Top 7 Content Marketing Tips, Lessons & How-To's

With a hot topic like content marketing, I tried an experiment and searched Google News for that keyword. So what did I find? Some interesting, relevant pieces of news and some not so. I took the liberty of aggregating some of those content marketing news items below:

1. Sequoia pours $24 million into Percolate - Percolate is a social media workflow software startup that is powering content marketing for brands like Hyatt, Mastercard and Ford.
2. Jim Joseph's Entrepreneur.com series on Content Marketing Like Big Brands - Jim offer sage advice to the SMB market on how to create content that breaks through the clutter and noise.
3. MarketingProfs helps you choose sides in the content marketing war over Quality vs Quantity - If you don't want to sacrifice quality to get content out the door each or you think frequency is better; this post should help you find your way.
4. Don't be a Content Marketing One-Hit-Wonder from StatupSmart - Are you resting your laurels on that one piece of content? Have you hit a writing or creative rut? The team over at StartupSmart is here to un-logjam your content marketing pile up.
5. Avoid Content Marketing Fatigue with B2C - Whether you're in a rut like above or you just can't stomach another piece of content, here are some tips from the generous folks over at B2C.
6. 13 Content Marketing Lessons from Your Mother - Arienne Holland and SearchEngineLand take you through 13 things that your Mother most likely said and how those related to the wonderful world of content marketing.
7. 8 Lessons from Improv for Content Marketeers (for my European readers) - Maybe you do Improv, Comedy or Acting as a hobby. Well here are some content marketing how-to's from the folks over at SearchEngineWatch.

Everyone does Top 10 lists, but some times; there just isn't enough quality content out there right? If you really need 3 more gold nuggets, here they are:

1. Content is more than just articles, blog posts and infographics; inspiration can be found across many mediums and with the pace of digital these days, you have the opportunity to package it up however you'd like - just keep your audience in mind.
2. Content Marketing should never be about Marketing - Build pieces of content that actually provide value to someone. Step 1 - Do the Work, Step 2 - Present is Clearly, and Step 3 - Ask people what they think. (Yes inspiration comes from your audience's feedback, POV, ideas, suggestions, etc. Disclaimer: I was previously the CMO for SuggestionBox.com, so I put some value in what customers have to say.)
3. GOOB(FI) - This is a classic startup acronym - "Get Out Of Building" mixed with "For Inspiration." Kind of Improv-like right? Get away from your desk, iPhones, TVs, Wiis - get outside and experience the world, because that's where all of the other humans are.

Have an awesome Friday!