Content Marketing World Day 1: The Energy, The Sessions, The People

Live from Cleveland, here’s the official scoop from our time on the ground at Content Marketing World 2016. It’s been a crazy ride so far, but just after a few days, we’ve not only gleaned a ton of valuable information but had a complete blast in the process.

Below, find photos, quotes, key takeaways, notable shares, and even a video from the content marketing king himself, Joe Pulizzi.

Day 1: Wednesday, September 7th (Main Conference)

The day started bright and early with a big welcome to the event. Joe, Founder of the Content Marketing Institute, effectively amped the sea of onlooking marketers with some tough love:

Twitter feeds lit up and the #CMWorld hashtag flooded with learnings, images, and laughs.

Andy Crestodina, Co-founder of Orbit Media, in his key note on “How to Make Friends, Rank High, and Get Famous Online,” declared the importance of using tactics not every marketer may think to implement.

For example, writing hand-written notes to prospects, something CMI is famous for (look where it got them).

.@Crestodina on tactics marketers can use to be successful that others may not be capitalizing on #CMWorld pic.twitter.com/3hFXsNg5YP

— Outbrain (@Outbrain) September 7, 2016

After that, I was proud to attend a session with our very own VP of Global Sales Marketing, Ant Hearne on “The Evolution of Content Marketing ROI.”

Teamed up with guest speaker and Forrester senior analyst, Susan Bidel, the two walked through findings from a brand new commissioned study conducted by Forrester, which explores the intersection of content marketing and ROI as it relates to how customers are currently using our Amplify tool.

.@AntHearne begins his part of the discussion about driving brand results with content marketing | #CMWorld #ROI pic.twitter.com/9Fkm07x6KZ

— Outbrain (@Outbrain) September 7, 2016

A few quotables?

“You can’t create content and expect it to stick without promotion.” – Susan Bidel

“ROI shouldn’t be elusive. It’s important for us and Forrester to work with brands and  demonstrate how we can make that happen because ROI is a perception issue, not a  reality.” – Ant Hearne

Check out the full study.

A hop skip and a jump away, Doug Kessler, Co-Founder of Velocity, was giving his talk on “What Great Content Looks Like: The Power of Insight.”

He then went on to make the point that, “data is not insight.” It needs to be unpacked for the audience, given more meaning, and a story needs to be built around it.

A highly relevant piece of knowledge that should be recognized in the face of many data-fueled content marketing initiatives taking across the industry.

Onto the most exciting part of the day, where myself and Nate, our resident Video Specialist, caught up with a bunch of Outbrain friends.

Did we mention those Outbrain friends were pretty notable content marketing buffs?

Joe Pulizzi of Content Marketing Institute, Chad Pollitt of Relevance, and Chris Bolman of Percolate sat down with us and answered some pertinent questions about the industry, what they were doing to keep ahead of the game, and key trends they saw on the horizon.

To shake things up a bit, we pulled three separate quotes from each of the guys. See if you can match them up with the right person…

Who Said It?

1. “Content discovery is really good at scaling content distribution.”

2. “I have a theory that Stranger Things came as a result of Netflix testing their content.”

3. “We want to create the minimum amount of content for the maximum amount of results.”

1. Chad Pollitt, 2. Chris Bolman, 3. Joe Pulizzi

Stay posted for some Outbrain Video Shorts later today and tomorrow as well as more interviews with the best of the best while we’re here.

If you want a quick sneak peak, check out the quick live footage we captured on Twitter.

Live from Twitter with Joe Pulizzi

Live from Twitter with Chad Pollitt

Live from Twitter with Chris Bolman

That’s al, for now,w folks, we’ve got another wild and crazy day ahead of us.

Our first stop, you ask?

It would have to be Joe Lazauskas’ session, starting shortly, on “The Content Talent Crunch: How Marketing Leaders Approach Hiring a New Breed of Marketer.” We had the pleasure of sitting down with Joe, Editor-In-Chief at Contently, over at their office in Soho. Here’s what he had to stay about Marketers vs. Journalists: