Witness to the Content Revolution

My partner Anna and I are big fans of Marketing Profs’ Ann Handley. We’re also big fans of free events with continental breakfast included. So when I heard Ann was a featured speaker at Bridgeline Digital’s Content Revolution event this morning, naturally I signed up.

As it turns out, Ann was ill. But her stand-in, C.C. Chapman, founder of Digital Dads and co-author of a book with Ann, did not disappoint. C.C. was ably assisted by Becki Dilworth, Bridgeline’s vice president of digital strategy.

I spend a lot of time reading up on content and attending professional events on the topic, so I feel like I’ve heard it all at this point. But at least I usually end up walking away with a useful tip or two and something to think about.

I left today’s event thinking about something C.C. pointed out: No matter what the industry, every business out there today is a publisher. We all need to be pushing content out there — via blogs, articles, white papers, whatever — to thrive in today’s marketplace.

Want proof? I wrote about this in January, citing a Hubspot study on how much blogs are affecting users’ online purchasing decisions. C.C. noted another Hubspot study that found companies that blog get 55% more traffic and 97% more inbound links.

So there you have it. The concept of “publish or perish,” which used to apply only to academia, is becoming pertinent to all of us. As C.C. said, “You are the publisher, and you must start thinking this way.”

The eternal conundrum? Two of the biggest content-marketing challenges people cite (according to a Marketing Profs survey) are producing content that is engaging and producing enough content. I guess that’s good news for copywriters like me.