Content pollution. Urgh! We all experience it. It’s an endless barrage of content and clickbait snapping at our virtual heels.

Generative AI has the potential to improve many aspects of life and work. But it’s also a digital steroid, fuelling mass content production on an industrial scale.

B2B buyers are not immune. Bombarded with information, it becomes increasingly difficult to wade through the noise and make informed buying decisions.

It is no surprise, then, that the direct consequence of this is a flight to quality content and thought leadership.

The Superpowers Index, a 2024 study into B2B buying behaviour, found this year that thought leadership had rocketed up the ranking to the third most important decision driver for B2B buyers, up from 20th last year.

What is thought leadership today?

Forbes defines a thought leader as ‘an individual or firm that prospects, clients, referral sources, intermediaries and even competitors recognise as one of the foremost authorities in selected areas of specialisation, resulting in its being the go-to individual or organisation for said expertise’.

Think Warren Buffett, a thought leader in the sphere of financial markets and one of the most influential and often quoted investors today.

Or Patagonia, a brand that has earned a reputation as a commercial thought leader in sustainability.

As a former CNN war correspondent and speechwriter for President Barack Obama, Aneesh Raman says true thought leadership is about ‘having authentic, relevant, insightful things to say about a few key issues and saying those things over a sustained period of time in order to provoke new thoughts and actions by others’.

Executive influencers

Influencer marketing now also plays a large part in B2B content strategies and thought leadership.

Executive influencers are usually high-ranking individuals (typically a CEO, CMO, or senior leader) who influence opinions through their position and leadership in a specific company or organisation. They leverage their authority and success within the company to build credibility and influence.

An example of an executive influencer is Sheryl Sandberg (Former COO, Meta/Facebook), known for her role in scaling Facebook’s business and her book Lean In, which positioned her as an influential voice on business leadership, particularly on gender equality in the workplace.

Or Brené Brown, known for her research on vulnerability, courage and empathy in leadership, whose bestselling books and TED Talks have shaped conversations around emotional intelligence and leadership, encouraging a shift towards more empathetic leadership practices.

The roles of these influencers in the business world mean when they share their expert insight with existing and new audiences, people sit up and listen. It can add further credibility to thought leadership—and help generate awareness of the content and brand to new audiences.

It is no surprise that B2B buyers are more likely to gravitate towards individuals or brands known for their innovative and leading insights than a brand with a scant thought leadership profile.

It pays to be the ‘real deal’

However, the LinkedIn-Edelman B2B Thought Leadership Impact Report found that close to a third (30%) of people producing thought leadership content admitted their organisations didn’t really know how to use it as a sales or marketing tool. And according to the Superpowers Index, only 26% of B2B brands are rated highly by buyers for their thought leadership, down from 31% in 2022. Despite its perceived importance, buyers’ impression of B2B brands’ thought leadership skills is waning fast.

It seems many brands are lagging when it comes to meeting the demand for quality thought leadership content. Such brands are missing out on the opportunity to increase their standing with potential B2B buyers. Brands that get it right, however, have a golden opportunity to differentiate themselves from competitors.

In a world of information overload, it pays to be the ‘real deal’. Lagging on thought leadership clearly impacts the bottom line.

Check out the work we do for thought leaders here on our Impact Stories page.

What do the colour of Google’s toolbar, Obama’s 2008 Presidential campaign and Airbnb’s referral programme have in common? They are all examples of marketing experimentation success – and generative AI is proving to be an innovation game-changer. 

Recent research from digital experience platform provider, Optimizely, ‘Tested to Perfection’ found 75% of marketers believe experimentation is essential to strategic business decision- making. The rapid rise of AI offers marketers immense opportunities to experiment and deepen customer connections through enhanced personalisation.

Marketing experimentation is a systematic approach to testing and optimising marketing strategies, tactics, and initiatives. It involves creating controlled conditions to evaluate the effectiveness of marketing actions such as different advertisements, pricing strategies, promotional offers or content. 

The goal is to gather data and insights that inform better decision-making which leads to improved marketing performance. It helps identify the most effective marketing tactics and optimise campaigns for better results through empirical evidence rather than guesswork. It allows testing on a smaller scale before full-scale implementation, thereby reducing risk of costly mistakes. In essence, experimentation is a fundamental practice for enhancing marketing effectiveness and aligning with customer needs and preferences.

Some examples that highlight the power of experimentation include Google’s 41 Shades of Blue. One of Google’s most famous experiments involved testing 41 different shades of blue for its toolbar and ad links. The goal was to find the shade that maximised user engagement and click-through rates. This extensive A/B testing experiment led to a significant increase in ad revenue, demonstrating the value of detailed and data-driven experimentation.

Obama’s 2008 Presidential campaign was a marketing triumph. During the campaign, his team A/B tested extensively on their website to optimise sign-up forms and donations. One experiment tested different versions of a signup button and a hero image. By testing combinations, they identified the best elements, significantly increasing conversions and donations. This data-driven approach was crucial in mobilising campaign support and funding.

AI supercharges marketing innovation 

Generative AI can create vast amounts of content quickly and efficiently, including ad copy, blog posts, images and even videos. Recent joint research from Google and Bain identified what differentiates high-growth B2B software businesses from their peers. Companies are reporting new gains from adopting AI, with respondents reporting a 15% improvement in KPIs after implementing AI.

AI analyses large datasets to understand consumer preferences and behaviour patterns and generate individually personalised content and tailored offers. This level of personalisation enhances marketing effectiveness by ensuring that messages resonate with target micro audiences. 

Traditional A/B testing is limited, often testing one or two variables at a time. Generative AI can manage multivariate testing, simultaneously testing numerous variables and combinations to identify the most effective elements in a campaign. AI-driven tools reduce the time and resources needed for experimentation. They can automate repetitive tasks such as data collection, analysis and reporting, freeing up marketers to focus on strategy and creativity.

AI algorithms predict outcomes based on historical data, allowing marketers to anticipate the results of experiments before they are run. This predictive capability helps prioritise experiments and focus on the most promising strategies. It enables real-time data analysis and decision-making, allowing marketers to refine campaigns on-the-fly. This agility is particularly valuable in digital advertising, where factors can change rapidly.

Oracle, spotlighted in the Google/ Bain research, is an example of best-in-class marketing experimentation. It has dedicated funding to encourage experimentation and fields innovation teams to accelerate and scale up experiments. The company ran an experiment with an AI-enabled virtual assistant tool that handles communications with customers and provides conversion-ready prospects to sales teams. Even with a few employees dedicated to the project and minimal funding, the AI engine delivered substantial value, putting $140 into the sales pipeline for every $1 invested and increasing conversions fourfold. The company then expanded the team and funding to scale up the tool.

The integration of generative AI into marketing experimentation offers transformative potential. It enhances the ability to test, learn and optimise quickly, leading to effective and efficient marketing strategies. As technology evolves, it will undoubtedly play a central role in how businesses engage with and understand their audiences.

Further reading: https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/intl/en-apac/future-of-marketing/management-and-culture/marketing-experiment-playbook/

After four years of deliberation and consultation with UK regulators and industry, in a dramatic about-face, Google has scrapped plans to ban third-party cookies on its Chrome browser.

Named ‘Privacy Sandbox’, the global initiative has not been abandoned completely according to Google. Instead, there will be a new approach that “lets people make an informed choice that applies across their web browsing” which users can “adjust…at any time”. The Google statement is ambiguous and does not appear to provide a clear way forward.

However, commentators are making their interpretations. According to intellectual property lawyers Bird & Bird, Google “appears to be considering a browser-based consent mechanism.” Such technologies allow users to set their privacy preferences at the browser level, which websites and online services can automatically detect and respect.

Given the general direction of travel towards increased data privacy, organisations in the UK, Europe and beyond are forging ahead with plans to pivot away from third-party cookies. Apple’s Safari and Mozilla’s Firefox browsers have blocked third-party cookies by default, and consumers increasingly opt out.

James Rosewell, co-founder of Movement for an Open Web, the organisation whose complaint kicked off the UK Competition & Markets Authority (CMA)’s investigation into Google’s Privacy Sandbox plan, hailed it a “clear admission by Google” its plan to “enclose” the open web was failing. “Their goal was to remove the interoperability that enabled businesses to work together without interference from monopolists, but a combination of regulatory and industry pressure has put paid to that,” he said. 

Performance Marketing World captures other industry responses. Luke Regan, VP, Managing Partner, DAC Group UK, said: “If your first reaction was to cheer this news, I’d suggest taking a breath to consider if your current strategies are too reliant on third-party cookies…Perhaps the biggest wake-up call from the cookies saga is that any time we find our advertising performance heavily reliant on the whims of a single big tech player, we should rapidly work to diversify and de-risk.”

Katie Eyton, Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer, Omnicom Media Group UK, said: “The time advertisers spent preparing for a more privacy-focused future has not been wasted. Cookie erosion is here already, with many other browsers and environments already blocking or restricting third-party cookies…Meaningful consent, underpinned by transparency and fair choice architecture will be a key area of focus for the future.”

And Leonard Newnham, Chief Data Scientist, LoopMe, said: “The reprieve for third-party cookies doesn’t change the fact that most consumers don’t want to be tracked across the web. The future is privacy-centric, and organisations must embrace tools that allow them to achieve effective advertising performance in a way that doesn’t compromise consumers’ privacy.” 

What next? More twists in the cookie saga?

The CMA said it would carefully consider Google’s new proposals and work closely with the  UK’s Information & Commissioners Office (ICO). A spokesperson for the CMA said it welcomed views on the revised approach, including implications for both consumers and markets, and will run a new consultation process until 12 August 2024.

Despite the temporary reprieve for cookies savvy marketers will continue to evaluate the implications of the cookie phase-out, upskill on strategies and tech that prioritise privacy; and work closely with legal and compliance departments to ensure data practices align with regulations. Organisations will refocus investment on first-party data gathered directly through websites, apps and email marketing; and encourage users to share data through loyalty programs, personalised content and exclusive offers. This will ensure audience engagement can be maintained alongside compliance with emerging global privacy standards. 

Stepping up to the podium with all eyes on you, the pressure is palpable. You’re not just at the conference or event to inform; you’re there to inspire, to spark new thoughts and, most importantly, to be remembered long after the event ends. The real challenge for anyone delivering a keynote isn’t about battling stage fright or mastering the content. It’s about leaving a mark on the audience, sparking business conversations, and opening doors to opportunities that stretch far beyond the auditorium.

You want your words to linger, your ideas to ignite discussions, and your presence to pave the way for future collaborations. To make it happen, you have to elevate your keynotes and create experiences that resonate on a deeper level. That’s what we do at PaperplaneCo and we have a few tips to help you transform your next presentation into a keynote that captivates minds and converts interest into action.

1. Craft a Compelling Story That Gets Your Audience Thinking

At the heart of any memorable keynote is a compelling story. Humans are naturally drawn to narratives—they evoke emotional connections and make information easier to remember. Start by identifying the core message you wish to convey and then weave a narrative around it. Make it personal! Use anecdotes from your own experience, historical examples, or hypothetical scenarios to illustrate your points and make them relatable. A well-crafted story can transform a mundane presentation into an unforgettable journey.

At PaperplaneCo, we emphasise the importance of storytelling in presentations. We recommend breaking down your content into a clear beginning, middle, and end. Introduce the problem or challenge you’re addressing, delve into how it can be solved or explored, and conclude with a strong resolution that ties back to your main message. This structure not only makes your keynote more engaging but also helps the audience retain the information.

2. Use Visuals Strategically, to Awe and Captivate

Visuals play a pivotal role in making an impact with your keynote. The right images, charts, and videos can reinforce your message, simplify complex ideas, and—again—evoke emotions. However, the key is to use visuals wisely—each one should serve a purpose and add value to your narrative. Excessive text and irrelevant images can distract or confuse your audience. If you’ve created a clear theme and narrative, use it to guide the image selection across your deck. Our team typically uses more slides that speakers can move through quickly, rather than slides full of lengthy bullet points or paragraphs.

Our team curates high-quality images, GIFs and video content that complement our client’s message. We also design and re-design clean and readable charts that are on-brand and ensure the speaker’s research hits home. 

3. Engage Your Audience

Engagement is the cornerstone of a memorable keynote. Your goal should be to create a two-way conversation, where your audience feels invested in your presentation. There are a few commonly-used techniques, such as conducting live polls or posing a question. But there are also less common techniques to use, such as inviting your audience to try a tool or demo on the spot. Activity-based techniques are a great way to break up the monotony of one-way communication and create a more interactive experience.

Some keynotes don’t allow for that, of course, but if you use your keynote in multiple settings, you can consider making changes in interactivity based on the event and audience.

At PaperplaneCo, we believe that audience engagement extends beyond the presentation itself. It’s about creating moments that invite reflection, discussion and action. Encourage your audience to share their thoughts, questions or experiences related to your presentation. You might even give the audience a memorable quote, e-book or physical item related to the story in your presentation to take home. This not only enriches the discussion but also makes your keynote more memorable by personalising the experience for each attendee.

Create Keynotes That Drive Connections and Discussions

Creating more memorable keynotes is an art that requires thought, preparation and a touch of creativity. By crafting compelling stories, incorporating captivating visuals and engaging your audience, you can elevate your presentations from good to unforgettable.

The PaperplaneCo team of strategists, copywriters and designers is dedicated to helping professionals like you harness the power of effective communication to make a lasting impact. Embrace these strategies, and watch your keynotes transform into memorable experiences that inspire, inform and captivate your audience.

Our goal is to create keynotes that your audience will refer to—on LinkedIn and in your meetings—for weeks to come.

Planning a keynote or presentation soon? Contact us for support in building a compelling story and deck design.

For over a decade, influencer marketing has ruled the internet. Brands traditionally sought influencers based on their follower count, engagement rates, and brand alignment. Then micro-influencers came onto the scene, giving brands new ways to reach consumers through personalities with a smaller following. The B2B space has not been immune to the trend, and major authors, researchers, and speakers have shifted from simple thought leadership to full-on branding powerhouses. However, today, we’ll focus on a new player in the B2C game: virtual influencers.

The Rise of Virtual Influencers

Virtual influencers, created and managed by agencies or brands, offer unique opportunities. While some virtual influencers look human, others appear as dolls or cartoons. One standout example is Lil Miquela, a pioneer in this space with over 2.5 million followers at the time of writing. Lil Miquela has become a full-on brand ambassador, having partnered with high-profile brands like Calvin Klein, Prada and BMW. Similarly, Nomura Holdings Inc. has leveraged Imma, another virtual influencer, to attract younger clients.

Are Virtual Influencers Right for Your Brand?

Engagement Is a Key Advantage

Virtual influencers have proven to generate higher engagement rates for sponsored posts compared to their organic content. In contrast, human influencers often see a drop in engagement with sponsored posts. This trend is particularly strong in the fashion and beauty industries.

Human Influencers Still Lead the Way

Human influencers typically have larger followings, offering broader reach. However, engagement often peaks with influencers who have moderate followings, suggesting that smaller audiences can still be highly effective. Consider whether reach or engagement is your most critical KPI.

A Customisable Advantage

Virtual influencers allow brands to work with diverse personas free from traditional constraints, helping brands meet their diversity goals, experiment with abandon, or even expand into the non-human world. The possibilities are endless.

On the Straight and Narrow Path

Human influencers often end up in hot water for one reason or another. Virtual influencers run by management companies with supervision can help brands avoid the scandals and controversies that human influencers might bring to the table, offering a safer way to protect brand reputation.

Cost-Effective Social Reach

Virtual influencers are significantly more cost-effective, with lower fees and no additional expenses like travel.

The Future of Influencer Marketing

Virtual influencers present a modern, compelling alternative to traditional human influencers. While human influencers still have the edge in terms of reach and have no competition among audiences who have not yet embraced the world of AI, virtual influencers shine in terms of engagement and creative freedom. As technology advances, brands should carefully evaluate their needs and objectives to decide the best influencer strategy.

No matter their preferences, consumers and business leaders alike should get ready for a new world of virtual influencer marketing.

The Great Content Marketing Reframe

Welcome to “The Great Content Marketing Reframe” – a comprehensive report by PaperplaneCo that transcends surface-level tech trends and delves into the fundamental shifts reshaping B2B marketing in 2024. In our report, we propose that true innovation in B2B marketing lies in nurturing a new mindset.

This report guides you in navigating a new technological landscape and buyer mindset with clarity and purpose — ensuring you stay ahead of the curve and outperform your competition.

Three reframes, in a nutshell:

1. Innovation is about skills, not tools:

Generative AI, predictive analytics, and voice search are undoubtedly enticing, but their true value lies in the hands of skilled professionals. Instead of fixating solely on adopting the latest tools, invest in empowering your team with the expertise to leverage them effectively. Think of technological skills as the seatbelt of your marketing strategy – they may feel restrictive at times, but they ultimately enable you to accelerate safely towards your goals.

2. Personalisation is about relevance, not identity:

Gone are the days of superficial personalisation that merely scratches the surface in understanding the buyer as an individual. Today’s buyers crave content that resonates deeply with their professional aspirations, not just personal details like the product they last bought. Shift your focus from identity-based customisation to crafting insightful, valuable content that addresses your audience’s specific challenges and aspirations. 2024 presents the perfect opportunity to move beyond surface-level engagement and create genuine connections that leave a mark on the hearts and minds of your audience.

3. Expectations are more important than facts:

“Best practices” have been done and are unlikely to entice a “wow” from your buyers. Not to mention, we found that the majority of B2B gated content is leaving its audience disappointed. Today’s B2B marketing goal should be about exceeding your audience’s expectations. Let us challenge the status quo, push the boundaries of what’s possible, and redefine the very notion of success.

Marketing at large is in the midst of major shifts in marketing technology and in the way customers think. So let us not be bound by “the way we’ve always done it” and, instead, work toward defying expectations, challenging norms, and reframing the way we approach B2B marketing.

Dive into the data behind these reframes:

Looking back at 2022 and the topics we wrote about made us wonder: What is there that is still relevant as the year ends and is worth re-emphasising? In this post, we once again bring to the surface the ideas that are both important and likely to stand the test of time.

Gather ’round the bonfire, tale-tellers

The B2B marketing industry has been heavily focused on generating leads and meeting short-term demand from buyers over the past 10 years. While lead generation is important, research indicates that building a strong brand can be even more beneficial. In order to build a successful B2B brand, it’s important to invest in high-quality creative work. If you need an example, think of Disney stories. 

In order for B2B brands to succeed in the long term, it’s important to use emotional appeal to connect with buyers. However, B2B marketing often focuses on short-term, rational campaigns that are designed to drive immediate revenue. This approach often lacks the use of high-quality creative work. To avoid being a boring business, B2B marketers should take a page from Disney’s book and use storytelling to engage and inspire their audiences.

B2B ads are less effective than B2C ads because B2B marketers often suffer from the ‘product delusion’—the belief that a company’s products are the most important factor in determining its success. 

However, research has shown that buyers don’t make purchasing decisions based on logic alone. 

Instead, they often want products that are good enough and come to mind easily, often as a result of memorable marketing stories. The typical B2B buyer will default to the brand they already know. 

The brand-first approach means that instead of focusing on product features, B2B marketers should develop high-quality creative assets with unique stories and characters.

Such facets can be found in the following examples of marketing campaigns that we covered on our blog this year.

The American Express campaign is a series of advertisements that tell stories about small business owners facing challenges during the pandemic. The stories, although entirely fictional, are relatable to many small business owners and highlight the struggles they may face. The campaign features a cast of characters, including a chef, a duo of architects, a food delivery service owner and a veterinarian. The humorous storytelling helps to portray American Express as a supportive and friendly company for small and medium-sized businesses.

Note that you don’t even have to invent new stories. Repurposing existing ones works equally well.

In its Super Bowl ad, Squarespace revived the legend of Mary Anning, an English fossil collector. This story inspired the lyrics to the song ‘She Sells Seashells’. In the company’s ad, ‘she’ becomes Sally, an entrepreneur who achieves success by opening an online store.

The commerce thrives on the Squarespace platform, of course, but that’s only a detail. What’s important is that the company brought a whole new character to life and created an imaginative and unique world for her to inhabit.

How is this going to be relevant in 2023?

The B2B Institute predicts that B2B marketers will be shifting their focus to building brands over the entire decade leading up to 2030. The next year should theoretically bring us closer to this goal; however, there are some challenges awaiting. Concerns about inflation, higher interest rates, and the potential for a recession may cause marketers to minimize risk. We believe that next year marketers will be focusing on time-tested, short-term activities that yield quick results, rather than spending on long-term brand building efforts. It’s a pity because 2023 is being handed on a plate by 2022 many topics on a plate by 2022 that are ripe for storytelling. Think of remote teams, quiet quitting, supply chain, energy and food shortages, mental health, AR vs. the Metaverse, electric vehicles, biomaterials, authenticity (‘being real’), and many more themes that are up for grabs.

Broader consumer horizons

We find Meta’s culture predictions for 2022 (which we wrote about here) quite on point. Of the four major trends identified by Meta at the year’s start, we were especially able to observe the one about the shift in consumer values.

The following were the most important insights:

• People are increasingly supporting businesses close to home and having a global outlook at the same time, with Millennials and Gen Z in particular feeling strongly about being global citizens.
• Shoppers are increasingly expecting fast delivery, blurring online and offline shopping boundaries, and quick access to websites. With the rise of retail apps, curbside pickup, and QR code scanning, consumers are more open to new shopping experiences. This is further underscored by shoppable surfaces, in-store live shopping, one-click mobile payments, layaway plans, flexible financing, free shipping and same-day delivery. Shopping has become effortless, allowing people to make impulse purchases quickly and easily.

• People are increasingly striving to take care of their mental and physical health. The pandemic has seen an increase in self-reflection, self-love and mindfulness, while alternative wellness approaches such as botanicals, acupuncture, meditation, energy healing, nature therapy and yoga are gaining popularity. People are embracing new omnidirectional fitness motivations, nontraditional healthcare and natural ingredients and giving back through volunteering or fundraising.
• With more people growing concerned about climate change, there is increasing awareness of the need to reduce carbon emissions. This has led to more electric vehicles being purchased, as well as extended smartphone lifecycles, trade-ins, recycling and upcycling. There is also a trend of secondhand clothing being viewed as desirable, marking a move away from the traditional ‘take, make and waste’ model.

As we wrote in this article, Asian countries have adopted various new digital habits such as live shopping during the pandemic. Shopping behaviours are more focused on frictionless commerce and increasing adoption of technology-fueled lifestyles. And consumers will be increasingly influenced by their personal values and connection to local culture.

There is a cultural shift across APAC, with Chinese television series gaining popularity in Indonesia, K-pop being preferred over western pop, and Vietnamese musicians gaining recognition abroad. Thus, to be successful in Asia, brands need to demonstrate authenticity and culturally relevant connection, leveraging the local pop culture.

APAC consumers are also more interested in spending on health-related products than before the pandemic.

Reasons for this shift include wanting to protect themselves from disease and ailments, live longer, avoid preventable diseases and look and feel healthier, as well as being influenced by family/ friends/ news/ social media, re-evaluating their lifestyle, worrying about unvaccinated people, and rising healthcare costs. 

Premium prices are accepted if consumers get nutritional benefits, healthier options, strong hygiene/protection qualities, and sustainable products.

Moreover, consumers in the Asia-Pacific region are increasingly embracing sustainability. This includes things such as environmental and social issues, health benefits, high-quality products, and local sourcing. Health benefits are the primary purchasing criteria across the region, with five times more consumers citing ‘the personal impact of environmental issues’ than ‘having a child’ as motivators to buy sustainable products.

However, there is a ‘say-do gap’, where people want to buy sustainable products but don’t due to lack of information, distrust of brand claims, lack of variety in products and gaps in availability. In order to reach the ‘sustainability tipping point’, companies should learn what this booming consumer segment wants and how best to serve it, in order to close the gap and benefit from customer loyalty.

How is this going to be relevant in 2023?

We expect most of these trends to continue into the near future. People will remain supportive of businesses close to home, while also having a global outlook. Shopping will become increasingly effortless. There will be a continued focus on mental and physical health, with alternative wellness approaches gaining in popularity. And people will keep wanting to buy sustainable products but will still find it sometimes difficult to do so because brands are unlikely to quickly fix their problems.

You want to produce amazing content, unleash your creativity, write blog posts that change the world, edit videos..but you have little or no time. Instead, you’re probably copy-pasting text from one box to the other. Updating your website in ten different places with the same information. Painstakingly browsing the interwebs to find a few good articles to stick in your company newsletter. Hours. Wasted.

No more! There are ways to simplify the content creation process on a tiny budget in most companies. And if you’re a writer, then there are robots that will probably do your job soon. Read about that further down.

1. Content Ideation: quickly finding great ideas that can be commissioned

You need ideas in order to successfully keep your content platform or newsletter current with relevant and interesting pieces. Lots of them. Here is one simple way of capturing ideas in a structured way:

• Set up a Slack channel where anyone with access can simply post a link to an interesting article that might inspire your own content.
• Connect the article data from that Slack channel to a spreadsheet via a Zapier integration. You need to define a trigger that sends an article from Slack to your spreadsheet, for example by staring them.
• Write the elevator pitch along with the Slack link. Why are you posting this?
• Set up weekly or bi-weekly editorial meetings and go through each idea in the spreadsheet. Decide what to do with them. Commission as a blog post? Repost as a third-party post? Create a video or a podcast episode based on it? Do something visual? Not do anything?
• Create an account with Feedly, an RSS-reader. It has a free version that lets you find content sources related to whatever industry you’re in, and automatically add them to your feeds, so that you don’t need to manually check every single source to find inspiration.
• If you don’t use Slack, you can set up a simple online form where people can enter their ideas, a link and their elevator pitch. This form should also be connected to a spreadsheet.

2. Content Creation: do you want to be a thought leader or use natural language processing?

For straight-forward stories that don’t require an analysis, publishers and companies are already turning to AI writers. Some newsrooms are using machine learning tools to do some of the news gathering tasks traditionally done by humans. Forbes have an advanced Content Management System called Bertie, The Washington Post have Heliograf and Bloomberg have developed their Cyborg.

San Francisco-based company OpenAi have trained an unsupervised language model to produce paragraphs of text. Like this one here below.

Technology has come a long way, and if you want to produce short news snippets that are straight-forward, or fill your blog with content, it is definitely worth exploring the options of natural language processing.

If you want to become a thought leader and create more high quality content, then tools such as BuzzSumo, Crowdtangle and HeadlineAnalyzer will help you refine and target your content thanks to data from thousands of websites and influencers.

If you don’t have your own writers at hand, consider paying freelance journalists to help you create at least a backlog of content. You can find cheap and good writers via UpWork or Facebook groups. You should also comb through your network of clients, contacts and former employees. Ask them to write an article for your platform, give them a specific topic and angle or ask them to pitch ideas to you. Some might do this for free, and you are on your way to building your own army of content contributors.

3. Content Curation: syndicate and repost

Your blog will grow only if it follows these four basic criteria;

• It features interesting content
• It is regularly updated with fresh content
• Written posts are SEO-optimized
• Content is promoted on social media

The first two criteria are the most time-consuming. Unless you have a big content marketing budget and lots of writers and video editors on your team, it’s not going to be easy to generate only interesting content and produce lots of it, all the time.

That’s where content curation and syndication come in as your knights in shining armor. Keep your website dynamic and fresh by automatically pulling in carefully curated articles from third-party sources.Only display the headline, featured image, and the meta description, linking to the original article, to not violate copyright. Once your developers have installed this, you can either set to auto-publish every time your third-party source publishes something new, or you can moderate the content in the CMS before publishing it.

You can take it one step further by identifying possible content partners. Reach out to them and set up a content syndication agreement: we get yours, and you get ours. Aspire to have agreements in place to fully repost—copy-paste basically—their articles or videos on your platform, linking back to their website, and vice versa. As long as the canonical URL is set correctly, you will gain more content without having to write it, and publish your content more widely on respected platforms.

4. Content Promotion: Make social media scheduling as easy as possible

I have seen many teams still use elaborate spreadsheets or project management tools to schedule, update and keep track of any social media activity. Whilst it’s good to have a general content plan around any campaign, event, or launch, I wouldn’t recommend it for your general social media scheduling.

Don’t worry too much around timing – even if you publish something at 9am your time to Facebook, you don’t know when it will reach the feeds of your audiences. Same thing with Twitter and LinkedIn. Instead, keep the social engines fed, dig around your archives, and re-promote content that did well, or link to third-party sources. On social media, it matters more to be relevant and to build your unique brand voice and message, than being strict about publishing only your own stuff.

Use scheduling and analytics tools like Buffer and HootSuite, that both have free versions. You can even set up a feed between your CMS or website to pull in the metadata of your published content automatically, so that you can manage social posts solely from your tools, rather than having to copy-paste.

And abandon your scheduling spreadsheet!

5. Content Team: Tight workflows and processes

Apart from tools, you also need to have a clearly defined workflow in your content team. By streamlining the process of ideation, creation, curation, and promotion, you will save significant amounts of time. Don’t have too many cooks in the kitchen, set clear goals and deadlines, and aim to have regular meetings and a regular content output.

Building in as many integrations, automated workflows, and streamlined processes will save you and your team a lot of time when creating content for your platform. Everytime you sit with a repetitive task of copy-pasting, start searching for tools that could do that for you.

It will give you quality time to focus on growing your brand and your audience instead, generating more leads, more readers, and more fans.