This issue of measurement is something that we marketers grapple with frequently, and it’s an emerging area that we need to get right.  It’s far too easy to just “assume” that your content marketing efforts are paying off. But if we don’t get hyper focused on measuring its impact in tangible ways, content marketing will get relegated to the same dustbin as Public Relations—you know, that thing that we all do, but really can’t figure out how to measure effectively?

In the article, I have proposed a few ways to push the envelope of your measurement:

Tip 1: Expand your traffic-counting tools: count everything you can to show true ROI

 Tip 2: Use your tags: just like you tag campaigns, tag your content

Read the full article on MarketingProfs here:

http://www.marketingprofs.com/articles/2013/10775/how-to-gauge-the-power-and-value-of-your-content-marketing

Be sure to share your ideas in the comments here, or there. 

@ajdun

I am not going to try to add to the dialogue on if Home is any good or not. The numbers and opinions will surely change rapidly. As a recent iPhone convert (from a Blackberry, gasp!) Home will not encourage me to make the switch to Android. And when my nearly teenage daughter gets her first cell phone this summer, it will probably be an Android device, but I will not be downloading the App for her either.

You see, I am just not sure I am ready for Facebook to be THAT ingrained in my life.

I wrote some time ago about whether or not Facebook was becoming a classic walled garden along the lines of AOL in its early heyday. You can read that post if you would like (Is Facebook Now the Internet?), but the point was simply that as more and more brands adopted Facebook, and promoted their presence on it, the web experience would be different if you just lived in Facebook without exploring the broader web.  

While there is no chance we will ever go back to the AOL days (remember the disks of free hours?) I remain convinced that your web experience is going to be increasingly influenced by your network. As a result, my web experience will be different from your web experience. And once the web becomes merely a conglomeration of individualized experiences, things like Home will not be as jarring for many of us.

And consider this. 10+ years ago we didn’t really expect to be worshipping at the “Altar of iJobs” either. And yet, Jobs and Apple managed to disrupt the music industry and phone industry in short order. (Yes, you can argue the PC disruption thing too, but I think one Gates, Bill might have something to say on that one!) Apple has dramatically changed how consumers think about their devices, and really, their life. (also well documented by others) While Android continues to make inroads as a device platform, I don’t think Google is anywhere close to having the same sort of connected power across platforms that Apple has mastered. 

As the Fortune article reveals, Home is a fundamental re-think of how Facebook is approaching mobile. From this path however, It’s not a very big leap to Facebook becoming our interface to the world at large across every connected device we use—from phone to tablet to PC, to TV, to Google Glass, to your car dashboard. And if the House of Zuck is indeed borrowing a page from Jobs, 5 years from now we could be wondering what all the fuss was about.

Stay tuned, it’s going to be a fascinating ride!   

@ajdun

Excerpt:

Your organization is likely filled with smart people who have strong points of view on relevant topics for your business.  Even if you have a very-engaged core team of bloggers and contributors, or are buying content from third party content services like WriterAccess or Scripted, there are always people at the periphery who *should* be involved with your content creation efforts, and they are not.

Read the full post on the Percussion Web Content Management Blog

Dug this out of the archives, my interview with Tyler Pyburn of the Pulse Network at the Inbound Marketing Summit 2012. Speaking about my mantra that “everything is content” and the concept of “extreme reuse.”

For each of the past few years I have written about my marketing focus for the coming year as a way to reflect on what has worked and what has not.  You can read my 2010 post about focus,  my 2011 post about what works, or my 2012 post on being different using the embedded links.

So, what will 2013 marketing strategy centering on? In a word: Scale. In 2012 my team focused on thinking as far outside the box as possible to create a brand persona that is accessible, fun, engaging, and just a touch irreverent.  That is embodied in Percussion’s new logo that we occasionally tweak to look like the emoticon made with a colon followed by a P, :P, or sticking your tongue out.  We will continue making irreverence and fun a priority, we have found that it makes things more interesting.

But our core strategy for 2013 is how to build on the great foundation we created in 2012 and deliver on the goals of the business. Not surprisingly, our best leads come through two major channels: The website, and our email campaigns. Our publishing model will focus on engaging prospects more dynamically across channels, and we will be investing substantially in testing to ensure that we are hitting the mark, refining along the way to optimize our efforts.

We will continue to run events and other targeted campaigns of course as they add significant value, and revenue to our pipeline. In short, I am very excited to get the year rolling!

What about you, what are you focused on for 2013?

@ajdun

But where things get tricky for me is when it comes to his Livestrong foundation, and what that has meant for millions of people diagnosed with cancer, or for their loved ones impacted by that diagnosis.  (And yes, I have heard the rumors of gross mismanagement there as well.)

I put on a yellow LiveStrong bracelet for the first time in April of 2006. That was days after my diagnosis of a Myxoid Liposarcoma in my left leg. I haven’t taken it off since. Through many a dark moment during the hellatious 9 months of treatment that followed I found myself routinely and absentmindedly playing with it as if to remind myself of the message it contained. I vividly recall lying in bed after a much more difficult than expected surgery that required that I miss my niece’s Bat Mitvah, and just reminding myself of the message, and to get through. The next day would be a better day, and so would the one after that. 

Over the years since, on many, many occasions, people would ask me about my bracelet and if I rode. I would just nod and smile, and say that no, it was the message that mattered. I never thought of the bracelet as a support for riding, just a support for the mission.

I was reminded of the conflict around the man, the message, and the sport this past week when a good friend of mine posted the following on Facebook:

As I read that, I was instantly awash with emotions from anger to sadness that it had come to this. Where does the message and the man diverge? Does it matter that he came to fame by cheating? Or does it matter more that he dedicated that fame and his considerable resources to shine a light on a segment of the population that could really use some light? Where do these things split apart? I never really cared that he was a cyclist that beat cancer. I only cared that he used his fame and wealth to try and provide support for others who were going on the same journey. Some like me who won, and many others who, unfortunately, did not. 

This is what I commented back on my friends post (unedited):

In the end, you will make your own choice about the man, the message, and the foundation. I have made my choice.

My bracelet remains on.

–@ajdun

If you are anything like me, you have had your share of challenges working with the industry analyst community. Most of us have had to just “grin and bear it” in the face of the greater good of your company or your client.  Frankly, I am tired of it, and am openly wondering if the times have passed the traditional analyst model by.

After a particularly frustrating encounter last month I sat down and banged out 1800 words on what was wrong with the AR model without trying too hard.  To avoid being a hypocrite, ore more accurately, to quit whining about it, I also added what I thought should be done to improve how the analyst firms work with technology vendors and technology buyers. Now, at nearly 2600 words, I wanted to get your take on this subject as I put the finishing touches on my “Open Letter to the AR Community”

In the comments here, feel free to share your biggest challenges when working with the industry analyst community.  Or if you prefer to keep them anonymous DM me on Twitter, or send me a message on LinkedIn. I will curate the stories and include them as reference for my post. 

I would love to hear what you think can be done to fix the AR industry model as well (assuming of course, you think it’s broken too!)

I look forward to hearing from you!.

@ajdun

For the better part of 15 years I have traveled with a laptop. Work or pleasure, I always had my trusty laptop in tow. There was always work to be done on the plane, or after the conference or event. It just became part of my travel bag, right next to the workout clothes, and the clear plastic bag with my toiletries (thoguh notably absent my toothpaste and floss this trip.. ugh!) 

The last few trips though I started carrying my iPad with me as well. I found myself using it for most of the day and only periodically logging in on my laptop. Coupled with my trusty Blackberry(!) I started to wonder if I needed my laptop at all.

So I tried to go without.

This week I went to San Francisco to participate on a web content management vendor panel at the Inbound Marketing Summit. Given my quick turn-around (out on Monday night, back Wednesday night), I thought this was a good trip to try to go laptop-less.

How did it go? Here are a couple of quick observations:

• After all of these years, it’s hard to give up the laptop, but I survived, easily
• Airport security was easier without having to take the laptop out of the bag, one less bin
• Not being able to work on email offline created a small challenge, but I got over it
• I definitely need a little bag to carry it and a few other small things in, it’s hard walking around with it under your arm the whole time
• In a tight conference room, I wouldn’t have pulled out my laptop, but this way I could connect without being obtrusive, and it was easier to move around the room
• I have gotten pretty good at trouble shooting a wireless connection on a laptop, but when my iPad wouldn’t connect to the conference network at first, I was pretty lost (a big thank you to whomever left their Android Access Point open for me to “borrow” that first morning.)
• Evernote doesn’t work that well in offline mode (at least for me), so I had to use the native notepad app, which isn’t as good
• Despite typing on the key pad for 2 straight days, I still hit that damn “m” key instead of the space bar far too many times

Netting the experience out, despite a few minutes of trepidation realizing I didn’t have a few files with me, it worked out just fine. Definitely works best for shorter trips though. Any longer, I think I will need to bring the big old brick!

@ajdun

PS, Rather than try to replicate the most innovative show recaps by @Conferencebites and @kabaim I will simply point to those instead.  My three key takeaways?

1. Mobile is hot
2. Mobile is really, really hot
3. Mobile is so hot, why aren’t you already doing mobile?

If you are interested in reading more on these topics, here are some handy links.

MarketingProfs >> Content Marketing: A New Approach to an Old Idea

The premise of this article is that while Content Marketing is not new, how people are thinking of it today has dramatically change perspectives of how it can be used, in particular, by the “c-suite.” Judging from the tweets and retweets of the article, readers found the chart that helps link Content Marketing vehicles to business outcomes particularly interesting and useful.

CMS Wire >> Marketers Want Simplicity in a Complex Online World

I am long a proponent that marketers want simplicity overall. Help me do my job or get out of my way essentially. This article focuses on how the content management community isn’t helping things by “over-complexifying” our world.

Percussion Survey: The Paradox of Blogging: Why aren’t you?

At Percussion, we conducted a survey of over 800 mid-market technology companies to look for trends in the state of blogging today. We found that the vast majority of you weren’t blogging at all. Read the blog post from our Product Marketing Manager here:  And link to download the full report if interested from there.