stories from content marketing world, sydney, 2014

Stories from #cmworldSydney March 31 to April 2

casmccullough.com@casmccullough+CasMcCullough1cas@casmccullough.com

When I showed up to the Content Marketing World

Conference in Sydney, I didn’t know anyone. So, what better way to break the ice than to tweet with everyone at the

event…

What happens when you put 300 content marketers in a room for 72

hours?

Yep, we even nearly bumped April Fools Day!

I don’t think I’ve ever been to a conference where there were that many people tweeting! Usually it’s just me, or me and one other person

Awesome!

Wine and Podcasts

After eating and drinking a fair amount (ehem) prior to the show, I settled down on the floor, kicked my shoes off and watched Joe Pulizzi and Robert Rose run their live Podcast with my new friend Sara (who I’d met just minutes before).

(And we tweeted one another during the show… sad but true)

Wine and Podcasts

Mark Shaefer

Mark Shaefer

I had interviewed Mark on my Podcast show just a few days prior to the event, so when I met him for the first time, I gave him a great big hug.

Podcast shows are awesome icebreakers!

Of course, his talk was as insightful as ever. Here are the highlights…

Mark Shaefer

Robert Rose

It was Robert’s advice to frame our services in terms of planning and not strategy that lead to a pretty fundamental change in the way I promoted my consultancy after the conference.

Robert Rose

Coleen Jones

Coleen brought home to me that personalisation needs a great deal of attention to detail on the tech side of things. This means conversations and communication between tech heads and marketers--not always easy, but sooooo essential.

Her talk gave me a new appreciation for marketing automation and the need to get it right!

Coleen Jones

Bernadette Jiwa

My favourite presenter by far!

It’s so easy to forget how important story telling is in marketing. Bernadette not only wove a great story, but her Black Milk pants were the talk of the conference that afternoon…for all the right reasons of course.

Bernadette Jiwa

Todd Wheatland

It had been a loooong while since I’d studied the psychology of communication at uni, so Todd’s talk was a good refresher.

Todd Wheatland

Jesse Desjardins

The Tourism Australia presentation was definitely a highlight of the conference. Jesse showcased the amazing work his team does on social media. I had used their cool app just months before when I travelled to the snow with my kids.

Jesse Desjardins

Tim Washer

Tim’s talk made me feel grateful to work with small businesses.

It is so much easier to get good content out there quickly when you don’t have to deal with a bureaucracy. That said, it’s good to know how to handle organisation politics when it comes to creating content. It was good to be reminded of the complexities larger organisations face.

Tim Washer

Bobbi Mahlab and Chris Champion

Day 2 and my head was already spinning. This case study had some useful tips about investing in content and creating membership communities.

Bobbi Mahlab and Chris Champion

Joe Pulizzi & Jeff Bullas

Great session about small business content marketing! Joe and Jeff were firing off one liners so fast it was hard to keep up on Twitter!

This was definitely one of the more useful sessions for me.

Joe Pulizzi & Jeff Bullas

Chris McWilliamsTriple M Sydney

This presentation caused a little controversy on Twitter. Chris had a raw presentation style that didn’t sit too well with everyone in the audience.

In any case, I did pick up some useful tips and ended up writing a blog post about getting creative after the conference.

Chris McWilliamsTriple M Sydney

Kevin Cain

Kevin’s content was great, if a bit dizzying. I workshop building content systems with my clients on a regular basis, so know only too well how hard it is for people to get their heads around building an effective content matrix.

Slooooooow Dowwwwn Kev! We want to take it all in!

Kevin Cain

Tim Washer – Day 2

Yet another brilliant talk about creativity and humour.

Yes, we do tend to take this marketing stuff a bit too seriously sometimes! Thanks for the reminder to look at the funny side!

Tim Washer – Day 2

Mark Shaefer – Day 2

The last session I attended was again by Mark Shaefer.

Be more human! It doesn’t get more simple does it?

Mark Shaefer – Day 2

So in the end I left feeling like I had made lots of new friends.

I went home resolved to change a few things about the way I run my content marketing consultancy, and with lots of fresh ideas for my blog and my clients’ content.

There were people at this conference from many industries, including higher education, banking, law and health.

It is encouraging to see that content marketing is starting to be taken seriously in Australia! I’m truly excited to be part of the revolution that’s changing the face of marketing!

Bring on #CMWorld2015!

More about #cmworldSarah Mitchell: http://www.globalcopywriting.com/good-bad-ugly-content-marketing-world-sydney/

King Content:http://www.slideshare.net/King_Content/content-marketing-world-sydney-top-tweets-day-one-2014

Mahlab Media:http://www.slideshare.net/MahlabMedia/content-marketing-world-sydney-top-125-tweeted-takeaways

John Cleese speech on creativity (this was referred to no less than 5 times throughout the conference):https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AU5x1Ea7NjQ

The End

casmccullough.com