I don’t know about you, but to this day, I like a good peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
Maybe it’s a childhood memory or maybe it’s just the combination of flavors and textures. Since I’m a fan of the PB&J, I’ve done some experimenting with methods and ingredients. Bread is my least favorite part and the jelly is the most. So I’ve doused the bread with jelly and put just a dab of my favorite crunchy on. No good. Insanely thick bread? No good. Swaths of double crunch peanut butter? Still, no good.
You’re probably wondering why in the world I’m writing about PB&J and may have guessed that it’s a metaphor. I see so many marketers with all the core ingredients they need for success, and yet they gravitate towards that “one thing” like, content marketing (bread) or just social media (jelly), or stuck on SEO (peanut butter). Doing that is simply no good.
Content makes the online marketing world go round, but findability and social shareability are essential for reach and engagement. The perfect PB&J marketing mix combines the ingredients to complement each other, not overwhelm or exclude. And so it is with optimizing and socializing content marketing. Find the right balance and your customers will find, share and act on your delicious content.
In case you haven’t had a chance to tap into the “optimize and socialize” religion of content marketing that we’ve been evangelizing for the past few years, here’s a list of events in 7 different locations where I’ll be presenting over the next 2 months:
Social Media Success Summit (Virtual)
Thursday, October 3rd at 12noon PT (10am CT)
How to Integrate Social Media Marketing With All of Your Online Marketing Efforts
Companies are investing like never before in content, search, and social media. But are those efforts integrated? Are they aligned to create a consistent and compelling experience for buyers? The customer journey from awareness to purchase is by no means linear, so why should our online marketing be? Just say no to siloed marketing! During this high impact, content rich session, Lee Odden, author of Optimize, will provide you with proven insights, tips and tactics on integrating and optimizing social media, search and content marketing to attract more customers and grow your business.
MarketingProfs B2B Marketing Forum (Boston)
Friday, October 11that 2:00 -3:14pm
Power Panel! Content All Stars Share Their Secrets
Let’s go beyond white papers and webinars to talk about how B2B’s leading content marketers are really using content marketing to drive business. You’ll learn how the most successful content marketers are proving the case for content within their own organizations, how they have developed a long-term strategy, and what it takes to lead a content marketing program that doesn’t just work … it delivers in spades.
Moderator: Ann Handley—CCO, MarketingProfs
Panelists:
Joe Chernov—VP Marketing, Kinvey
Lee Odden—CEO, TopRankMarketing
Joe Pulizzi—Founder, Content Marketing Institute
Liya Sharif—Senior Director, Marketing & Global Communications, QUALCOMM
Minnesota Blogger Conference (Minneapolis)
Saturday, October 12th at 33:30 – 5:00pm
The Future of Blogging
Moderator:
Julio Ojeda-Zapata: St. Paul Pioneer Press Tech Reporter
Panelists:
Greg Swan: SVP Digital Strategy at Weber Shandwick (and music blogger)
Blois Olson: Principal, Fluence Media & Founder of Morning Take
David Brauer: Authors Braublog and is MinnPost’s local media reporter
Lee Odden: CEO, TopRank Online Marketing
Social Brand Forum (Coralville, Iowa)
Thursday, October 24th at 3:30 – 4:15pm
Win More, Suck Less – How to Optimize Your Social, Search, & Content Marketing
Incredibly, most companies could win far more customers on the search and social web, simply by “sucking less” at their content marketing. This presentation, with a crowdsourced title, will offer examples, insights and practical advice for better content marketing planning that’s optimized for findability and conversion plus socialized for even more findability and share.
PRSA International Conference (Philadelphia)
Tuesday, Oct. 29, 8:00–9:15 am
Attract, Engage and Convert: How PR Can Get Ahead With Content Marketing
How the mass adoption of social platforms has facilitated a revolution of information access, sharing and publishing, and how an integrated approach to creating content is critical for influencing growth in media and new business. Key learnings from this presentation include:
- The future trends in online marketing and public relations
- Three major problems with most content marketing and social media efforts.
- A new model for social content success to help attract, engage and convert.
OMWeek, Search Marketing Day (Madrid)
Tuesday, November 5th at 4:20 – 4:50pm
The Future of SEO in a Social Content World
How social media and content are driving a more customer focused strategy for modern search engine optimization.
Are the glory days of SEO over? Have social media and content marketing nailed the coffin on optimizing for search? No! This presentation will share 5 ways an integrated approach to optimization with content and social media is the way forward for successful online marketing in 2014 and beyond.
Social Media Conference (Moscow)
Thursday, Nov 21- 22
Workshop: Social Media Smarts
Connecting a social media strategy to an overall business and marketing strategy is essential for companies that wish to scale their social media performance. Tapping into internal and external resources, processes and tools will also support more efficient and effective social media marketing. This workshop will outline an approach that balances customer and brand interests through social media content, community, engagement and assists to sales. We’ll cover marketing strategy that’s social, integration of social media with existing marketing practices, customer profiles, major social networks, social content planning, creation, amplification and measurement.
There’s one event I didn’t mention above where I’ll be attending but not speaking. It is the Pivot conference in New York on October 15th with speakers from Intel, Walamart, MTV, Kraft, NBC and our client, LinkedIn. Event info.
What’s my objective with all these events? Well, I took most of the summer off from speaking or traveling and have clustered these events concentrate my travel. At each event, I’ll be able to create content, connect with potential customers, influencers, employees, current customers, industry media and friends. I’ll also be able to see how other speakers present information and find both marketing partners and possible vendors/resources. If you plan ahead, any event you attend can be “monetized” multiple ways.
If by chance you’ll be in Boston, Minneapolis, Coralville IA, Philadelphia, New York, Madrid or Moscow over the next two months, I hope to see you at one of these events.
Photo: Shutterstock
