Jul 29, 20173 min read

This Week in Content Marketing: Amazon, Facebook, and Google All Launch New Content Plays

PNR: This Old Marketing with Joe Pulizzi and Robert Rose can be found on both iTunes and Stitcher. If you enjoy our show, we would love it if you would rate it or post a review on iTunes.

In this week’s episode

Robert ponders whether we can – and should – try to keep up with today’s pace of progress. On the news front, we take aim at Amazon’s new social platform, Spark (thumbs down); Google’s news feed (thumbs up); and Facebook’s decision to add branded sub-groups (jury’s still out). Our rants and raves include building something instead of measuring, and the craze of focusing on technology over strategy; then we close the show with an example of the week on Emily McDowell Cards.

Download this week’s PNR: This Old Marketing podcast

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Show details

(00:01): An advertising blast from the past: “Sony Betamax could change your whole way of life”
(00:27): Robert muses on this week’s theme: When can we be OK with being behind the times?
(05:15): Welcome to Episode 193: Recorded live on July 24, 2017 (Running time: 1:04:31)
(11:10): Content Marketing World 2017 – The largest content marketing event in the world returns to Cleveland on September 5–8. Register today, and don’t forget to use coupon code PNR100 to save $100 on the cost of registration.

The PNR perspective on notable news and trends

(13:28): Amazon to pay publishers to post on its new social network. (Source: The Wall Street Journal)
(22:50): Google aims to reinvent news discovery. (Sources: Inc., TechCrunch)
(30:23): Media companies and brands can now create groups inside their Facebook pages. (Source: AdWeek)

Rants and raves

(43:17): Joe’s rave: In a recent blog post, Seth Godin made an interesting point about measurement: Just because your stand-by metric is tried, doesn’t mean it’s true. It’s a great reminder that we need to start thinking about marketing in new ways and questioning the answers we come up with.
(48:00): Robert’s commentary: While Robert found that this MarTech Advisor article rings true when it comes to describing the key challenges of orchestrating a customer experience technology stack, he explains why he wishes the discussion took a more nuanced view of the struggle.

This Old Marketing example of the week

(55:38): Emily McDowell Studio: Emily McDowell was diagnosed with Stage 3 Hodgkin’s lymphoma at age 24. After experiencing a great deal of loneliness and isolation from her well-meaning friends and family, who were at a loss as to how to support her through her struggles, Emily McDowell came up with an idea for a line of emotionally direct sympathy cards to express the kinds of heartfelt statements she wishes she had received. Though I first learned of her powerful story from this Slate article, I did a bit more digging and came to discover a classic case of Content Inc.-style marketing done right. Not only did Emily start her entrepreneurial journey with a simple blog on a hyper-niche topic that she could cover better than anyone else, as her influence and audience support grew she then diversified her content, built a business around her communication philosophy, and is now achieving the kind of success that This Old Marketing examples are made of.