10 Great Content Marketing Articles of 2017 (so far)

Reading this article will make you a content marketing master…(until the end of Q2 when we have ten more articles).

There is a lot content out there, quiet a lot on marketing, and a decent volume of content on how to become a better content marketer. To save us all time we thought we’d pull together our favourite content marketing articles from Q1. Here are our top 10…

#1. 4 Analytics Reports Every Content Marketer Should Use

Who’s it by?
The Content Marketing Institute is a great resource when it comes to learning…content marketing (what else?!)

What’s it about?
In this article the CMI reviews the four most important reports you can get from Google Analytics for your website, focusing on traffic, conversions, navigation summary, and traffic from organic searches.

Why should you care?
Analysis is important in understanding what has worked, not worked and why, allowing you to optimise and improve. GA can be a bit of a beast, so these templates should solve for both optimisation and simplification.

#2. Comparing the ROI of Content Marketing and Paid Advertising

Who is it by?
Neil Patel is a New York Times best seller. He co-founded Crazy Egg, Hello Bar and KISSmetrics. Forbes listed him as one of the ‘top 10 online marketers’. He has been recognised by President Obama and the UN. He knows his stuff.

What’s it about?
When it comes to marketing, everyone wants to get the most out of their investment. You can generate leads from content marketing and paid advertising, but which is better? According to Neil Patel, the answer to this question is that both channels can be effective.

Why should you care?
We all need ROI and we all want a silver bullet. While this article isn’t a silver bullet, its certainly a bronze one (?) providing great insight as to how content and paid help each other in growing ROI.

#3. The ‘Less is More’ Content Strategy

Who is it by?
Steve Rayson on the Buzzsumo blog. Steve is the main investor behind Buzzsumo and a serial entrepreneur, passionate about marketing and technology. Buzzsumo help users analyse what content performs best for any topic.

What’s it about?
This article provides you with strategy tips and case studies on keeping publishing frequency low but content engagement high.

Why should you care?
Getting this right will help build your content authority and reputation, while saving you money and time by focusing on quality over quantity.

#4. One Thing is Killing Content Marketing and Everyone is Ignoring it

Who is it by?
The CMI.

What’s it about?
According to the Content Marketing Institute, where many marketers go wrong is not knowing their audience well enough, or asking themselves the question “Why should my customer care?” If you don’t think your audience will care, then don’t post it. The emphasis should be on compelling, valuable, engaging and useful content.

Why should you care?
Getting it this right equals success, and getting it wrong means…well, you know.

#5. The Top B2B Content Marketing Trends to Watch This Year

Who is it by?
Sophia Bernazzani is Marketing Manager at Hubspot. HubSpot is an inbound marketing and sales platform.

What’s it about?
There are a lot of vendors and developments within the content marketing space so tech and trends emerge quickly. This is an infographic of highlighting top trends for 2017.

Why should you care?
Knowing major trends will make you look smart and help you stay ahead of your competitors

#6. 7 productivity Killers for Marketers and How to Fix Them

Who is it by?
The CMI…again

What’s it about?
Improving content productivity. The solution is having a strategy which enables you to measure your success, while focusing on doing fewer tasks, better.

Why should you care?
If you can fix your strategy and focus your attention your output will deliver greater impact.

#7. 11 WordPress Plugins You Need to Create Killer Content

Who’s it by?
Neil Patel…again.

What’s it about?
There are a wealth of ways in which you can adapt your site – especially as there are over 40,000 different WordPress plugins. But which ones should you be using? This is a guide to 11 of the best.

Why should you care?
Finding the best plugin can be a painful process, this research shortcut summarises what they do so you can quickly pick the right ones for you.

#8. 23 Cool Tools for Social Media Marketers

Who’s it by?
The Social Media Examiner are one of the larger blogs focused on helping businesses discover how to use social media to connect with customers.

What’s it about?
There are host of tools that can help marketers master (or improve) content marketing efforts. This article lists 23 of SMEs favourites, from getting your grammar right with Grammarly to analysing Facebook groups through Grytics.

Why should you care?
There are some great tools (and some terrible ones) that can save you time and money. This helps you shortcut the vetting process.

#9. How Often To Post on Social Media?

Who’s it by?
Nathan Ellering, Head of Marketing at Coschedule on the the Coschedule blog. Coschedule helps marketers plan, organise and execute content marketing projects.

What’s it about?
This blog post brings together a lot of research on best time to post and how frequently across all major platforms, summarising it in an easy takeaway guide.

Why should you care?
Distribution is an important part of increasing content discovery and therefore ROI. Social media is an ever more important channel in the distribution mix, so getting post frequency right can be the difference between your content existing in isolation or (potentially) going viral.

#10. The Ultimate Guide to Facebook Engagement in 2017

Who’s it by?
Susan Moeller is BD Manager at Buzzsumo.

What’s it about?
Find out how to increase your Facebook post engagement as well as learn what Mari Smith recommends you do for the year ahead.

Why should you care?
Facebook is arguably the most important social platform and these tips will help you improve your post performance.