We're all familiar with the phrase "content is king". Since being coined in 1996 by Bill Gates, it's been overworked in articles and blogs across the internet. Are you sick of hearing it? Maybe. Is it still true? Absolutely.

Andy Crestodina established one of Chicago's premier web design and development agencies fifteen years ago, Orbit Media Studios, but admits that there is some brand confusion around the company’s services provided and practices preached. As the author of “Content Chemistry” and founder of Content Jam in Chicago, so much of Andy’s expertise revolves around educating marketers about content marketing.

He says that his team takes the approach of “building cars AND teaching drivers ed.” While his company focuses on web design, they understand the importance of providing education to marketers that goes deeper into SEO, analytic conversion, content strategy and much more.

How have social channels helped with your content marketing strategy? This week’s flashback posts touch on ways you may not be currently leveraging content-sharing opportunities on social. You’ll also learn about an easy tool to create beautiful eBooks as well as some updates Google has made that effects local search marketers. Check out my favorite posts from this past week:

Companies and organizations are often held back by their fear that they are going to do content marketing wrong. Rather than taking the necessary steps to identify their buyer-persona’s needs and formulate a content marketing plan, marketers may find themselves like a deer in headlights when contemplating the best strategy for their business. But can you really do content marketing wrong? Some content is better than no content, right? The answer to this depends on your approach. The key is to tell a good story first, and sell a great product or service second. To help overcome your fear and get your content marketing efforts on the best track, avoid these most common misperceptions.

As a partner in an agency that adopted HubSpot’s inbound marketing methodology early on, I was excited to learn about the new Inbound Sales Certification Training that is now available for sales and marketing professionals. Below you’ll find a link to learn more about this new model and training opportunity as well as more of my favorite posts from the week including information on crafting persuasive content, Google’s RankBrain, a tool to help you create Facebook videos, and a guide to local content marketing. 

Content marketing can show great ROI for both B2B and B2C companies, so why do so many companies, even those with dedicated marketing departments, struggle with getting it done effectively and frequently? Content marketing is complex and always changing, and hiring the amount of skilled staff that you would need to do everything from writing to editing, to promoting and social-sharing, is time consuming and costly to keep all functions of content production and promotion in-house. Additionally, implementation of a strong content marketing plan can be overwhelming for many small businesses. 

Looking for a few tips from copywriting experts or ways to help prove ROI for your content marketing efforts? Are you someone who is tasked with generating social media content for your business, but struggle with finding or creating quality images? My favorite posts this week touch on these topics as well as a few others that I found incredibly useful, and I hope you do too.

My favorite posts this week touch on everything from optimizing Facebook ads to writing “sexy” blog titles. Articles about SEO always catch my attention as well, and I’ve included one that provides some great tips on how linking marketing and SEO can produce stellar results. Check out these posts along with a few other good ones I’ve collected this week:

I get really excited each week when I find great posts to pass along to our inbound and digital marketing followers. My favorite one this week talks about applying the 80/20 rule to marketing. I’ve actually never thought about this concept in a way that so closely relates to my work – but when I took a deeper dive into the methodology, it really made sense. Check out this post along with a few other good ones I’ve collected this week:

Successful inbound marketers understand the link between campaign development, content marketing and branding, and the power it holds to staying competitive while boosting ROI. In fact, according to HubSpot’s State of Inbound 2015 Report, companies are three times more likely to see a higher ROI on inbound marketing campaigns than outbound. With the right mix of content contributors and promotion of content, businesses will experience more traffic, engagement, lead generation and sales.

According to HubSpot’s report, organizations that saw the largest increase in ROI from 2014 to 2015, expanded their content creation strategies by employing and including contributions from not only staff writers, but also guest contributors and freelancer / third party writers. Companies that called on fewer guest and staff contributors experienced a definitively lower ROI for the year. What this tells us is that successful inbound content creation, takes as much balance as walking a tight rope.