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[Treehouse Friends]

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Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Treehouse Friends.

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[Dan Gorgone @dangorgone] I'm Dan Gorgone from Treehouse,

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and when it comes to promoting your business or communicating 

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about yourself online content is the key.

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It takes many forms. It comes in all shapes and sizes.

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But at its core, you need a clear voice, and you need a strategy

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to make quality content work.

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Luckily, we have an expert joining us today

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that knows all about content.

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C.C. Chapman is a blogger, photographer, speaker at conferences around the world,

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and he's the co-author of a great guide to content marketing called "Content Rules."

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He joins us today from the Content Rules headquarters out in western Massachusetts.

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C.C., how are you, man?

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[C.C. Chapman] [Author, Content Rules] I'm doing great. Thanks for having me here today. 

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Thanks for joining us. I know our members are going to really appreciate it.

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[Dan Gorgone @dangorgone] [C.C. Chapman @cc_chapman]

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I wanted to ask you some questions about content marketing.

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First up, for our members looking for a quick intro

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to the topic what is content marketing exactly?

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How does it differ from traditional marketing?

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Well, first I think to understand content marketing

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you have to understand what content is, and the way I describe content is

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anything that you create and share to tell your story,

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so that can be anything really, and content has been around forever.

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Back before the internet we had print, radio and television.

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All of that was content.

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Content marketing lately has been getting a lot of attention because 

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everybody has woken up to the power of the internet

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and the fact that no matter if you're designing

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a website, starting a charity

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or creating an event you've got to create stuff to share online

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that people can take and share it with others

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and give likes and +1s and all those other things too

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in order to generate interest in whatever it is you're creating.

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Well, a lot of our Treehouse members are coders.

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They're designers, developers, and they're building websites, apps.

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They're working on many different kinds of projects,

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a lot of the projects that you've mentioned, 

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so where exactly does content fit in for them?

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Well, I think it's really critical, and it's probably something that

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a lot of coders and designers may not be thinking about

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because they're so focused on getting the app or the site

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or whatever it is they're building finished, and let's face it,

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that's a lot of work, so you've got this great thing created.

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Well, how are you going to get people to come check it out?

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How are they going to know that it exists?

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You've got to do some form of content marketing in order to 

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get people to check it out, and that might involve

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doing something in the alpha stage or the beta stage

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as you're building a new site or a new app.

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It may be creating an interesting overview video that shares it. 

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It's one of those steps that I think it's forgotten about, 

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and yet it's really, really critical because let's face it, 

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the reason you're building something is you want the world to see it.

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Maybe you're trying to sell it.

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Maybe it's about getting users to sign up. 

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There's different reasons that you'd want to bring people in and check it out,

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but in today's world where, let's face it, 

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every second there's new stuff being shared online, 

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you've got to create content that stands out 

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and is going to engage the audience that you want to bring to you.

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It's not one of those everybody has to do a video

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or everybody has to blog.

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It's more about what's right for your audience to get them to come check out

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what you've created.

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Yeah, that's a good point, and a lot of our membership

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are freelancers and contracts, and in addition to

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marketing the products, their services that their clients

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may be hiring them to build sites for

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they want to market themselves and their services and bring in clients. 

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But they may look online or at the marketplace 

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and worry about the competition.

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Wherever they are they may be flooded with all kinds of people 

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who can do the same thing, so I wonder how they can differentiate themselves?

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How can they use content marketing to accomplish this?

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Yeah, well, let's face it.

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There are a lot of freelancers out there, especially in the space

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where your audience lives and breathes.

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There's a lot of people out there doing that, 

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but the person who is going to stand out, the person who is going to get attention

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is the one that does something different.

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One of the rules in the book is we talk about do something unexpected.

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What could you do that's going to make you stand out?

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Maybe you've got a sense of humor.

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Maybe you've got a creative streak.

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What makes you different, your voice?

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Whenever I talk to businesses--and it applies to individuals especially.

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Each of us has our own voice. 

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The way I say something, the way somebody else says something 

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is very, very different.

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Well, then how could you use that voice--and I'm not just saying--

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by saying voice I'm not saying just how I sound.

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It's your approach, your philosophy to life,

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and always the more of yourself that you can put in your content the better.

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If you've ever seen like when I share stuff

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I may be talking about my kids, or I might be talking about cooking,

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and somehow I tie it into what I'm doing,

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and I connect with a whole bunch of new people, 

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and it's critical.

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It's very critical that you do something that's unique to you 

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and that you're comfortable with doing to stand out,

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and a quick little aside that fits into this.

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I know when we were writing the book we were looking for an illustrator,

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and there's tons of illustrators out there, 

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and we ended up going to Flickr, of all places,

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and we had an idea of what we were looking for, 

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and we started looking through illustrations and ended up finding

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a guy in Minneapolis, of all places, 

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and both me and my co-author are here in Boston.

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But we found him via Flickr because he had shared

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a lot of his work that he'd done for clients,

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work that he had done for himself,

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just doodles and stuff, but something in one of his pictures

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that he had drawn had got our attention, and lo and behold,

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we ended up hiring him, and I'm sure when he posted things to Flickr

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he was never imagining he'd get a job that way,

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and yet it worked, and I love telling that story because 

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sometimes you have to think beyond the obvious places to post your work,

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and that goes beyond just for illustrators.

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It can apply to anybody, so look for those other places where

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maybe your competition is not sharing as much as you,

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because then you're going to stand out even more.

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Yeah, there's all kinds of formats for content,

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and you mentioned many of them in the book.

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You highlight a number of strategies and content rules

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where you can go through and highlight

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some of the best practices, strategies for yourself

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to use those different formats.

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It kind of brings up this question of should people be

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more focused on getting their marketing in front of 

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as many people as possible?

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Should they be worrying about the targeting aspect,

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or all of the above?

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I always hate this answer, but it depends.

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It depends on what your goal is.

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If it's the early days of something new that you've developed

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maybe you're only looking for the hardcore targeted audience.

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Say you're looking for beta testers for something new you've built.

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Maybe you only want that target--you want those hardcore users

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who aren't scared to play with a beta and will break it, 

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and they'll expect it, and they'll be all right with that, 

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but then as you go to the next step when you've actually rolled it out

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and you want as many users as possible then you've got to go more widespread.

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There's also reasons to say, well, maybe you should start small. 

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Start with a target, and they'll eventually spread it out to their communities.

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What I always talk about is make sure that--

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getting the obvious audience is easy.

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Getting those people that you're already connected with

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or who are in your circle or that you've already identified

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for your client, are into what you're talking about, those people are easy.

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What you've got to think about is their audience.

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What can you create that's going to get the person

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that's really close and go "Oh, wow."

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"I need to share this with my audience," because that's what the

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whole nature of the Web was is the fact that

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I can link to you, I can link to you,

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and so you want your audience's community.

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It's what you really always should think about, how to jump to the next one.

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But who to start with?

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It really depends on what you're trying to do, what your goal is,

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and honestly, with any content marketing

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you have to start with the why.

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You have to go "How are we going to know if this is a success?"

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Are we trying to get 100 signups?

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Is it we're trying to get 1,000 signups?

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Is it trying to get just hits to the website?

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Really up front figure out what is it that we're trying to reach?

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How are we going to know this is a success?

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And then figure out the content marketing strategy 

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to reach those goals.

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Yeah, I think a number of members might be 

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intimidated by this idea of trying to reach  out to influencers,

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and just the idea of becoming a content producer

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because there's just so many options.

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There's so many ways you could go,

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and plus, they're trying to make a living or make money on the side. 

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They're busy working on projects, 

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so trying to write blog posts or create other kinds of new content

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may seem like it's just too much, so what is that challenge like

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trying to reach influencers, trying to do this marketing

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if you don't go out and produce that content?

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I mean, if you don't engage in social media

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or publish on a blog what kind of challenges are you going to face?

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Yeah, and it is difficult, because let's face it,

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I can buy more of anything.

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I don't have the money to maybe, but you can always buy more things, 

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but you can never buy more time.

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Everybody has got the same amount of hours in a day,

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and when your head is down coding away 

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or designing or working on something you don't have the time to go

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"Oh, well, I should go write a blog post."

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The trick is you've got to figure out--play to your strengths.

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Figure out what it is that you can do, 

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what are you comfortable doing, and start there. 

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Figure out how you're going to do it because  you know what?

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You may not think that it's important or not part of 

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what it is you're doing, but if you want to attract more people,

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whether it's to what you've built or to yourself

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you've got to start sharing online, 

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and figure out which network is right for you and start there.

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There's nothing to say that you have to set up Pinterest

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and Instagram and Twitter and have all those places

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because let's face it, especially if you're not comfortable with 

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online marketing just start with what you're most comfortable with.

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Start sharing there, even if it's just "Wow, hit a milestone today on the project."

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"Really excited about the UI."

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Sharing stuff like that, sharing that human side

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that people don't necessarily see, that's the perfect place to start. 

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It's not necessarily marketing, but in the social world

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that sort of vulnerability that sort of showing--

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I always talk about it's looking behind the curtain at Oz.

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You get to see kind of behind the scenes people connect with that stuff.

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But plain and simple it's one of those things that--

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I usually am speaking to executives, and I'm like "Listen, if you don't make 

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the time for this you might as well close up shop because your customers are online."

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And let's face it, everybody who is a potential customer, 

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a potential user of your product, they're online,

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and so you have to do something to attract them, 

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and that, for better or worse, is marketing.

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It's what it's really all about.

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Yeah, it's a great point.

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As intimidating as it can be you really do have to start somewhere.

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I think a good question, though, maybe something that could set

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some minds at ease is how do you--

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once you start publishing--make the decision you're going to go on Twitter

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or you're going to go on Facebook.

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How do you keep things going? 

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How do you ensure you stay on schedule,

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and how do you ensure that you don't run out of ideas as you're getting that ball rolling?

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Yeah, so we use the metaphor of a campfire in the book,

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and it's one of those things that it was funny because I actually had to put

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instructions on how to build a campfire in the book just in case

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people didn't understand the metaphor.

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But if you've ever built a campfire you know that you

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just can't throw some wood on it and then walk away,

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and the same thing goes with a content marketing strategy.

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You have to be constantly adding a little bit to it to let it burn

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and keep it going, and one of the things that we talk about

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that helps some people is the idea of an editorial calendar,

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which may be really over the top for your audience, 

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but it's something as simple as a spreadsheet saying

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just focus for the next month.

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What am I going to produce?

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Is it once a week I'm going to write a blog post?

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Am I going to aim to tweet once a day?

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I mean, if you need to think that way you can plan it all out, 

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literally fill it out every day and go "This is what I'm going to do."

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That may be overkill, but then again,

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some people who like process and like details

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may love that, so that's a best practice is to

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take an editorial calendar and lay it out.

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And my advice is when you're trying to figure out how to feed the beast

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on a regular basis is to go back to that campfire metaphor

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to think about just like when you build a campfire

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you have to put little sticks in, and then you have to build them up to some bigger sticks.

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Try to think if there's some bigger logs you can throw on that campfire.

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Maybe you produce a video, or maybe you write a long blog post.

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If you're only doing Twitter, a big log could be just a blog post,

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or it could be like an overview of the code.

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It can be a screencast. 

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You can show the code and how you're stuck on it

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or the progress you've made.

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There's all these sort of different things you can do,

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but you're right, once you start

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you've got to keep feeding it, but also don't stress over it.

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I see far too many people going "Well, I have to tweet every single day,"

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or "I have to do this."

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There are very few have to's in the world of online. 

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Do what you're comfortable with, but do realize that people like consistency.

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They like to see you because they can forget about you.

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There's so much other content out there

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that if you're not in their forefront they can forget about you,

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so try to find the balance, but figure out what works for you

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because honestly, what's right for you isn't necessarily right for you.

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It's different for everybody, and I wish there was a magic silver bullet

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that said this is the way it should be done, but it's not.

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There isn't, so figure out what you're comfortable with and what works for your style.

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And I think that's great advice,

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especially if you're a designer or developer and you're building a site for a client.

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Usually, hopefully, the content for that site comes from the client,

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so if so, what advice would we have

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for our clients so that they can write for the Web

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and create great marketing content that you can just

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plug into that awesome new site that you've built for them?

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Well, that's a big question.

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I think the key thing, one of the things if I can give anything  that would apply

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to everybody is one of our rules again is to be human.

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It's to speak human, and speak in the voice that you speak.

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Don't get overly--acronyms.

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Don't try to get all marketing and buzzwordy 

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because nobody likes to read that so try to make sure--

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I would say balance that whole

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look at me with real world how we talk.

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Don't try to pretty it up too much.

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Don't try to make it too fuzzy and happy.

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Make it realistic. Make it human.

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And that's the type of stuff that people resonate with 

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and they connect with most, and I guess the biggest mistake that I see

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every sort of client make where they kind of forget that

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and they think it has to all be about 

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I've got this megaphone of the internet.

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 I should be screaming as loud as I can all the time, 

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and nobody likes that, so keep it in check. 

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Let's say that you make the decision to start publishing content.

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How do you know when you've got something successful?

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I mean, I think we all need a way

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of measuring the effectiveness of the stuff that we're creating.

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Are we looking for social media stats like shares

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and retweets, or are we looking for blog contents,

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or is it something else?

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How do we know when something really works?

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Yeah, it's a combination of a lot of things.

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That goes back to what I was saying earlier about how up front

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you should be figuring out how are we going to measure success?

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Is it about the views, the subscribers?

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Is it about retweets?

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All that stuff is important, and you can measure all that stuff, 

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and you should be because if nobody is reacting,

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if nobody is sharing, then something is obviously wrong.

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But if something--say your goal is to drive signups. 

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Maybe it's to sign up for a beta of a new site.

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That's the only thing you care about.

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Do you really care about the retweets?

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You could get 1,000 retweets, but if you only get 10 signups

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is that retweet really worth it?

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You've got to really stop up front and figure out how you're going to measure it,

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and all that stuff is super important, but then again,

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also there's certain things that you can't measure.

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Brand awareness, one of the things that I--

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if you're creating a lot of content one thing I like to have people look at is

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go out to Google and do a search on whatever is appropriate 

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for you and your project and see how many hits it gets,

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and then as you create content over time that number should go up

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because obviously Google loves the content.

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Hopefully people are linking to it and sharing it 

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and writing about it, so those mentions are going to go up.

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That's one that people seem to forget about, 

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and I think it's a crucial one,

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but the key is to figure out up front what metrics you need to measure

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to be a success, and then do everything

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to make sure you're hitting them.

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Got to figure out how to define success. That's perfect.

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Lastly, I wanted to mention that you have a new book coming out at the end of the year.

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"Amazing Things Will Happen" is the name of the book, 

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and I know it's a bit of a departure from the content marketing side of things,

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but this stuff is very relevant to a lot of professionals out there,

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a lot of our membership.

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It tackles topics like self-improvement, 

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inspiration, creativity.

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Tell me, what can we expect from the book?

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How do you think our members can benefit from 

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a lot of the anecdotes that you share in the book?

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Well, yeah, the subtitle for the book is "A Real World Guidebook 

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to Happiness and Success," and the way I work

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and the way that I firmly believe, and I think your audience will appreciate it,

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is that I was sick of all these self-help books 

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that people said "The world can be yours,"

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and my approach is "Yeah, but you've got to work really hard at it,

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and you've got to know what you're going for," 

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so I think your audience will appreciate it because,

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A, there's no BS.

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I'm not going to sell you anything.

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The fact of the matter is that I think if you're going to have a successful life

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you've got to know what you want in your heart,

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and then you've got to follow it, and you've got to work really hard

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to get there, and I'm excited for the world to read the book 

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because I hope people react positively to it,

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but that's my philosophy.

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It's worked for me, and I think your audience is going to enjoy it.

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I'm looking forward to it, man. 

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"Content Rules" is a great book.

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I'm looking forward to amazing things that will happen. 

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Everyone, I want to thank C.C. Chapman for joining us today

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here on Treehouse Friends.

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Once again, if you're looking for a great bunch of ideas

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on content marketing "Content Rules" is the book for you.

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Check it out at contentrulesbook.com,

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and the new book, "Amazing Things Will Happen," is coming out at the end of this year.

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For complete info on everything,

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including C.C. Chapman himself, check out cc-chapman.com

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or follow him on Twitter at cc_chapman.

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Thanks, C.C. Thank you so much for joining us, man.

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Thanks for having me today.

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All right, Treehouse members, thank you so much

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 for joining us here on Treehouse Friends. 

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So long. 

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[? Music ?] [Treehouse Friends]