Time to Get Schooled on Content Marketing Skills

Time to Get Schooled on Content Marketing Skills

Here are a few areas they recommend focusing on: Follow the new sound of search One technological advance that will undoubtedly impact how audiences engage with brands is voice response. But also, often times when you are listening to text, you want to make sure it’s very conversational, right? It’s all very interesting, it’s all very new, and there’s so much that we just haven’t explored or learned from it yet.” Anna Hrach, strategist, Convince & Convert Expand your visual reality Other content enhancements that have taken off in the last few years are visual reality and augmented reality – topics that colored one speaker’s view of the skill set soon essential to content creators: “To understand how to tell a better story, to understand how to create content, (learning to use) technology such as AR and VR is going to be critical. You have to be an IT person now, there’s no way around it.” Vishal Khanna, director of marketing and communications, HealthPrize Technologies And, while Michael Brenner may agree with Vishal on the increasing importance of analytical skills, he has a more human view of what it takes to work with advanced technologies: “I think AIs are actually going to save us from becoming too mathematical and too robotic in our engineering approaches … I do think that people misunderstand the value and the perception of what AI can be for marketing. Create this’? I think it’s a bigger, more positive impact than a lot of people think, the impact of AI and marketing coming together.” Michael Brenner, author; CEO, Marketing Insider Group; chief marketing officer, Concured Use soft skills to increase your adaptability Meanwhile, other experts view the tech issue from both sides: “There’s an expression that is neurologically incorrect, but it’s still a useful concept: left brain vs. right brain; the analytical versus the creative. You now have to think about how your work impacts and informs the creative … (and, in turn) creative marketers need to be getting comfortable with math … with statistics, with algorithms, with machine learning, and how these technologies will be used, or are being used now to make their jobs easier.” Chris Penn, co-founder and chief innovator, Brain+Trust Insights “Another thing you need – and this is a difficult skill, but it’s so valuable – is the ability to toggle between the 10,000-foot view and being down in the weeds. I think, really, the new skill should be how to tell stories in this new world of digital. If you can work on that and grow more comfortable in it, it could stop holding you back from creating.” Melanie Deziel, founder, StoryFuel Prioritize the process One additional skill content marketers can benefit from cultivating, regardless of their job function, level of comfort with tech, or the tactics they work with: “We were talking a little earlier about how marketers are falling down on the job about governance. Get expert insight on how content and technology work well together.

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When I transitioned from a career as a journalist to one as a content marketer, I knew I’d have to refresh and refocus my knowledge base. But it took a minute to grasp how many new skills I would need to master before successfully applying years of editorial experience to the challenges and opportunities digital marketers face.

Sure, the mechanics of crafting a compelling story to engage an audience are universal, but the purposes and strategies that drive the creative process differ, as do the tools and processes used to govern and execute them.

Bringing my skill set up to speed is a continual learning experience. It’s one that content marketing teams can relate to, considering the rapid pace of change in digital media technology, let alone ever-shifting consumer trends, behaviors, and preferences.

Which skills should you sharpen?

Which core competencies should content marketers invest in if they want their teams to bridge today’s marketing realities with the needs of tomorrow’s content consumers? We asked Content Marketing World speakers. Here are a few areas they recommend focusing on:

Follow the new sound of search

One technological advance that will undoubtedly impact how audiences engage with brands is voice response. As consumers increasingly turn to smart listening devices like Amazon’s Echo and Google’s Home, content teams need to think not only about how to create audio-based messages but how to amplify their reach on a platform where “visibility” is somewhat of a misnomer.

Perhaps the key to success lies in the art of conversation:

Optimizing your content for voice search I think will be very important. Essentially, what that looks like is really adopting some of the traditional on-page SEO type of practices. But also, often times when you are listening to text, you want to make sure it’s very conversational, right? So, I think that (your brand’s) tone of voice will be very important when you’re optimizing your content for a voice search.”

Juntae DeLane, founder/CEO, Digital DeLane

“I feel that voice search is sort of the next way for marketers to go – and not even in a sense of just how to do it, but in how we interact with it, the psychology behind it, and just how we treat (content) differently than we do when talking to a human. It’s all very interesting, it’s all very new, and there’s so much that we just haven’t explored or learned from it yet.”

Anna Hrach, strategist, Convince & Convert

Expand your visual reality

Other content enhancements that have taken off in the last few years are visual reality and augmented reality – topics that colored one speaker’s view of the skill set soon essential to content creators:

“To understand how to tell a better story, to understand how to create content, (learning to use) technology such as AR and VR is going to be critical. I’m not saying you have to be AR or VR producer; but we, collectively as marketers, need to understand that will have an impact on content creation and storytelling. In terms of what that will be, I don’t know, but we should be paying attention to it and learning to better understand this area.”

Pam Didner, author, Global Content Marketing & Effective Sales Enablement

It’s critical to be more analytical

Algorithms have grown to be a driving force in content marketing, particularly in how and when to distribute content via search and social media. But as media kings like Google and Facebook change the rules of the game, even creatives may need to do the math – or, at least, learn to interpret what the numbers are telling them.

“As we continue to evolve and grow in digital marketing, marketers would be well served to sharpen their skills on being able to analyze. Making sure, even if you’re not a data head, to get into the analytics and to understand conversion tracking; to make sure that you can get credit for the great stuff you’re doing and so the organization can see what’s working better than something else.”

Leslie Carruthers, president, The Search Guru

Yet, Vishal Khanna feels there may be a need to take this idea even further:

“With the democratization of technology, where a small company like mine can access pretty much the same technology that any of the bigger players have, you also have to become a technologist. You have to be extremely analytical and logically inclined, and you have to understand that, ultimately, what you’re doing outside of the more creative side is building a bunch of if-then statements to run this marketing engine in the background. You have to be an IT person now, there’s no way…

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