reading
There is new research out this week that will shake up old notions about how business-to-business brands should be using social media. A report by intelligence platform TrackMaven shows LinkedIn isn’t the most effective platform to drive engagement — but you might be surprised to … | Continue reading
Free earned media is a Holy Grail for brands, so why do so many marketers get in the way of it happening? You probably don’t think you do it. But I’ve spent 17 years in mainstream media newsrooms and these are the most common things I’ve seen that have stopped brands and individu … | Continue reading
The other day one of my colleagues had cause to email Jason Miller, group manager of content marketing at LinkedIn Marketing Solutions. He wasn’t in, so she got an automated out-of-office reply. Here’s what it said: Add personality and content Notice what he did there? As markete … | Continue reading
When major Australian newspaper publisher Fairfax Media announced it was cutting 120 frontline reporter jobs last week, it sparked a mass walkout from the newsroom. Fairfax is not alone. Around the world, newspapers are dying as they struggle to keep up with technology. The busin … | Continue reading
Within an industry that moves as fast as marketing, each new year comes with a new set of challenges. In fact, sometimes it feels like these new challenges present themselves more often than that. TrackMaven recently published a study, “The Content Marketing Paradox Revisited,” i … | Continue reading
Late last year, business2community proclaimed 2016 was the year of ‘thought leadership driven content marketing’. It claimed thought leadership was changing the very way content marketing was practiced, and all successful content marketing programs of the new year would have it a … | Continue reading
Sales and marketing are meant to be on the same team, so why are they so often at war? One level, it’s completely understandable. The two departments have different goals and missions. Sales is tasked with closing business — getting people in and getting them to sign on the dott … | Continue reading
I’m a bit of a black sheep at Lush because I am not an early adopter; I’m more the bandwagon type. I wasn’t in the line for the first iPhone and I was not the first of my friends to join Facebook. I don’t have the patience to be there first, sitting through repairs, bug... | Continue reading
The fact that print media is on the decline is not an exclusive news story. Neither is the fact those working in media organizations are being stretched thin. The result? It has never been harder to get your press release seen and turned into media coverage. At the same time as m … | Continue reading
Creativity takes a lot of things: talent, dedication, skill. It also takes courage. That’s because successful creative people have to take risks — to challenge the status quo, attack problems differently and pursue original and imaginative ideas. Risk-taking feeds creativity. But … | Continue reading
Do you struggle to publish a blog post for your website every week? A key component of effective content marketing is maintaining consistency, yet consistently frequent posting can be a lot to manage for one person or even a team if you’re already busy. If you’re looking for help … | Continue reading
As we see the growth of ‘personal brand,’ we are also witnessing the birth of a new marketing method. Sporting and entertainment are seeing individuals breaking away from the company or team brand to develop their own identity and build their own dedicated audience. “…if your c … | Continue reading
There is no arguing that video has cemented its place as a vital tool in any communications strategy — whether it’s a full-scale marketing campaign or a simple message from your CEO. Technology company Cisco predicts video will grow from representing 64 per cent of all consumer i … | Continue reading
The importance of effective customer service has never wavered. Customers and businesses alike know the impact it has on a transaction and the role it plays in brand loyalty. We have all told or heard stories of rude cashiers, offensive comments, or never receiving a response at … | Continue reading
If you’ve been following content marketing news recently, you’ll know it isn’t all sunshine and rainbows across the industry. The first warning bells indicating content marketing was heading towards murky waters came last year when Gartner placed content marketing on the decline … | Continue reading