Tag Archives: content

600,000 Years of Health Storytelling (Video)

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Check out my presentation on content strategy for the web. This one includes Grok the Caveman, who was the world’s first healthcare educator.

In this presentation, I discuss how our ancestors used visual storytelling to communicate health messages. Our DNA is encoded to respond to visual stories, which we should be leveraging to share health information.

This particular presentation was delivered to our internal staff at Ogilvy CommonHealth in the Parsippany, NJ office. If you enjoyed this, be sure to check out my blog post “Epic Tales of Marketing Storytelling.” Continue reading →

Upcoming: Content Marketing World 2013 in Cleveland

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Poster promoting Content Marketing World 2013 featuring Buddy Scalera, Tim Washer, Sarah Skerik, and Jeff Rohrs

Poster promoting Content Marketing World 2013 featuring Buddy Scalera, Tim Washer, Sarah Skerik, and Jeff Rohrs

In a few days, I’ll be presenting at Content Marketing World in Cleveland, one of the premiere events in marketing and content strategy. If you work in content, content marketing, content strategy, analytics, or social media, this is the must-attend event of the year.

Joe Pulizzi and the conference planners have created and shared some clever materials, including a series of posters featuring different speakers. Of course, we love to see our names, so everyone on the poster is sharing it on their social channels. My poster in the series has a disco theme and includes Jeff Rohrs, Sarah Skerik, and Tim Washer.

I talk to my clients a lot about social and viral assets. This is an excellent real-time example of how to create content assets that travel through sharing and endorsement.

They’ve also created a SlideShare presentation that included quotes from many of the speakers. And, of course, the views and likes for this thing are impressive as hell.

The original PowerPoint asset was posted August 14, 2013 on SlideShare. As of this writing, it’s already at 34,819  views. Remember, this is a deck leading up to a business conference. This isn’t some goofy pop culture thing from MTV or People magazine, so you don’t usually see view rates like this on business content.
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Interview with Content Strategy Author Ann Rockley

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Ann Rockley and Buddy Scalera photo

Ann Rockley and Buddy Scalera at the Intelligent Content Conference 2013

Despite being a relatively young industry, content strategy and marketing owes a great deal to certain pioneers who helped shape essential concepts. Their names pop up in blog posts, at conferences, and on bookshelves because they are the true thought leaders of this evolving discipline.

Instead of becoming a fond footnote of the content strategy industry, pioneer Ann Rockley has continued to evolve with fresh, relevant insights. Her book “Managing Enterprise Content,” is, quite frankly, required reading for everyone who wants to work in content strategy.

After several years of hearing about Ann Rockley, I was fortunate enough to meet her at the Intelligent Content Conference 2013 in San Francisco. (I spoke at the conference and delivered a scintillating presentation called “Channel Agnostic Content Strategy for Happy Marketers.”) Later, Ann and I exchanged a few emails, and she was kind enough to grant me an email interview.

Fair warning. You will probably have to read this interview once, then read Ann’s book, then read this interview again to get the full impact. Ann’s very smart. I was just trying to keep up. Continue reading →

Speaking at Intelligent Content Conference 2013 in February

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See Buddy Speak at Intelligent Content Conference 2013

See Buddy Speak at Intelligent Content Conference 2013

West Coast! It’s been a long time since we’ve seen each other, maybe too long.

Let’s get together at the Intelligent Content Conference 2013 in San Francisco on February 7-8, 2013. I’m packing now to bring some East Coast fun to the City by the Bay.

If you’re a content marketer, this is one of the big conferences you should attend. I’ll be there to deliver my presentation on Feb 8th at 2:00. Here’s the description:

Channel-Agnostic Content Strategy for Happy Marketers
Learn why “intelligent content” is an inevitable future for multi-channel marketing. Developing channel-agnostic content is rapidly becoming the only way to address the proliferation of emerging channels and new devices. Brands are publishers and content is liquid. Marketing teams need to consider how to share messages across the platforms that their customers are using. Intelligent, channel-agnostic content development, governance, and maintenance will ensure that your marketing team is happy (i.e., employed) and prepared for the future.

You’ll see a lot of the stuff you’ve come to know and love including my sparking personality, these rock-hard abs, and some amazing comic book art. Continue reading →

Storming Retail: How Home Depot, Lowe’s & Sears Miss Opportunities

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A hurricane of missed opportunities in retail and content strategy.

If I had stock in Home Depot, Lowes, or Sears, I’d be pretty annoyed right now. I’d be looking at the impending storm that’s about to hit the East Coast, and think, “why aren’t these retailers ready for Hurricane Sandy?”

To that, I’d add, “again.”

Yup, this is the second year in a row that retailers are not ready for the consumer demand in times of emergency. Last year, we were hit with an epic, freak storm that knocked out electricity for four days. The folks with generators were just fine, but the rest of us were, well, very cold.

You’d think that people would learn from last year and already have generators, batteries, bottled water, canned goods, gasoline, and other things like that. But they don’t. People are people. They don’t usually do a good job of taking care of themselves and typically wait until the last minute to do their Christmas shopping. People are like that and will always be like that.
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Content Strategy and eBooks

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Marvel Comics on iPad

The easiest thing to do is wait. When a new technology seems to be bubbling up at the edges of conversation, most people just wait. Wait to see how it turns out. See if it takes off.

When it comes to ebooks, the wait is over. Done. The handwriting is no longer on the wall; it’s being downloaded to your iPad.

Old Models, Redefined
The book business is faring much better than the music industry did when digital changed their business model. As millions of songs were being downloaded in the 90s, music companies were busy protecting their old-media distribution channels. At one time, music stores dotted strip malls and city street. Now, most are gone. Apple redefined their distribution model.

The next to be hit was the video business. Torrents made pirating easy. And since people already had home-entertainment centers, the devices of consumption were already in place. The studios were also slow to move, sticking with DVDs for too long. NetFlix was already busy redefining their distribution model. Continue reading →

Write a Website, Not a Novel

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Stack of keyboards

Write less. Write better.

Never use ten words, when you can say it in five. Never use a ten-buck word, when a five-buck word will do.

These are old phrases that I remember from my days working as a journalist. The idea was not to dazzle people with your thesaurus, but to communicate and report your story. Save the flowery language, they used to say, for your novel.

If you’re developing your content strategy for your new brand website, be sure to include a section in the style guide about writing. Let your whole team know that the purpose of your website is to serve the needs of your users. It’s not an opportunity to stretch your legs as a writer and express yourself with brilliant prose. Continue reading →

Mobile Video, NetFlix, and Mass Transit

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Apple iPad

Apple iPad

As I was riding the bus to work this week, I observed at least two people streaming Netflix to iPads.

The lower-end iPads include WiFi, but the upgraded models offer 3G wireless service. That makes it easy to stream Netflix wherever you are. Like, for instance, the bus.

This may seem like a minor point, but for content creators and content strategists, it is a significant development worth considering. For example, as you develop your content strategy, you’re probably thinking primarily about the website and mobile experience. This means a robust website that scales appropriately for mobile users.

If you create transmedia assets, you may also be thinking about familiar channels like YouTube and Vimeo for video. Maybe Slideshare for presentations. Perhaps an eBook on Amazonor at BarnesandNoble.com. Again, this all makes sense.

Have you considered the bus? I mean, you know that mobile users are accessing your website on mobile device, and they may be on a bus. But when you think about long-form streaming video, you probably aren’t thinking about an iPad 2 streaming video on a bus. Continue reading →

Content Strategy Tip – Write Awful Content

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Here’s a novel content strategy for you. Make some awful content. And when you’re done with that, make some more bad content.

How is that “content strategy,” you ask? Good question.

This year I published a book called “Creating Comics from Start to Finish.” It’s a book for people who aspire to create comic books. I included a section for writers where I offered the concept of the “Rule of 10.”

I won’t go into the whole thing (buy the book), but the Rule of 10 is all about practice. Specifically, if you are a writer, you need to create 10 stories before you even dare to pitch your stuff to an editor. By writing these 10 stories, you will write through your clichés and stiff storytelling. You will write through your amateurish experimentation, which nobody should have to pay for. Continue reading →

DTC National 2011 – Optimizing Websites Panel

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DTC National 2011 in Boston“Content is king” — that was essentially the unwritten theme of my panel at the Direct to Consumer National 2011 conference.

And, I am proud to report, that none of the panelists actually uttered the phrase “content is king.” (We’re too cool for that.)

Last week, I spent a half day at the DTC National Conference 2011 in Boston to participate in one of the pre-conference workshops. We were arranged panel style in the front of the room to talk about pharmaceutical marketing related topics.

I was on the panel “Optimizing the Brand Web Site” with some impressive panelists:

While the conversation was focused on pharma brand websites, it was a conversation that could have easily been about any industry. Basically, if I had to summarize it in a few words, it went like this. Continue reading →