Which blogs and bloggers do you read on content marketing?

I'm setting up my Feedly list for content marketing. I've got a few blogs and bloggers I know I want to follow, but of course I get concerned I'm missing someone or something wonderful. Whom do you follow?

Help me set up my list.

• MarketingProfs
• CMI
• Copyblogger, read this a lot
• Hubspot
• Marketo
• Moz
• Problogger
• Social Media Examiner, not so prestigious (is it the design?) but often useful
• KissMetrics, occasional lifesavers
• Avinash Kaushik's Occam's Razor, because folks say I should
• Porent's Content Idea Generator, fun and helpful
• Blog Tyrant Ramsay Taplin, in spite of myself
• Brian Dean at BackLinko, I just found I was linking to his blogs
• Demian Farnworth at CopyBot
• Bryan Eisenburg I'm going to try

What do you think of these?

Who is missing?

Context-rich marketing, courtesy of Vincie for Miles to Go.

Model your message

Thought for the day

   Presentation is half the taste, cooks tell me. If the mind is prepared for deliciousness, the tongue need only confirm.
   The same may be said for presenting content: Model the message. The language, the look, the images, even the organisation, can be used to support or subvert your message. Support gets my vote.
   I ran across an excellent discussion of how it helps the reader to present web content in a simple form that the audience would expect for the type of content. So a shop would look different, work different and be different from a travel site or a car dealership. That was message one.

   Seeing is working.

   Message two was that our ocular system has to work at decoding images, colours, shapes, arrangements. If the design is complicated, making the eye move all over, assaulting the eye with disparate and dystopic images, the brain is exhausted and there isn't power left to absorb the message. One simply gets tired.
   It was odd, then, that the article was repeatedly interrupted with complicated, sometimes fuzzy and unfocused, bright and colourful images. In order to get to the end of it, I had to force myself past the exhausting visuals – it wasn't, in sum, a long article, but it seemed interminable. (The article remains anonymous. If you find this writer's work, you'll probably like it, as do I, and one quibble isn't worth setting low expectations.)

   Doing is showing.

   So now I stop.

Random shopper at Castro Farmers Market sporting her Vincie, context works. Photo by Vincie.

Where the wild audience lives.

Looking around for tips on finding an audience, I ran across Beth Becker's 2013 article on Where to Begin? http://bit.ly/PoliticsWhere. Oddly enough, she's talking about politics, which we never discuss at table (although religion is a constant topic). Got enough take-aways in spite of that to make a tasty meal: 

Focus on three things.

• What do I want to say?
• To whom do I want to say it? (Bless you, Beth, for using the language.)
• To whom do I want my audience to repeat it? (Proving once again about the hobgoblin and how close she lives to my heart.)

And from another article, unrelated one might think, in which Tommy Walker talks about the power of audience expectations, http://bit.ly/Audiencexpects, these parallel observations make a fine dessert:

Four reassurances your audience needs to hear. Often.

• Know the sites your audience visit most.
• Copy the cognitive fluency of those sites in your own work.
• Double-check that your work meets audience expectations.
• Remember that 'prototypical' is a positive word, but it doesn't mean you copy anything precisely. Commit to your personal point of view. Totally. But don't take 'personal' as a license to run rough-shod over expectations.

What? Where? Content channel and type overview

The most-used content channels for marketing along with typical content types. Developing channels may be of interest for particular audiences, so check out newer options. Thanks to Anne Murphy at Kapost Academy http://bit.ly/KapostChannels for providing the basics.

Blog: Regular articles are key. Build off whitepapers or reports, where each chapter or section becomes a post. Call to action is key. Most content types work here, though anecdotal experience found *many to work poorly in particular contexts. Test types with your audience and for your calls to action.

• Story
• Listicle
• Review
• Explanation or Basics of . . . 
• Video
• Infographic
• Photos
• Research data
• Survey results
• Interview
• Roundup
• Mega-guide
• eBook
• *Tools
• *Tips+tricks
• *Resource list
• *How-to
• *Spotlights

Twitter: Twits with image links get double the engagement – create Twit-specific images to promote content. Twits with links also fare well. Use to share top-level content – blog posts, videos, graphics + other images. Hashtags important as index tool.

Facebook: Many content types supported, but visuals – videos, photos + graphics – drive more engagement.

LinkedIn: Embed links in commentary for best results. Now owns SlideShare so visuals have become more important.

Instagram: All photos all the time. Uses hashtags to index. Can @ link to blog address if that's listed as your user url.

YouTube: Video channels with high-viral upside.

SlideShare: Highly visual stories using concise points.

Pinterest: High impulse response. Centres on attention-capturing visuals, created just for Pinterest to drive traffic to blog posts + visuals. Organised in 'boards'.

Email: Alternative, targeted delivery for Blog posts, Infographic, short Video, SlideShare, Research data.

Podcast: Used mostly, it seems, for interview and roundup.

CRM: Provide content to the sales team to use in building client relationships. Any content has maximum effect when deployed at a crucial decision-point in a welcoming environment..