BOSTON, MASS. — May 17, 2013 — Skyword, the leading platform for quality, original content production at scale, today announced it has closed $6.7 million in growth financing led by Cox Media Group. The investment will be used to expand the team and help scale the company to meet increasing customer and partner needs as content marketing becomes an integral part of brand marketing initiatives and digital content production for media companies.

“We see tremendous market opportunity for Skyword. With its powerful combination of visionary leadership, innovative technology, extensive writer network, and blue-chip customer successes, the company is poised for explosive growth as agencies, brand marketers and media companies increasingly look for ways to use quality, original content to reach and connect with consumers in a digital era,” said Shereta Williams, vice president of corporate development, Cox Media Group.

The Skyword Platform streamlines and automates the critical steps in the content creation and publishing process and provides marketers and publishers unmatched content intelligence. This includes the SEO scorecard assessment to ensure content will earn high search rankings, streamlined content promotion across various social channels, and the ability to track real-time search engine referral information so marketers can map content creation strategies to trending topics and stay ahead of industry developments. Skyword also collects search/social performance data, allowing users to continually improve content offerings based on the customers’ needs, and provides complete transparency into the editorial process with access to a network of thousands of professional freelance writers.

“We are in the midst of a perfect storm in the digital information era. Today’s converged media landscape and the evolving relationship between brands and consumers are driving marketers and publishers to rethink their tried-and-true strategies and invest in new technology solutions to better connect with customers,” added Tom Gerace, founder and CEO of Skyword. “Cox Media Group continues to be a strategic partner in our growth as we push to reshape the industry.”

Skyword’s Board of Directors is chaired by Jim Manzi, former CEO of Lotus Development Corporation and current chairman of Thermo Fisher, and includes: Shereta Williams, vice president of corporate development for Cox Media Group; Former Senator Bill Bradley, currently of Allen & Company; Bill Kling, founder and President Emeritus of American Public Media Group; and Tom Gerace, founder and CEO of Skyword.

About Skyword
Skyword delivers all that organizations need to reach and engage their audiences with quality, original content designed to succeed in search and social media. Quality content is essential for reaching and engaging consumers today, but the creation process is messy, inconsistent and immeasurable. The Skyword Platform makes it easy to produce, optimize and promote content at any scale to create meaningful, lasting relationships with customers. Skyword also provides access to a community of more than 20,000 professional writers, and its content strategy and editorial teams can help ensure the ongoing success of clients’ content programs. Skyword is a privately held, privately funded company headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. Investors include Allen & Company, Progress Ventures, Cox Media Group and American Public Media Group.

About Cox Media Group
Cox Media Group, Inc. is an integrated broadcasting, publishing, direct marketing and digital media company that includes the national advertising rep firms of Cox Reps. With $1.8 billion in revenue, the company operations include 15 broadcast television stations and one local cable channel, 85 radio stations, eight daily newspapers and more than a dozen non-daily publications, and more than 100 digital services. Additionally, CMG owns and operates Valpak, one of the leading direct marketing companies in North America. For more information about Cox Media Group, please check us out online at www.coxmediagroup.com.

Connect with Skyword
Blog: http://www.skyword.com/blog/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/skyword
Twitter: @skyword
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/company/skyword-inc.
Google+: https://plus.google.com/116106239912491759886/post
The Content Standard: http://www.contentstandard.com/

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An accomplished reporter who was embedded with troops in Iraq and has written for some of Europe’s most prestigious periodicals, my friend was bemoaning the fact that writing pieces for newspapers and magazines has become the worst job — literally. Frances’s story merely illustrates one example in a disturbing trend from the past five years.

Journalists now officially have the most undesirable vocation in America. Earlier this spring The Wall Street Journal reports that in a 2013 CareerCast.com list of 200 careers, reporters rank dead last. Using data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and other government agencies, the survey is based on five criteria: physical demands, work environment, income, stress, and hiring outlook.

The digital revolution that has made the world’s papers accessible to everyone with a few clicks on a browser has also decimated ad revenue. Print advertising dollars have turned into digital dimes.

A study by The Newspaper Association of America, via the Pew Research Center, estimates the industry garnered $49.2 billion in 2006. By 2012, total revenue more than halved, falling to $22.3 billion.

News-gathering organizations have slashed staff rosters and freelance writers’ fees. It has become nearly impossible for the average print journalist to earn a decent wage, especially in New York City, where the cost of living remains outrageously expensive.

The outlook for the future of journalism appears no less bleak. The BLS predicts the number of reporter jobs will fall 6% by 2020, while average pay will continue to decline.

The venerable Frank Rich weighs in on the current state of American journalism in “Inky Tears” for New York Magazine. He writes, “You cannot work at any old-media organization, print or television, without having many friends and former colleagues who are seeking work, often outside the news business.”

So how can a reporter escape from reporting?

Concurrent to the decline in old-school media, brand journalism, also referred to as content marketing, has seen a tremendous boom. The Custom Content Council (CCC) reports that in 2012, total custom content spending ended the year at $43.9 billion dollars.

Companies like leading content production platform Skyword are hiring talented writers and editors to work with clients such as Hearst’s Popular Mechanics and other magazine titles, P&G, General Motors, UPS, and The Home Depot. More than 23,000 writers have already joined our community of content creators.

In the case of my friend Frances, I shared with her about the tremendous opportunities in the world of brand journalism. Soon she applied to Skyword’s freelance program. Now my chum supplements her income by writing and editing for IBM’s Midsize Insider, one of our star accounts since the program won Digiday’s 2013 Best Content Marketing Program. Frances hasn’t shared with me the specifics about her compensation, but her wide smile as she explains that Skyword pays better than other freelance opportunities leaves no doubt about her satisfaction.

My friend’s story illustrates merely one of thousands among Skyword’s writing community. Brand journalism can be a great escape from the worst job in America.

To learn more about how to become a Skywriter, please visit http://www.skyword.com/write-for-skyword/

The post How to Escape From the Worst Job in America appeared first on Skyword.

ADP and Twentieth Century Fox are extremely mature businesses in competitive industries. These are companies that know how to wrap process around their activities, including content marketing. Companies that reach this size and level of maturity usually focus on operational excellence and efficiency as a means of driving growth and fending off the competition. Early on, Matt Petitjean of ADP made it clear that content marketing can be one of those areas of operational excellence. To paraphrase him: Content can become your competitive advantage.

The marketers that came together in the Arizona desert were looking for just that: a competitive advantage over fierce competition in the digital space.

In fact, the day-long speaking program began with another perspective on competitive advantage in business. Harley Manning of Forrester Research, author of Outside In: The Power of Putting Customers at the Center of Your Business, gave the opening keynote. Mr. Manning posited that in increasingly competitive markets, it is the companies that focus on customer experience that win in the long run. These are the companies that grow.

It became clear to summit attendees that creating a sustainable competitive advantage means supplementing their excellence in capturing demand with excellence in creating value for current and potential consumers. Simply stated: Digital marketers must learn to give as well as they have been taking.

Producing original content and a high-quality digital experience are important means for digital marketers to create value. This, however, is easier said than done. Once you accept the need to give back, how do you go about it?

Here are some ideas that came from the featured panel on agency content marketing and multiple breakout sessions with marketers from many different industries.

Give Locally

Content cannot motivate people to interact with it and then transact with your business unless it speaks to them. Mike McCoy spoke about messaging for the movie Life of Pi. He noted that messaging in Latin America was drastically different from messaging in Russia. In Latin America, the communications strategy and messaging focused on the family-friendly nature of the movie, while the value proposition in Russia focused on the philosophical, personal journey of Pi.

Give Consistently

Marketing doesn’t stop after your new product is launched. And marketing doesn’t stop after your white paper is published. Organizations must create a process to unlock the intellectual capital that goes into creating and delivering their products and services. Potential customers want as much valuable information as you can give them in a searchable, sharable, and snackable format.

Give Thoughtfully

Some summit attendees did express the concern that they have created too much content. Effectively, the concern was that they were creating shallow content. Content that was too tactical. Content that answered one small question but never addressed the bigger picture. Giving thoughtfully means creating content that you believe will build an audience and elicit an ongoing conversation.

The post Agency Content Marketing: Is Your Digital Agency Talking to You About Content? appeared first on Skyword.

Listen to Tom’s interview with Glenn, which aired on WebmasterRadio.fm on May 7, 2013.

To continue the conversation connect with Tom @TomGerace and Glenn @GlennEngler on Twitter or contact Skyword for more information about content marketing or how we innovate with digital agencies.

The post Skyword CEO Tom Gerace interview by Glenn Engler on the Market Edge Podcast appeared first on Skyword.

During the New Digital Strategies for Increasing Audience and Loyalty webinar, you talked about utilizing an approach “using all of the brands together.” What does this concept mean?

When our TV, newspaper, and radio companies were combined into one company three years ago, one of the first questions the management tackled was whether or not we should become one brand. The answer was a resounding “no.” Each brand has great strength and loyal audiences. In our new company, we needed to understand the power of each brand and use that power. In content, it meant being smarter about how we deploy our journalists. For example, when there were three companies, you could have five journalists at a basic city council meeting or press conference — one print reporter, one radio reporter, one TV reporter, one print photographer, and one TV videographer. Think of all the stories going uncovered because so many people were covering that one story. Now, we reduce that number and have more folks available for other stories.

This is critical at a time when the competition to provide local information is increasing exponentially. We need to provide more quality content. The more we can reduce duplication, the better off we are. We also have significant advantages by using the marketing power of each brand. Every week, we reach 93% of the market. Now, we promote our content everywhere. TV has sweeps four times a year, where we produce special content and promote it heavily. We took that concept, and now we use it for newspapers, digital products, and radio. Almost every month, we’re promoting one of our platforms deeply. That has allowed us to grow audience, exposing existing customers to some of the different products we have.

On the advertising side, it is about changing our thinking. It’s no longer about selling a specific platform. Now, it’s about understanding the advertisers’ needs and selling them the right mix of products. When all is said and done, it makes us more customer-focused. What does the customer need? And how do we serve them based on our many products? These are the questions we are answering.

How has Cox Media Group Ohio innovated around content to create new sources of revenue?

I’m not sure I’d call it innovation, but we are jumping into a world where a newspaper subscription is more than just a newspaper subscription. If you are a subscriber to the Dayton Daily News, you will also receive a host of digital products available only to subscribers. These include an app that is an electronic replica of the newspaper and a website that — in both content and presentation — has much more appeal to newspaper readers. This is a response to what we heard from our readers for years. They told us that the newspaper websites, which compete in the rough-and-tumble free world of content, are not satisfying their needs. It’s going to be interesting to learn what these longtime print readers really want in a digital form.

Why do traditional media have a competitive advantage?

We start with a huge audience built over generations, and we have talented and deep staffs that can do work that is remarkable. In the recent tragedy in Boston, everyone became a journalist, with photos, videos, tweets, and posts from everyone and everywhere. But ultimately, the traditional media — The Boston Globe, WBZ-TV — took all of that information and made sense of it. It was the traditional media who used their sources and their knowledge to provide context and depth to what was unfolding. The work was spectacular. People around the world quickly found it because of the history of excellence. In an increasingly noisy, complicated world, these are significant assets.

What does it take for a traditional media company to change its culture and people to prepare for digital transformation?

Like any company, it needs to start with clear goals. Who are we and what are we trying to accomplish? At Cox Media Group Ohio, we no longer see ourselves as a newspaper, TV, and radio company. We see ourselves as a media company, with expertise in those platforms and the need for deeper expertise in digital. Once we understood that change, it was important to focus on structure and process. If we didn’t make it easy for folks to succeed in this vision, the culture barriers would pop up faster. None of this is easy, particularly for traditional media companies.

On goals, the temptation is to bolt on new goals and not really prioritize and think of what needs to go away. On structure, it’s hard to change years of tradition. So many people have their career ladder set. When a structure changes, those ladders are broken. And there’s nothing particularly fun about mapping process and figuring out workflow. When Cox Media Group Ohio was brought together, there were two major concerns on the advertising front. How would advertisers feel about the combined company, and how well would salespeople do selling multiple platforms? These have not turned out to be the big problems.

What we are still unraveling is the complexity of producing and placing ads into various products. It’s computer systems that don’t talk to each other, different and complex pricing structures, the needs for different kinds of creativity, etc. Three years into it, this is still a source of pain and frustration. When the hurdles are smaller, it’s easier to tackle the culture.

There’s been lots of ink devoted to lamenting old media culture. And there clearly are some folks who are unwilling to adjust to changing times. But I’m also inspired by how many people I’ve seen rise to the occasion. We need to give them the right tools and training to do great work.

The post Media Companies Competing in the Rough-and-Tumble Free World of Content appeared first on Skyword.

Join us for this webinar to learn how a leading B2B marketer, IBM, has moved beyond campaign-based communications and is effectively reaching IT decision makers through organic search, influencers and content.

During this session, you’ll learn how IBM’s award-winning Midsize Insider program is satisfying their B2B customers’ needs for relevant information throughout the purchase process, and activating audiences with high-quality content marketing.

Speakers include:

• Leslie Reiser, Program Director, Mid Market Digital Marketing WW, IBM
  
• Christine McManus, Director of Strategic Services, Skyword
  
• Scott Ludwig, Associate Director, Marketing, Digital Influence Group
  
• Kevin Green, SVP, Strategy, Digital Influence Group

Attend this webinar to learn:

• What you need to know before kicking off a content marketing program
  
• How to create a content marketing strategy that will capitalize on your customers’ behaviors
  
• What is a ‘Generous Brand’ and what are the benefits of providing value-added content to prospects and customers?
  
• Why bloggers are critical to improving audience engagement and reach
  
• How to track your contents impact on business results

Reserve Your Space Today!

The post Live Webinar: Generating Leads through B2B Content Marketing June 6, 2013 appeared first on Skyword.

Google’s Zero Moment of Truth (ZMOT) study shows that shoppers visit 14 information sources on average prior to making a purchase. With the cost of customer acquisition climbing year-over-year, retailers are increasingly seeking to reach customers via natural search by answering their information needs. At the center of any retail content marketing strategy is having unique, well-written, search-optimized product descriptions that will convert the customers that are furthest down the shopping path.

The Challenge: Creating unique, search-optimized product descriptions can be a challenge for even the most organized merchandising teams. Typically, retailers use spreadsheets and Word documents to collect product information for a set of products. They then email them to in-house writers and/or freelancers, who write product descriptions. In some cases, the product descriptions are then emailed to the retailer’s search agency and optimized; sometimes, not. And in either case, spreadsheets are then returned to the merchandising team to be reviewed and approved. Once in final form, product descriptions are manually formatted and then loaded into the retailer’s commerce or catalog management platform. Formatting challenges and special characters may require adjustment. Incomplete fields may cause issues with loading. And even when the new product descriptions are live, the merchandising team is not done. They then need to work with their finance team to compensate the freelance writers and report their earnings for income tax purposes.

A Better Way: Today, we are excited to announce Skyword for Retail, a version of Skyword’s award-winning platform, designed to automate and streamline the entire process for creating and publishing search-optimized, original product descriptions. Skyword for Retail saves merchandisers valuable time and resources while allowing them to reach a broader number of potential customers through organic search.

Skyword for Retail is a cloud-based solution that allows retailers to:

• Manage in-house and freelance writers on one easy-to-use and flexible platform — eliminating email, spreadsheets, Word documents, and iChat, and saving you valuable time and resources
• Create descriptions for hundreds or thousands of SKUs on a SaaS platform that can be configured to your work flow and web design requirements
• Understand frequent shopper search behavior and create unique product descriptions with keywords that align with those searches — meaningfully improving natural search performance
• Implement standard guidelines and frameworks for writers, ensuring that writing best practices are applied consistently throughout the entire production cycle
• Improve your conversions with better organic search performance — organic search has higher conversion rates than SEM
• Save time and resources managing the editorial and review process for your content creation
• Easily assign projects to writers through a single interface and measure the performance and quality of their writing for future assignments

We are particularly excited that, with today’s release, we add dynamic new functionality to the Skyword Platform. While some of this new functionality is designed for retail merchandising, it also offers powerful new capabilities for our brand, media, and agency partners as well.

Assignment Templates Are Now Configurable

Before this release, assignments included only the following information:

• Assignment summary
• Content type
• Category
• Keyword
• Writer to which the assignment was given
• Scheduling settings

Today, you may customize the assignment template by adding new text fields to it. The new fields can be required or optional in the assignment. New fields may be hidden or shown to writers on the article template, allowing you to capture and maintain product or article IDs in the system. Assignment fields can also be delivered with the content via any of the delivery methods (XML, API, Plugin, Batch Export, or Email). The image below shows an assignment template for a retail product description that is to be optimized in Skyword. Note that the SEO Page Title, Short Description, Long Description, and Canonical URL fields are all examples of new assignment template fields.

Assignments Can Be Imported Into Skyword in Batches

Beginning today, you may import a CSV file from your catalog system or CMS (or other content repository) into Skyword. Skyword will automatically use this data to create assignments in the Skyword Platform.

As part of the import process, the Skyword Platform will validate each import to make sure that it matches the assignment template that you have created in the Skyword Platform.

Content Can Be Exported From Skyword

Along with the ability to import content as CSV into Skyword, you may now choose to export content as CSV files. Programs that elect to use the export delivery method will still be able to use the standard Skyword workflows. Once content has been created and approved, that content will appear in the Article Delivery navigation in the Export to File area. There, you will see a list of all approved articles. You may choose to export all articles or filter the list to export by a single project.

Assignment Management Improvements

With this release, we have made improvements that make it easier to view and manage assignments:

List of Assignments Without a Publish Date

If your program uses the calendar view to organize assignments, on the Publishing Calendar there is a calendar entry that displays the number of assignments without a publish date. These articles are the ones that are scheduled to go live as soon as they are approved. With this release, this calendar item now links to a list of the unscheduled assignments, where you can modify or remove the assignment.

Workflow to Complete All Incomplete Assignments

Sometimes, you may wish to load incomplete assignments into Skyword and then add information to them in the interface. Beginning today, you can now import assignments that are incomplete (i.e., assignments that have fields that are required before those assignments can be offered to writers). A new list in the Assignments area called Incomplete Assignments has been created to allow users to view these records.

When you complete an assignment in the interface, you can quickly jump to the next assignment to complete it.

Ability to Offer Multiple Assignments to One Writer

Going forward, in the Assignments area of the system, you will be able to select a writer and then offer articles from any of the available assignments to that writer. This makes it easier to allocate multiple assignments to a single writer, matching the work he or she is assigned with his or her particular area of expertise.

Articles Can Be Optimized for Multiple Keywords/Key Phrases

Skyword clients often want to optimize content for multiple keywords or key phrases. Beginning today, you may require writers to optimize content for up to three keywords/phrases. This is particularly helpful for product description optimization, where merchandisers may want to optimize for both a product name and a feature set. Writers and reviewers will see a scorecard for each targeted keyword or phrase.

Project Management Enhancements

This release includes two enhancements to the project functionality:

Projects List

• Using our new assignment import function, you may import assignments into a project and set availability, submission, and publish dates that would populate for each assignment in a project.

Project Detail

• We have also added project completion tracking. Here, the Skyword Platform will show the percentage of articles that are complete for a project on the projects list and on a project detail page.

Thanks for taking the time to learn about the powerful new capabilities that we have added to the Skyword Platform. Please let us know what you think by tweeting us @skyword and @tomgerace.

To learn more about Skyword for Retail or about our exciting new product description, project management, and search optimization features, please contact us and let us know how we can help.

The post Skyword for Retail: Product Description Optimization, Project Management, and Enhanced SEO appeared first on Skyword.

BOSTON, MASS.– May 2, 2013 – Skyword, the leading platform and services provider for quality, original content production, today unveiled its content marketing solution developed to help retailers improve organic search performance and reach buyers earlier in their purchasing journey to improve conversions.

Forrester Research, Inc., expects U.S. online retail sales to reach $262 billion in 2013 based on multichannel investments, consumer smartphone and tablet adoption, and the “fact that consumers are more comfortable with purchasing online,” according to Sucharita Mulpuru’s March 2013 report, “Forrester’s U.S. Online Retail Forecast, 2012 to 2017.” As online and mobile reach gain increasing importance, retailers are increasingly challenged to create original online product descriptions at scale to stay competitive. However, creating product descriptions is often manual, time consuming and inefficient, and standard descriptions from the manufacturer are ignored by search engines.

“Retailers are quickly realizing the need to reach consumers via original content and organic search,” said Tom Gerace, Skyword founder and CEO. “By producing quality, original product descriptions, we’re helping retailers at the forefront of the digital marketing evolution reach consumers early in the buying cycle to drive higher conversion rates.”

Skyword for Retail automates and streamlines the entire process for creating and publishing search-optimized, original product descriptions. It helps retailers easily differentiate their products, implement a consistent SEO strategy, and ensure quality writing. Leveraging the solution, retailers can:

• Create descriptions for tens of thousands of SKUs on a SaaS platform customizable to unique workflow and web design requirements
• Manage in-house and freelance writers on a single platform, eliminating the unwieldy and inefficient process of communicating to writers through email, spreadsheets and iChat. Writers can also be paid through the Skyword Platform – significantly reducing administrative time and resources
• Identify and better understand what customers are searching for and create product descriptions with keywords that align with those searches to dramatically improve search performance
• Implement standardized guidelines and frameworks for writers ensuring quality content with SEO and writing best practices applied consistently throughout entire production cycle
• Save time and resources managing the editorial and review process while improving conversions with better organic search performance
• Easily assign projects to writers through a single interface and measure the performance and quality of their writing for future assignments
• Organize and balance content across categories and projects that align with key business initiatives, objectives or product catalogs

Get more information about Skyword’s retail solution here.

About Skyword

Skyword delivers all that organizations need to reach and engage their audiences with quality, original content designed to succeed in search and social media. Quality content is essential for reaching and engaging consumers today, but the creation process is messy, inconsistent and immeasurable. The Skyword Platform makes it easy to produce, optimize and promote content at any scale to create meaningful, lasting relationships with customers. Skyword also provides access to a community of more than 20,000 professional writers, and its content strategy and editorial teams can help ensure the ongoing success of clients’ content programs. Skyword is a privately held, privately funded company headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. Investors include Allen & Company, Progress Ventures, Cox Media Group and American Public Media Group.

Connect with Skyword

Blog: http://www.skyword.com/blog/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/skyword
Twitter: @skyword
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/company/skyword-inc
Google+: https://plus.google.com/116106239912491759886/posts
Content Marketing News: www.contentstandard.com

The post Skyword Debuts Retail Content Marketing Solution appeared first on Skyword.

Let’s think about that for a second. In eight seconds, you can’t even:

• Play one hand of poker
• Open a corked bottle of wine
• Wash your face
• Brew coffee
• Read the first paragraph of this article

If you want to grab people’s attention, you have to do so quickly.

Two important qualities of successful content: The content must be snackable and shareable. The idea is to grab the attention of readers and entice them to learn more. Numbers and symbols (i.e., % and &) help do the trick, as well.

Part of Twitter’s success is that they capitalized on this idea. We live in a world of over-sharing and people screaming, “Get to the point already!” Those who spend a lot of time online are addicted to bite-sized information they can share.

Tracy Stokes (@tstokes_forr) of Forrester Research, Inc., created an intriguing report titled “How to Build Your Brand with Branded Content” (March 2013) that provides readers with a deep-dive into the benefits of regular, branded, high-quality content. Some content marketing statistics and other resources from her report are included below. Click on a tweet link to share to your account.

Content Marketing Statistics

• 79% of marketers report their organizations are shifting into branded content. (Forrester) Tweet
  
• 55% of B2C marketers plan to increase their investment in branded content. (Forrester) Tweet
• Only 32% of marketers believe their organization is effective at content marketing. (Forrester) Tweet
• 60% of marketers use content marketing on a weekly basis. (eMarketer) Tweet
• The four C’s to harness the power of branded content are: capture, connect, create, and continuously measure. (Forrester) Tweet
• The most trusted marketing communications in the US are: professionally written online reviews (55%) consumer-written online reviews (46%), natural search engine results (43%), and information on brand websites (32%). (Forrester) Tweet
• 53% of organic searchers click on the first link, 85% organic, and 15% paid. (Search Engine Watch) Tweet
• 50% of marketers cite the need to produce enough engaging content as a key content marketing challenge. (Forrester) Tweet
• 67% of adults online use social networking sites. (Pew Internet) Tweet
• There are 100 billion global searches every month on Google alone. (Search Engine Land) Tweet
• Content creation ranked as the single most effective SEO tactic by 53%. (Marketing Sherpa) Tweet
• Content marketing is now a nearly $43.9-billion industry—a 9.2% increase over last year. (Custom Content Council) Tweet

Skyword Stories & Insight

• In 2012, Skyword content drove over 134 million unique visits to client sites from search and social. Tweet
• Skyword study: Articles that included at least one image saw an average increase in page views of 70%. Tweet
• The three S’s for successful content marketing: searchable, shareable, and snackable. Tweet
• A top men’s fashion brand was ranking in the top 20 results of Google and Bing for 12 keywords. Now, that brand ranks for 122 keywords after three months with Skyword. Tweet
• Skyword study: On average, news articles saw a 740% increase in views when shared socially. Tweet
• Skyword delivered 20 million unique visitors to a leading Spanish news site in 15 months. Tweet
• Quality content fuels all marketing in four areas, specifically: search, email, social and paid. Tweet

We are happy to discuss and learn more about your content strategy. Please send an email (learnmore@skyword.com) to schedule a call or request a demo.

Adam Vavrek is a sports enthusiast with an addiction to ice cream, and is also the Sales Operations Manager at Skyword. Follow @avavrek, and circle Adam Vavrek on Google+.

The post Tweetworthy Content Marketing Statistics by the Numbers appeared first on Skyword.

I spent two days this week at the Content2Conversion conference in New York City, and a recurring theme was the need for dramatic change within B2B marketing organizations. We need to think like publishers. To think like publishers, we need to act like publishers—creating content that our customers value and seek.

According to B2B Content Marketing: 2013 Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends in North America from Content Marketing Institute, nine out of 10 marketers are using content marketing. But, as Joe Pulizzi said at the conference, “Content marketing is a lot like sex. Just because you do it, doesn’t mean you do it well.” And, quite frankly, doing it well means re-imagining how we organize our marketing teams.

As conversion rates for traditional marketing methods continue to decline, marketing teams need to create the content customers care about—content that’s about them, not us. And they need to publish content frequently enough to perform well in search and social, the two primary ways people get information today. As Tami Cannizaro, director of marketing at IBM Enterprise, pointed out, “If your marketing strategy hasn’t changed dramatically in the last few years, there’s something wrong.”

So, let’s take a look at some key roles in the new marketing organization—a group that shares more characteristics with a prime-time news team than a marketing team.

Content Strategists

Content strategists are the equivalent of managing editors, bringing our marketing objectives and plans to life. They listen to our customers to understand the content they value, what they search on, what they share, and where they go for information. They also are voracious consumers of our competitors’ content, ensuring that we maintain a unique voice.

The content strategist develops our buyer personas, so that we create stories specifically for them and about them. Then they map those stories to the marketing and sales funnels.

The editorial calendar is their GPS system, and they are responsible for ensuring that it is fluid enough to adjust easily to unexpected turns in the road. Content strategists chair an editorial board for input from key areas of the company, and they digest and analyze performance metrics to make sure that we publish only what’s of value to our customers.

Content Creators

If brands are to be publishers, we need to completely re-imagine how we create content. To perform well in search, we should be publishing original content every day. But how often have you asked someone from your company to write a blog and, four months later, still haven’t received anything?

So, my advice: Hire journalists who are used to daily writing assignments and deadlines. Or hire freelance journalists, train them in your brand voice and content standards, give them “beats” based on their subject matter expertise, and develop your own brand newsroom mentality.

Editors

Have you ever heard of a great publisher that didn’t have an award-winning editorial team? Yet, as marketers, we often overlook the importance of a formalized editorial process. As brand publishers, we need strong editors who not only proofread and fact check but ensure that writers stick to our brand voice and quality standards. A talented editor can turn good into great with a quick turn of phrase or tweak to a headline. And that could be the difference between being right in the middle of the social conversation and sitting on the sidelines.

Content Amplifiers

Content amplifiers help ensure that word gets out about your content. They are today’s version of the paperboy, making sure that the newspaper gets delivered to the reader’s front step. Today, we need to make sure our content feeds into our paid, owned, and earned distribution channels, and is delivered to our customers’ digital doorsteps.

I think we all can agree that B2B marketing ain’t what it used to be. And if your marketing organization looks like it did a few years ago, we can safely say it ain’t what it needs to be.

The post B2B Marketing Ain’t What It Used to Be appeared first on Skyword.