GERENCIA DE DESARROLLO TERRITORIAL, AMBIENTAL Y SERVICIOS A LA CIUDAD

companies, ad agencies, and content marketers lie in

technology or content?

Hogshead creating a tropical island next to Manhattan’s Hudson River to generate $30 million of free publicity for the Fine Living Network. And the savvy media companies are already taking advantage of Apple’s iPad by developing content specifically for it. (Why must a sitcom that tells a story in three minutes and 12 second be forced to fit into a 22-minute window?)

More news, still paper

This doesn’t mean old media is dead. It means the launch of smart media. A traditional newspaper might be a great avenue for serious, in-depth analyses of news and business for high-net worth individuals. Yet that organization can repackage that same content in a different way with opinion pieces posted on a community-based website that drives sharing and comments among a tech-savvy, middle-income audience. So don’t just rely on creating killer content for everything. Leverage technology:

• Shop around – Find the right

technology to bring that great content to your audience – or as I said so flippantly before – make sure you’re gaming the system to get your killer content seen. I’m not going to give you specific advice here because it depends so heavily on your audience and objective and I’d be in way above my head. But there are a slew of resources on this subject – from niche magazines to entire Internet communities. Find your golden apple. Or perhaps red Apple iPod nano.

• Find 12 degrees of content reuse – Use the same piece in 12 different ways using many different technologies to reach people the way they want to be reached. Twelve, you say? How did you come up with that number? Extensive

MarketingExperiments research? No, I just randomly pulled it out of my head (I like eggs). But to show you how possible it is, let’s see if I can come up with 12 possibilities for reuse right here and now.

Let’s say you’re an environmental organization and you interview the CEO of a new, organic laundry detergent company. You could post that interview to your website in the “news” section (1), include a quick synopsis in your email newsletter (2), include extra questions that didn’t make it into the official article on your blog (3), tweet the biggest lesson learned from the interview (4), include the interview in a quarterly printed newsletter you send to major donors and prospects (5), make a Scribd or Issuu version of that newsletter so everyone else can read it on their mobile device (6), podcast (7) and YouTube (8) recordings of the interview, start a discussion around the interview’s subjects on Facebook (9), add the audio files to the iPhone app that updates all of your members to the latest news (10), turn the interview into a press release that you distribute to broadcast and print media (11), and tell Kevin Bacon about it (12).

• Tie it all together – I use the above example part tongue-in-cheek, part seriously. With so many free and

low-cost opportunities (not counting man hours, of course), it can certainly pay off to just throw your content onto as many technological media platforms as you can find and see what sticks.

The next level is to hone your use of

different technologies into one go-to-market plan that guides your audience from capture to conversion using your content marketing funnel. For example, you might tweet a link to a blog post that promotes a website that has a sales message (keeping a close eye on the metrics all the way).

By doing so, you’re leveraging each technology for what it does best. Twitter offers a very low level of engagement but is a great way to promote content and grab new eyeballs. A blog offers a medium level of engagement and provides the chance to tell enough of a story to convince someone to invest an hour with you for a webinar. In that hour, you can provide valuable content to your audience that also illustrates your value proposition and drives prospective customers to the ultimate sales message – perhaps a phone call to a sales rep.

• Experiment. Refine. Experiment some more. – Perhaps you can tell from our name, but we’re into this kind of thing. Technology brings opportunity. And it also tends to bring real-time, measurable information. So run tests and see what works best for your audience.This is the excitement of a technology-centric future. There is not necessarily one right answer. I started my career writing print ads that ran in USA Today and Wall Street Journal. Now I’m writing blogs. Same skills…but finding the right use for them. Through testing, you can take the same basic content and gain measurable results to help you guide your investments based on ROI…not on some blog post some guy wrote.

This blog post would have never worked in a newsprint forum. It’s meant to be shared, reused, and built upon by the readers. So take advantage of the technology you have in your

hands. Tweet and comment about this post. And show Boris, once and for all, that I’m right and he’s wrong.

Related Resources:

Debate Team (Part 1): Does the future of media companies, ad agencies, and content marketers lie in technology or content? Online Marketing Optimization Technology: We have ways of making technology talk, Mr. Bond

Technology Blind Spots

EDITOR’S NOTE: Historically, at the center of the trough in an economic recession, extended unemployment serves as a catalyst for starting small businesses.

Entrepreneurship can be very appealing, with dollar signs popping in your eyes as you think of the Google/Facebook/Your Next Company Here billionaires.

Yet while you might be highly skilled at your own profession, being the boss means so much more than knowing how to do what you do well. From my own (extremely minor) foray(s) into entrepreneurship, let me assure you the hardest part is the required intense focus on things you really don’t care about. When considering starting a business you’re likely already focused on the critical micro elements (your skillsets, potential customers you may know, a snazzy logo) and don’t have the resources for an on-staff Economist/ Researcher. So below are a few things this Editor really doesn’t care about, but you should if you’re thinking about making that leap.

Director of Sciences Bob Kemper was kind enough to share some observations about recent and emerging legislative, economic and societal trends that, though they’re broad-ranging, will have a disproportionate impact on the success of smaller businesses and start-ups.

I’ve spent a little time over the last few months researching and reflecting on recent events and changes in the macroeconomic and societal environment, which led me to consider what they might mean to a small Internet-based business or to someone considering starting one.

I’ll begin with an observation and statement of principle that will give some context to the comments that follow…

The list of key (internal) factors essential to starting and running a successful online business is long—as is the set books and other resources that enumerate them. Yet, even the best-of-the-best at those remains subject to a host of uncontrollable factors that, if unseen or unheeded, could undo the business. From a law change at the capital that cuts your legs out overnight to the slow suffocation of an emerging trend in technology or consumer sentiment, these external threats are real and tangible. It’s to those same factors though that our iconic Internet startups owe their very existence. The first century Roman philosopher and politician Seneca quipped that “Luck is what happens when preparation