Andrew Hanelly

3 Damn Good Reasons for B2B Marketers to Drink the Content Kool-Aid

This ain’t your grandfather’s media landscape. As people turn a blind eye to banners and display a preference for useful information over useless marketing drivel, it’s probably safe to say that content marketing isn’t a trend, it’s a way of life. At least for marketers who want said life as marketers to continue. So, what’s [...]

The Rise of Content Spam (and How to Make Sure You’re Not Piling On)

I love the smell of content in the morning. Fresh, handcrafted, thoughtfully curated, intriguing, inviting, informative and eye-opening. I could give coffee the credit for being the best part of waking up but in all honesty, I’ve got to give credit where credit is due: I love nothing more than opening my laptop and finding [...]

The Venn Diagram of Strategic Content

The branded content bandwagon is running short on elbow room. As more and more marketers realize that smart content can outperform advertising (and that the best ads actually are content in disguise), brands are creating and distributing branded content at increasing rates. This should be a welcome sea change, right? People are filtering out ad [...]

Want to Influence Bloggers? Stop Begging and Start Blogging

Despite the explosion in social network usage over the past few years, blogs still wield incredible influence over consumers. And brands want in. Recent findings contained in Technorati Media’s 2013 Digital Influence Report shed some insight into how the seemingly magical world of digital influence works. Some of the results may sound surprisingly old-school:

The Content Hustler’s Playbook for Brands: 5 Steal-able Ideas

Unless you’re living under a rock (or in an apartment without an internet connection, which sounds a lot worse) you’ve undoubtedly noticed the increasingly loud chorus of brand marketers, bloggers, and media pundits singing the praises of content marketing. And if you haven’t, then just take a quick look at this Google Trends chart showing [...]

The Logic Behind the Explosion in Content Marketing Spend

To make money, you gotta spend money. Despite making every CFO’s head spin, the above phrase is an undeniable truth in the world of brand marketing. You’ve got a product or service. Your audience has a defined need. Letting the latter know about the former is the essential quest of marketing. And typically, that quest [...]

A List of Reasons to Embrace Content in Your Marketing Mix, Illustrated in Charts

Undoubtedly, you’ve noticed a rise in people and pundits talking about content marketing in the past 12 months. What was once a secret weapon to savvy brands is now a marketing staple. And if it isn’t yet for your organization, it probably should be. Here are 5 practical reasons to support that claim with stats [...]

What the LPGA’s Media Guru Can Teach us About Social Media

Kraig Kann doesn’t care about your handicap. On the golf course, anyway. That’s because he’s more interested in helping people – women on the LPGA tour, to be more specific – make the most of their chance to win over the media mouthpieces that could make or break the reputation of their personal brand. Kann, [...]

Dear B2B, It’s Totally OK to Copy Our Outfits, Love, B2C

How do I put this gently? Your outfit looks … well, it looks a little frumpy. I know, I know, you’re only going to work. You’re not there to make a fashion statement. You’re there – as you should be – to be judged on the quality of the work you do and your depth [...]

5 Guiding Principles of a Website Launch

Amid the controlled chaos of a successful web launch are a handful of guiding principles that keep the vision on track, the content on point, and the project on time. As the dust begins to settle from the recently launched website for Associations Now, we revisit the strategic framework guiding the launch of associationsnow.com and [...]

Good Ads are Content in Disguise

Be useful. Be interesting. Or be ignored. This is the three sentence survival guide for anyone who wants to earn attention and ultimately, influence action. Recently, Science World in Vancouver took the three sentence survival guide to heart with this clever ad campaign that does its selling by telling.

Tweet This at Lunchtime Wednesday Using Numbers and at Least 1 #Hashtag

What does the perfect B2B tweet look like? According to the data presented in this infographic, it doesn’t look that different than the headline of this post. But before I share the data, I want to share this grain of salt: There is no perfect Tweet just like there is no perfect email subject line [...]

You Can’t Cram For Community Development

cramming for a test works, cramming for community development does not

Some of the less-than-wild late nights I had in college were spent in all-night study sessions the night before a big exam, drinking coffee by the pot and furiously trying to memorize everything I should have learned in the semester prior in one last-ditch attempt. While the tactics were questionable, the results were mixed. I [...]

A Simple Formula for Social Media Engagement

People intuitively understand the elements of what works in social media. The problem is not that we see Facebook, for example, as an impossible-to-navigate vortex of confusion similar to a spaceship cockpit where we don’t know what any of the buttons do. No, we know what the buttons do. And we press them a lot. [...]

A Visual Definition of Infographics

With infographics, seeing is believing, and this smart infographic does a better job articulating the essence of a quality infographic than I could with 1,000 words in this post. by karynlurie.

3 Smart Content Ideas I Wish I Thought of for the Fourth of July

While many websites are taking a holiday from publishing on the Fourth of July, some hard-working (and smartly opportunistic) sites are cashing in on the patriotic theme with star-spangled content. These clever ideas are playing off a national event by creating casual content that might catch reader attention in between firework-induced oohs and ahhs. It [...]

Why Hope is Not a Content Strategy

While we won’t often admit to it – at least not out in the open on the internet – we sometimes let hope be the primary driver of our content strategy. “I hope people like this.” “Hopefully, it’ll get picked up by the linkerati.” “We haven’t considered our resources, our audience, or our end goals, [...]

The Making of a Brandbassador: Why People Recommend Brands

There’s no shortage of mockery of the feel-good moment in social media. Those outside of the know consider it to be the only demonstrative ROI social media brings. While that’s not true (and is the subject of an entirely different debate altogether), there’s something to be said for going after those feel-good moments. Why? Because [...]

Long Questions and Short Answers: A Q&A with Award-Winning Art Director Brian Rees

My experience with graphic design is limited to oohing, ahhing, and the occasional “holy [expletive deleted], that’s good!” Understanding the science behind the art has never been my forte, but has always been a topic I’ve been fascinated with. So, instead of just continuing to stare at great work with a glazed look of appreciation, [...]

How Big Will the Internet Be in 2015? (And How Can We Prepare?)

Two simple questions with (somewhat) simple answers. From James Collier: In the following infographic Cisco try to demonstrate just how big the web is going to get in only a few short years. As the content we consume gets bigger, more visual and of higher quality the amount of data passing through servers, down phone [...]

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