Much has been written lately about social media. One of the more interesting uses of social media involves food trucks and how they are using social to find and communicate with customers. This recent post from The Chempetitive Group is typical of what marketing experts are saying. As an owner of an Atlanta Food Truck, I agree with the article. We are having good success with social as a communications vehicle with our clients. In particular, the feedback is making us better.

As usual, Sirius Decisions is spot-on with some of their marketing and sales alignment insights. Here is a recent newsletter on how to solve the content creation issues. At The Content Factor, we have already been ebedding many of these best practices for years.

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A wonderful discussion thread was started by Own McDonald in the Content Strategy group on LinkedIn, with this challenge:

I challenge any CS group member to offer a working definition of content strategy that's light on industry-speak and easily digestible for the average marketer in 100 words or less. Straight up.

It started in January and is still ongoing. There is more great insight here than can be packed into 100 words.

For my own part, I (Veronica) asserted that content strategy must be bigger than one channel (e.g., a company's web properties). To truly be strategy, it must be created and planned higher up in the food chain. Ann Handley of MarketingProfs said that the content strategist is the person who "owns the story in an organization."

Here's my contribution to the thread:

To me that means developing thought leadership, tying it to what buyers seek according to their personas and the stages of their buying process, and then putting that content where they are likely to find it.

Here are some of my favorite points:

Scott Abel: I disagree with the addition of "lead conversion" as that is NOT always the goal. ... Strategies developed in isolation -- or for a single purpose -- may be what business do, but it is NOT a best practice, most of the time.

Rahel Anne Bailie: content strategy is the development of a repeatable process that manages content throughout the entire content lifecycle.

Lorrie Artigo: I think content strategy is more about what content is needed to achieve the overarching business strategy. Content strategy does not exist alone, it supports and aligns with a higher strategy.

Luke Michel: Content Strategy seeks to determine what makes you or your company unique, irresistible, compelling, topical, relevant, continually engaging, valuable, worthy of consideration, indispensable, inspiring, lovable, respected, authoritative, helpful, and pre-eminent in your field.

Jeff Dillon: Content strategy is the ongoing process of making sure you have the information that people want, then making that information more complete, easier to use and easier to find.

Gavin James: It's about delivering content that ensures the right people take notice, understand what's important, remember the key takeaways, and feel motivated to follow through.

Victoria "Torrey" Podmajersky: Information is the fundamental currency of civilization; content strategy is the management of the economy.

Russell Sparkman: I find saying "Content Strategy is the shiznit" to be very effective.

The Content Strategy group is an open group on LinkedIn.

A challenge with Marketing Automation systems, so far, is that they are mostly tactical. But to fulfill the Marketing department's desire to think and act strategically, marketing automation had to do more. Enter B2B marketing's latest three-letter acronym, RPM, for Revenue Performance Management.

RPM adds heft to Marketing Automation by taking on the responsibility for aligning Sales and Marketing. It adds analytics and data integration that allows measurement of the entire revenue cycle--from brand awareness marketing campaigns, through the buying process, to the close--encompassing all of Marketing and Sales.

As a marketer, I think RPM is brilliant, for both the companies that adopt it and the companies who offer it. For the RPM vendors, it raises them above the fray in a market for Marketing Automation that has gotten crowded. For the adopters, it aggrandizes the marketing automation issue beyond the technology, and incorporates issue appeal above Sales and Marketing to the C-Suite.

On the other hand, as more of a traditional marketer, I am still enamored of the “big idea” and doing something different than the competition. With process and measurement driving everything, I fear that Marketing may be headed the way of Accounting: a well-accepted series of steps and processes (think debits, credits, and general ledger entries) that become rote processes instead of ways to communicate value and break through to the marketplace.

As marketers, we have to utilize tools and processes, but not let them obscure our prime objectives: engagement and communication.

Marketing departments must become well rounded in their skill sets: analytical enough to measure and demonstrate value to the CFO, and also creative and human enough to initiate real relationships with buyers. Let's not hide behind the latest technology.

In addition to repurposing our "Secrets of Case Study Winners" white paper on YouTube last week, now we have also put the same content on Brainshark to see whether that method is just as easy and effective. Here's the result:

With Brainshark, as with Jing (the tool we used to create the YouTube video), we started with the same PowerPoint presentation. The biggest difference in the process was the way we recorded the audio. In Jing, the audio is one long track--so it took quite a few tries to get the entire narration right all the way through.

In Brainshark, each slide has a separate audio recording. So we could record and re-record one slide at a time. A few of the transitions aren't as smooth, where we would have preferred to have continuous audio during a transition--but the audio was much easier to record. Brainshark also provides a telephone recording option; we used the VoIP option.

Although Brainshark's web site isn't as well known as YouTube, it's just as easy to embed a Brainshark presentation in a blog post or web page, as we did here. So we can highly recommend the experience of repurposing content on Brainshark.

There are so many other tools emerging for creating video. I have noticed more and more great content coming into my own inbox via a link to a videocast. Admittedly, the quality of the video production--using webcams, computer microphones, and PowerPoint--is usually not great. But the quality of the content is often outstanding.

Being first to buyers with great content is critical. If the message is useful to buyers, the slickness of the video is secondary. B2B marketing departments who are accustomed to slick printed pieces and high-end web design will benefit from moving fast, spending less, and getting some simple videos out to their best prospects. These are great tools to deliver targeted messages and get conversations started.

Demonstrating how to repurpose B2B content using simple video tools, we present the video version of "Secrets of Case Study Winners," based on our white paper about effective B2B case study programs.

I [vb] put together the original presentation in PowerPoint, and then used Jing by TechSmith to record my narration and the slides on the screen simultaneously. Jing then creates an mp4 file, which I uploaded to YouTube (embedded here). I can also play the video on my computer as a canned presentation.

Check out our video--whether you're interested in the case studies, or in the final video product.

Since email, as a marketing medium, has evolved past "mainstream" and on to "boring," let's get creative and look at some new ways to communicate to buyers. How about sending videos that show off a new product feature, explain a new research finding, or show how to do a task? Or even make a sales presenation?

Video capture tools are getting more sophisticated and easier to use. They are great for repurposing marketing content, adding interactivity to a newsletter, or just communicating amongst ourselves.

Last week, I wanted to share and explain a diagram to a colleague. I used my LiveScribe pen to draw it while narrating my explanation. I sent her a link to my "pencast," so she could watch me draw the diagram and listen to my narration  the same way she would listen to a voicemail.

In response, she narrated my drawing while drawing colorful annotations on top of it using Screenr, and then posted the video to her YouTube channel. Now I was listening to her voice and watching her drawing. We were communicating two ways in words and pictures.

It was about two years ago that I first saw "Twitter in Plain English" by Common Craft, a short and clever narrated video using hand-drawn illustrations, and real hands moving them around. I thought, "I could do that--but it would take a lot of work." Today, the tools for creating videos like these, but from screen-captured video, are becoming fun and easy. I enjoy using TechSmith's Jing (and I will try Screenr, which looks comparable) to record PowerPoint presentations as I narrate them. The quality is far superior to PowerPoint's built-in narration function, and it produces video that I can publish on YouTube. Jing can record anything I can put on my screen, along with my voice narration.

The good news for marketers is that buyers want convenience and directness--and these tools allow us to deliver. Buyers also expect--and may even appreciate--customized and up-to-the-minute content that isn't Super-Bowl-Commercial quality. Use the technology to talk to your buyers, person to person.

Marketing automation systems, like Eloqua and Silverpop, are becoming standard equipment among our clients. This is great for both our clients and for us. For the clients, these systems allow Sales to self-serve, and launch one-off campaigns to their prospects at just the right time in the buying cycle. For us, there are more opportunities and applications to produce great content for those campaigns.

One important facet of the B2B marketing mix that's disappearing, though, is interrupt marketing. With Web 2.0, B2B marketing is centering more and more tightly in two places: the search magnets, and the email list. Both channels depend on the buyer to find or opt-in to content. With the buyer in control, it's harder for B2Bs to start the conversation when they have something new to say.

The traditional channels--creative PR, big ad campaigns, and trade show launches--are going by the wayside except for the largest B2Bs. And the viral YouTube video, although a marketing "holy grail," isn't reliable as the cornerstone of a marketing strategy.

So what can B2Bs do to grab attention? Here are a few tactics I have seen work effectively:

• Cold-calling: Tried and true, though not for the faint of heart. A concerted telemarketing campaign, like those developed by PointClear, backed up by useful marketing content, is a reliable way to find new prospects.
• Clever executive gifts: Way better than a tin of popcorn, these have to be gifts a CEO will keep. A signed ball from their favorite baseball star, a rare bottle of wine, or any other high-ticket item that demonstrates your knowledge of the executive's interests.
• Integrated campaigns with strong creative: In the age of digital demand generation, we don't hear much about "integrated marketing" lately. But you can still make a splash with strong, memorable creative in web and print advertising, integrated with the content pushed out by marketing automation.

Perhaps the very best interrupt marketing methods haven't been thought up yet.

Once everybody is doing something new, it's time to start doing something different. As marketing automation goes mainstream, watch the leaders use brilliant interrupt marketing ideas to separate themselves from the pack.