Content has been democratized, optimized, and commoditized, yet brands are only beginning to tap its full potential. Here’s what experts say needs to happen next.
Content Marketing World 2022 keynote speakers recommend taking the actions below to evolve your brand’s success – and the role you play in shaping it.
By Jodi Harris
You’re doing everything in your power to craft amazing content.
You sweat over quality, optimize everything to the last keyword, and feed those greedy channel beasts more and more and more.
But the results you get don’t match the effort you put in. What are you doing wrong?
The game has changed. Simply doing the once-right things – and more of them – won’t guarantee wins.
“The content you create provides no sustainable competitive advantage for your business.”
Robert Rose kicked off Content Marketing World 2022 with that bold statement. Even the most exceptional work will be copied, remixed, reimagined, and reissued by other brands and consumers.
But don’t take that as a eulogy for our beloved practice. Instead, celebrate new and different ways of looking at your work, Robert said, starting with your strategy and structure.
Having the right resources (including strategic roles, skilled teams, and repeatable procedures) lets you fluidly change and evolve all the time.
And that’s where you’ll find your new competitive advantage.
Ann Handley advises brands to cultivate a unique voice.
Most streamers use automated transcriptions to help people with hearing difficulties follow what’s happening on screen. But Netflix assigned marketing writers to craft vivid descriptions of the sounds accompanying the Stranger Things action.
The evocative and unsettling words they used (wetly squelching, tentacles roiling) caught the attention of younger viewers – a segment that watches shows with captions on regardless of their hearing ability.
Earned media mentions skittered across the web, entangling viewers in a whole new viewing (and reading) experience.
The lesson, Ann said, is that voice can carry your brand's unique personality, even when your brand isn't mentioned. Investing in it is a strategic choice that sets your brand apart.
To build audience relationships in a world of content abundance, a warm, relatable brand voice is crucial.”
“A warm, relatable brand voice is increasingly crucial. It’s how we need to start developing relationships with our audiences, especially in this world of content abundance,” Ann said.
Before Netflix broke the closed-caption mold, marketing visionary Bonin Bough broke publishing conventions.
While writing a book about how mobile phones transformed communication, he hit on a unique idea. Why not put his phone number on the cover, so readers could reach out and continue the dialog?
His publishers balked. So, Bonin purchased the rights from them and published the book his way. Since 2016, more than 50,000 readers of Txt Me: Your Phone Has Changed Your Life. Let's Talk About It have called to create a personal connection with him.
A co-founder of Group Black – a media collective and accelerator focused on advancing Black-owned media properties – Bonin built his groundbreaking marketing career by thinking differently about what others consider impossible.
Bonin Bough speaks about challenging convention.
Bonin offers advice on how to challenge convention and still drive meaningful marketing actions:
Reverse-engineer models and create guardrails to make innovation more manageable.”
People remain the most valuable (and expensive) content marketing assets. So cultivating content marketing careers is one of the most strategic choices an organization can make.
Upcoming CMI research shared at the conference shows most content marketers are at least somewhat satisfied with their current roles. Yet few feel sure about how they’ll grow in those roles. And of those who do have a clear career path, 20% say they’ll have to leave their employer to get there.
“We have to build a career path into what it is we do. There’s no way content becomes a strategic function in the business if we don’t look at this. It will always be just a content factory,” Robert said.
Jessica Bergmann advocates for clear career paths.
Jessica Bergmann shared how Salesforce did this. Working with the employee success team, Jessica and colleagues documented a career path for content team members to follow to progress from individual contributors to executive management.
Each company should build a path that suits its structure and culture. But Jessica shared some ideas any brand can use to start seeding opportunities and laying a professional path for content team members:
Mark Harrison explains his vision of belonging.
Perhaps the most urgent strategic question today is this: How will you create content that leads to a meaningful change in the world?
With trust declining in government and other institutions, audiences now expect brands to work toward something beyond their balance sheet. Robert Rose pointed out in his talk that the subhead for Edelman’s 2022 Trust Barometer is this: “Societal leadership is now a core function of business.”
Mark Harrison brought home the role of content (and content practitioners) in this function. A volunteer and entrepreneur who founded the sponsorship agency T1 to work exclusively with impactful brands, Mark is committed to making a difference.
“I have a simple personal vision, and that is to create a world of belonging,” he said. “No matter what you look like, what you sound like, or where you come from, you will feel that you belong.”
Mark executes his mission by building what he calls the above-ground railroad – a nod to the underground railroad that helped thousands of enslaved people escape to freedom in the U.S.
The above-ground railroad activates networks of people to bring greater equity and opportunity to those who have been marginalized by society.
Part of that work involves amplifying their struggles and their strengths to those who have the power to increase inclusivity.
“Amplifying voices is not giving your social pages over to somebody that doesn't look like you. It’s about showing real courage,” Mark said.
Mark shared an example that shows how powerful courageous content can be. When Harry Met Santa, a video from Posten Norge, tells the story of a developing relationship between a man (Harry) and Santa Claus. The video ends with a romantic kiss between the two, followed by this closing line: “In 2022, Norway marks 50 years of being able to love whoever we want.”
The video When Harry Met Santa demonstrates the power of courageous content.
He implores marketers to enhance the human resonance of their work inside and outside of their organizations. “The only difference between those who are successful and those who aren't is that they lack an unwavering vision,” Mark says.
Amplifying voices is not giving your social pages over to somebody who doesn't look like you. It’s about showing real courage”
He implores marketers to create personal missions to enhance the human resonance of their work inside and outside of their organizations. “The only difference between those who are successful and those who aren't is that they lack an unwavering vision,” Mark says.
In his closing keynote, comedian Hasan Minhaj used a simple sentence to capture the essence of his vision: “I want us to be able to support each other the way women support each other on Instagram.”
Hasan said he admires the beautiful positivity his wife and her friends share whenever they post selfies, and he’d like to see that kind of sincerity and authenticity in content of all kinds.
In his own content, Hasan fearlessly dissects society’s most polarizing issues, like race, politics, student loans, gun violence, and fertility. And he does it by sharing his personal experiences in thoughtful ways.
“When I first started performing, I was still figuring out who I am, and I would just try to find all material that I thought could relate to the audience. As I got better at it, I realized comedy is the art form of confession,” Hasan said.
So, he shifted his process and started writing down the controversial ideas and experiences he felt passionate about but nervous to share with his audience.
That choice made him more confident about who he is as a content creator, performer, and person of color. And it freed him to focus on the stories he wanted to tell.
“That’s what I’m always chasing – finding that thing that I’m kind of too afraid to say, and then ‘going there’ anyway,” Hasan said.
He encourages marketers to start conversations that come from a place of personal passion. Doing so helps you create a human connection and break through attention barriers and content fatigue.
“You have to have some skin in the game,” Hasan said. “If I’m going to comment about this issue, here’s my personal connection to it.”
Hasan Minhaj shares a secret for creating a more human connection: Have some skin in the game.
From these and other Content Marketing World conversations, you clearly have your work cut out for you. But with a renewed focus on distinguishing your brand’s content, advocating for a clearer career path, reimagining creative possibilities, and following a unique driving purpose, you can drive forward and achieve impressive gains for your business, your audience, and for society. CCO
Jodi Harris is director of content strategy at Content Marketing Institute and editor-in-chief of CCO. She describes her role as a combination of strategic alchemist, process architect, and creative explorer. Prior to this role, Jodi spent over a decade developing and managing content initiatives for brand clients in the entertainment, CPG, health care, technology, and biotech industries, as well as for agencies and media brands. Follow her on Twitter at @Joderama.
