Category: content

Do you know what’s going on in the world – and how do you find out?

Sunday newspapers
CC image via flickr: Bernard Goldbach

If I told you that Burkina Faso has just seen its second military coup in eight months, would that be a surprise?

Did you know that Finland and Sweden have recently applied to join NATO, as a consequence of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine?

And how about the fact that Egypt and Mexico are both bidding to hold the 2036 Olympics?

Without wishing to throw shade on your global knowledge, I’d be hugely surprised if you knew about all three (or possibly any) of those stories, despite the fact they’re big news for the nations concerned.

And that’s because we all live in news or filter bubbles. Some of those are of our own making and some are constructed without us knowing about it. Continue reading “Do you know what’s going on in the world – and how do you find out?”

How to make your evergreen content work for you

This Tuesday I spoke at the Marketing Week Content Strategy 2.0 Conference about the power of evergreen content and why you need to make more of it.

The Italian polymath Vilfredo Pareto came up with his famous principle in 1906 that says that 80% of your output comes from just 20% of the effort.

In content terms, on your website there will be those key pages or sections that make up the bulk of your traffic.

And yet many of us ignore them and fail to sanity check them or try to optimise them, preferring to focus on ‘shiny’ new campaigns.
Continue reading “How to make your evergreen content work for you”

Do all brands have to be human in their communications?

My mate Rob tweeted a spectacularly cold and impersonal text message from his insurance company the other day, asking quite understandably where the ‘humanity’ was in this particular brand.

One of the replies we got (after my retweet) was as follows

As a believer in companies having a strong tone and voice, Oliver’s reply made me stop and think. Obviously, insurance isn’t a sexy or even particularly personal industry, but does that absolve those sorts of companies from being ‘human’ in their communications? Continue reading “Do all brands have to be human in their communications?”