This episode of InTransition was recorded at Content Marketing World in the USA, where David caught up with two of Europe’s leading content marketing strategists, Bert van Loon & AJ Huisman. They discuss how to adopt publishing in public sector and government organisations, and the difference in the advancement of content communication between Europe and North America.
In this episode you’ll hear about:
- content marketing in Europe
- selling content marketing into your organisation
- content: quality vs quantity
- what is quality content?
- how to get the publishing mentality
- content in the legal industry
- where to get inspiration
- content marketing is not just for communications staff
Listen to the podcast:
Selected Links:
Content Marketing Fast Forward (Dutch language website)
AJ Huisman on how to start making quality content:
“I think it all starts with a basic understanding of your audience. Too often, we see people actually in their own little ivory tower producing content on subjects that they think that their audience really, really likes, but they didn’t bother to ask them. It’s so strange, and it baffles me that that still happens. It’s so easy, because we all do events and what have you. Instead of just asking what the temperature in the room was, ask what’s on people’s mind, and there you have your next blog post. It’s so easy. It’s a low threshold thing to do, and people forget about it. That’s the basic thing; know your audience.”
Bert van Loon on how to encourage publishing:
“If you really want to create a mentality and a culture of content, especially that senior management, I suppose in government that would be senior officers, create a risk embracing culture. In general, we have a risk of risk culture. You copy what your predecessor did and do it more or less the same, because that’s risk free.
As we discover new grounds, you have to have a space where risk is normal, you are allowed to make a few mistakes. Of course, it should be structured that it can’t really go wrong, but there’s nothing wrong in having a post that didn’t really work out. People shouldn’t be killed or fired over that, because as soon as that culture is there, the risk of risk culture, you will never move forward to something new.”