Latest / #ContentChat / 11/2/26 Why In-Person Events Still Matter for Content Marketers

Transcript

11/2/26 Why In-Person Events Still Matter for Content Marketers · #ContentChat

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_01: Hello and welcome to Content Chat.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_01: I'm your host, Erica Heald, and this week we're doing something a little bit different and definitely fun because as you're watching this, I'm in Boston at the Marketing Profess Conference where I'm going to be giving a talk about brand voice, but I didn't want to just leave everybody hanging and have an empty slot in the calendar.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: So instead, I gathered up my friends Carmen Hill and Alec Urban, and we are going to be talking about a topic that's really near and dear to all of us, which is around the importance of professional development for all of us in content marketing and specifically talking about the ins and outs of in-person events versus uh virtual events.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_01: Because all of us have spent, I don't even know how many hours watching uh virtual events, but there's something just very, very different about meeting folks in person.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: But before we dive in on that, I'm gonna go ahead and Carmen, let's start with you.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: If you want to let everybody who's watching know who you are and what you do.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Carmen Hill.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: I am a B2B marketing and content strategist in Portland, Oregon.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: And uh been doing this for a long time and attending a lot of events.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's one of my favorite things to do.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I am energized by it and something I I look forward to and and plan for as much as possible.
• 1:36
  unknown: Love it, Alec.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_02: Hi, everyone.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, I'm Alec.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_02: I am a content marketing and public relations consultant based in Vancouver, Washington, so not Canada, uh, just north of Portland, Oregon.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_02: So Carmen and I are basically neighbors.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_02: And Erica and I used to be neighbors as well in Sacramento, California.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_02: But uh my entire career has been largely in the B2B space, a little B2C, uh largely with tech brands.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_02: And I've been very fortunate to partner with Erica on several uh client engagements and have also been so enmeshed in the content chat community.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_02: So it's always a pleasure to be able to have a camera-facing presence uh beyond some of the emails.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_02: So uh if you've been on the chat uh sometime in the last seven years, you very likely have heard from me.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: We've definitely seen Alex's name all over the website.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: The man behind the curtain.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: Well, unlike me, you both got to attend this year's content marketing world, which was held in Denver, Colorado.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: So why don't we start with just, you know, since this is content chat and we always are talking about latest and greatest trends and things that people are talking about in content.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: I'd love to hear if either of you had some, you know, interesting takeaways or some folks who really stood out.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I know Alec, I've seen, I've gotten a sneak peek.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: So I know you have, you know, you have some uh some notes.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_01: So why don't we start with you and Carmen chime in and then we'll get your insights too.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_02: Perfect.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_02: And another thing that I love about the content chat community is so many of the content marketing world speakers, marketing prof speakers.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_02: We've had so much overlap.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_02: So I've been privileged to be able to listen to a lot of the speakers before the actual show and each year.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_02: So as always, I have my list of people that I try to see in person, but then also spread the love out and focus a little more on some of the areas that I'm not as familiar with.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_02: And to kind of wrap into a large takeaway, everyone needs to throw out their old playbooks.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_02: And this is not new.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_02: This is no no groundbreaking information, hopefully.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, but this year's event was just further validation that content strategies and what it takes to genuinely engage your buyers, your audience members, however you brand that uh there needs to be so much customization, so much natural language reflection on how people are going to find, engage with, evaluate your product or service.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_02: And AEO, GEO, answer engine optimization, generative engine optimization, that has only put that on uh, you know, super charge.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_02: And we aren't really going back.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_02: There's gonna be a little push and pull with that, but this year's event just really reinforced.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_02: And this is all stuff that if you've been engaging with content chat, you've been hearing about this for more than a decade.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, that necessity to really balance your many different content channels, repurposing your content, uh, not just keyword stuffing, but actually reflecting here are the questions that my buyers are asking, and here's this nice rich content, uh, preferably ungated.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_02: And I will get to that very shortly in my uh key takeaways.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_02: And as a public relations practitioner, this my career started in public relations in the content marketing world, as the name would suggest, very content marketing focused, where very often public relations doesn't understand content marketing and vice versa, because they are very distinct skills, very distinct needs.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, PR in the comms team ends up creating so much content.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: Like all the executive, all the executive thought leadership that's still content, and it has to be part of that content strategy.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, and if I had a nickel for every time I've heard that on the public relations side, you know, we we really would like this uh written explanation of something or thought leadership profiles, and we just don't know if it exists, and we turn to find that the content marketing team has been doing something for so long that we did not realize that that disconnect needs to be broken, break down those walls, break down those silos.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_02: So, to spare too long of an intro ramble on there, to do some session highlights.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, I joined a session on the future of LLM-driven discovery with a gentleman named Tom Mansell.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_02: And something that I thought was interesting there.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_02: Only 7% of LLM cited sources are from your brand website.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_02: That is not to say that brand website content then is irrelevant.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_02: However, it's a part of the bigger picture.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok, and Reddit are especially important here uh to validate um credibility with your buyers, to explain helpful how-to type content.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and when it is the site content, your blog is actually then going to be one of the largest uh signals that LLMs look to.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_02: Erica, you're gonna love this.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, Tom recommended a tool named SparkToro.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_02: And Carmen, you also are an active SparkToro user, so that was great validation there.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and then the last piece on that is if you do have brand authors and thought leaders, they should have uh a bio on your website because you need to establish their credibility and reinforce why people should listen to them.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_01: That's the thing that I've talked with clients about really recently because that it's too frequently the case that thought leadership is a priority in, you know, wanting to have a brand voice that's centered around expertise and depth of experience for the team, yet then they'll still be having things on their blog that say it's coming from the brand.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like, no, the brand did not write that.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: If it says the brand wrote that, then we assume it was Claude or ChatGPT that wrote that.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, you gotta have a human being for us to trust that conf content.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: And so that is an interesting disconnect that I've been fighting this battle for over a decade, that any blog post that goes up needs a human being to be attached to it, or it needs to not be a blog post.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and to to that point, Erica, when you mentioned it's like this is not new.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: I think some of the the particulars of you know how you're doing things, how you're structuring things, where you're posting things has evolved for sure.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: But the the basic principles are still the same.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, whether you need that bio, yes, you need it on your website, but maybe you also need it in some other places, you need that presence and credibility to show up in more places.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: But the the fundamentals, I mean, natural language before you had, you know, LLMs that were reading your content, you had natural language humans reading your content.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so by presenting your information in a way that is accessible and understandable and makes the value front and center, that's that's not only good for the machines, it's good for us.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: And that's been the case this whole time, you know.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I think it's like the it feels like content marketing as a thing, as a distinct practice from other marketing or even from other content, maybe is that's been diluted or is evolving.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: But the the value, the reason we're doing it, and the things that are that we need to pay attention to feel very similar.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's just like, yes, you know, for so long we said don't build on rented land, and it's now, you know, it's like monopoly board.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: You need your rented properties and your own properties.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: And you need to be, you know, have both of those as as core pieces of your strategy.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: The the rented land is no longer just about, you know, promoting something that's on your own.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: Did I say that the right way?
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: The rented things are no longer just where you promote your own things, but also where you're putting, you know, your content in those places natively.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's that's the the big shift.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, 2018, I remember uh Joe Pelizzi said, prepare for the end of social media, and which we didn't mean exactly, like of course we still have social media, but the the way that we use it has changed.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: And he was he was um prescient about about that, as with so many things.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um Joe Pelizzi being the founder of Content Marketing World for anyone who isn't familiar.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_02: And that thank you, Carmen, because it is so true where those channels and the exact strategy does continue to shift.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_02: And that was something that I thought was interesting.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_02: And again, if if someone listening is more in B2C type brands, then things such as TikTok are going to be especially important.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_02: B2B, I have largely operated in business to business where I want to just hide from TikTok, not deal with that.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_02: But something that I thought was interesting in this rise and fall and change of social media is how forums like Reddit are still really carrying weight, especially around potential misinformation about brands or consumer sentiment.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_02: And these are deeper level things than a public relations team alone should be able to or be expected to handle, or a social media team.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_02: And part of that comes at a baseline of understanding those channels and when possible correcting misinformation from a transparent way, which actually leads into another session that I was in was uh about customers coming from AI search or that zero click strategy.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_02: Zero click is a phrase many of us have likely heard.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, the gentleman leading the site session was Dale Bertrand, who just hands down, incredible presenter every year.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_02: I love Dale.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: He's been um on content chat previously too.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, he has.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_02: And he is just such a wealth of knowledge.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_02: And every time I leave, just feeling so empowered, but then also so flooded with information of there's so much I can do with this, uh, and to avoid being a fire hose today.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_02: One of the things that I just is immediately applicable for everyone.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_02: He was discussing this ideal state of sorts where one person in an organization needs to own that messaging.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_02: They need to own that brand identity.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_02: And in this case, that could be a VP of marketing or highest marketing level that then ensures that cohesion between public relations, between content marketing, every other type of marketing, sales, to ensure that you're showing up consistently so that when LLMs are consuming your mass volumes of content across everywhere they exist, they're getting a clear picture.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_02: Because if LLMs are getting conflicting information, they're going to deliver conflicting information.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_02: And that was something that Dale was encouraging then is to conduct an audit.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_02: You know, this is a very seemingly simple step that um not everyone has taken or has not taken as frequently as they should, because that brand evolution is iterative.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_02: And conduct an audit.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, ask what an LLM knows about your brand or what it uh knows about your product category and who it recommends, and really drill into that.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_02: And you might be able to find spots where your messaging is misaligned or outdated content that needs to be fixed so that AI is positioning you appropriately, and that starts with human oversight over your message.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_02: And some of this, as well, then is just about rethinking success because and Erica and Carmen, um, I'll defer to you both on this because I have a feeling you might have thoughts, but just the way that content marketing has been evaluated and success and how we define that ROI on the investment, it's always been difficult.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_02: It has always been uh challenging to say this blog post uh led to this or this earned media article helped this.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_02: However, we as marketers know what we're doing, it's important and all adds to this bigger picture.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm just curious, have either of you faced that with your client work, or have you been hearing from others about not just the challenge of maybe misaligned expectations of hey, our direct site traffic is down, so we aren't doing well there, versus this is the new reality.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_02: So this is how we have to think about what we can succeed with content.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_01: I had a couple of things.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: The first is anybody who's thinking, well, what on earth would I do and you know, to audit the brand voice um last week?
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_01: That's actually what we talked about on content chat.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_01: So you can go to the archives on EricaHeel.com or on YouTube or your favorite audio podcast and um download that.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but oh my gosh, you know, Alec, this is another one of those, you know, for the past 15 years issue that we've been dealing with.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: But now the new horrible thing is you'll get the oh, but the CEO, you know, uh went and used whatever platform and it didn't return us in a top 10, you know, XYZ providers list.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_01: So we need to create content where we name ourselves as the top provider, and it just makes my head explode when you hear people having those conversations.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_01: My clients are not having those conversations, but they do have the conversations where you know somebody in the C-suite says, Why aren't we turning up when I, you know, I look for whatever this thing is?
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_01: And that's when you have to have a lot of these conversations where you help people understand that the way that they're using the platform and their history of what they've been doing on the platform influences what they're getting back.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: They're not getting a an objective results list of things.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_01: Like each one of us, if we went and asked our favorite platform for the top content marketing um consultants, we'd get different lists, including lists with people who are very prolific content marketing speakers, but who absolutely are not consultants.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_01: But it's just because, you know, that's people that they assume that we would be expecting to see on the list.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_01: And so they put it on the list.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_01: So that, you know, that's been something that's been a problem even back in the day with Google, where you know, you'd have people be like, oh, why aren't we turning up on the first page of Google results for XYZ query?
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like, because you didn't use an incognito window, you know, or or you know, vice versa, they'd be like, Oh, well, we're the number one result for this.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, no, we're not, only because you've searched it every single day.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so it's number one result for you.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: And then, you know, the the oh my god, the um, you know, the untracked um, the direct traffic, that's the other thing, is people think that means that somebody typed in your URL.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_01: No, it does does not mean that.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: That is one thing it can mean.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: It can mean that.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_01: It can mean that they have it bookmarked because they came to it from some other way, but it usually means, in my experience, those numbers are very close to the percentage of users who came to your site using an iPhone or who are browsing on Safari on their desktop.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_01: And you know why those percentages are so similar?
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_01: Because people are choosing the don't share my data privacy.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_01: So you're getting direct results that are not direct.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_01: So it just adds to the misinformation and to the swirl that we get, which is why you can't be looking at those external things, you have to be looking internally at what the path is that people have taken, what you've actually, you know, what the engagement is with your brand.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_01: And over time, oh hey, they've downloaded these things, they came to see us at this event.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_01: Like you have to be looking at things from a very different viewpoint.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_01: You can't just look at the the vanity metrics.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's just keeps getting harder.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_02: That it does.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I promise I only have a few more items that I am hoping to plug and then actually a handful of sessions that I'm excited to digest and uh consume in the replays, and I want to take this opportunity.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, even if you weren't able to join us live in Denver, uh, you can access the on-demand replays for the sessions, and it's very well worth that investment.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um, any of those sessions that I was just discussing, you get access to everything, I believe, except for the workshops.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_02: So if you are hoping to, you know, focus on your professional development and feeling really inspired after today, uh, consider purchasing those on-demand replays or attending next year.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um that's something that I'm planning on like digging deeper into.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_02: And lightly, like I had teased, and then it also ties into this.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_02: I had joined a session about the new B2B marketing playbook.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_02: And that was a brand session by Bright Spot.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, the speakers were Lauren Yanes and Jesse Kennedy.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_02: Great session.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_02: I very much appreciated that it came from lived experience and not a here's why you should buy our solution, which was very much appreciated.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, thank you again, Lauren and Jesse, for doing that.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_02: Made sure to uh thank them after the session for that.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_02: Where they were discussing, and so Erica, like you were saying, where if you are creating biased content or not really giving that objective lens of here's why we're the best, AI is going to investigate that.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_02: And so will human beings, one could hope.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and their session was really discussing how customer reviews on sites like G2 are so important.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_02: Um, if you are a solution provider, and there are similar review communities, review site communities, so just being aware of where people are reviewing similar solutions, not only is that necessary to be monitoring so you can understand where your product or service or solution may not be delivering where you think it is, it also gives you great voice of the customer insights and it helps prime AI.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_02: So it's a win-win-win, win-win-win more wins.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, so with that, they were encouraging incentivizing your customers to provide reviews.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_02: That is not to say that you're incentivizing them to only give good reviews, but honest feedback so that other buyers can make informed decisions.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_02: It's about respect at the end of the day.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_02: And those reviews can help back up your own content around here's why we're so great, which should also be fairly neutral and objective when you can.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_02: They were also discussing.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, go no, please go ahead.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: I was just saying on that incentivizing um note, it doesn't have to be something that's material value, it can be something as simple as asking.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I I recently, you know, had somebody reach out and say, Hey, you know, you're using our our, you know, platform, would you be willing to talk about your experience and post a review?
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, when you know, somebody might not on their own think, oh, I think I'll go post a review, but if you're asked and you actually, you know, have have an opinion or have some Some sort of you know input or value to add, sometimes that's all the nudge that you need.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_01: Totally, because you want to keep a platform around or a product around if you love it.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: So if you're tapping into the people who are huge fans and asking them to do a review, they probably will because they want you to not go away.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: So I've got a post-it note to do one of those and sweep myself.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_02: I was starting to remember, I was like, Erica, I know for certain, and Carmen, I remember us discussing where both of you have been early users of various platforms and have been invited to you know beta test platforms and share that feedback.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_02: And and that's where the sales side and the uh or customer success side of the story comes in, where those you know count representatives, they're skilled out at those relationship building and relationship nurturing, and that's where you can tap into them to know when that right moment is to ask for that review and how to ask for that review.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_02: And that's going to ultimately help your public relations success and your content marketing success.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_02: The last point on there, and this lightly ties to Erica, what you were saying, as far as understanding where people are entering their journey with your site, what content they're consuming, that may eventually lead to a better trackable metric.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, AI can't crawl your gated content.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_02: So if you are planning on gating everything, it is going to be a different challenge that you face.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_02: I would not recommend gating all your content, but being very strategic about what you gate, and then also ensuring that if people give them, give you their information that they're receiving enough value that they feel that that was a respectable transaction because otherwise that's going to burn trust.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um, was there anything else on that point or that either you wanted to bring up?
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_02: Otherwise, I have two final things and then I will defer the floor.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_02: Perfect.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so last two things.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, uh actually, sorry, I'm bad at counting.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_02: Three.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Andy Siebert, friend of content chat, uh, and uh I believe his agency imprint has won a few content marketing awards.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_02: He was discussing rethinking your content formats, and he gave an example of audio magazines.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_02: And so this is ultimately just content repurposing for these channels in a way that makes it easier for whatever persona or personas how they prefer to consume content.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_02: So it's not exactly creating a whole new audio magazine, but taking content that you've already written, packaging it in an audio format that's much shorter, that someone can listen to on their commute, and just giving a different entry point for them to engage with your brand.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_02: So that's something that I think is fun and for content chat.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_02: Carmen.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: I have a question.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: What is the difference between an audio magazine and a podcast?
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_02: In this case, as I understand it, and Andy, if you are listening, uh please do uh share more.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_02: Uh with that, it is packaged as editions where each edition has a theme, and then it would be approximately, you know, five to seven or however many uh smaller podcast episodes.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_02: And so if that would be in the style of a playlist on YouTube, it would be um that is also a question of mine where how you have the overarching magazine identity and then space for each of the issues.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_02: That is something that technically I'm not entirely sure.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_02: However, each month it would be uh a theme, shared art uh shared audio around that, and people can, it's a choose your own adventure journey where it's non-linear and you get just that um snippet of information from the title that you can then dive into.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_01: I know Monaco magazine does some audio um, you know, audio podcasts, but they're really more of the magazines because you'll have different people with different kinds of elements coming in.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I mean, frankly, this American Life.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's you know a podcast, but it has, you know, act one through what have you, and the way it's formatted to me, it is like it's a little mini magazine.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: So I think it is smart because that way you have multiple, multiple perspectives that have a chance of really resonating with somebody around a topic or theme.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_02: And so I I thought that was great and something, Erica.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna brainstorm with you a little bit on things we can do there.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_02: The other uh, another session, my last on the AI side was with Will Reynolds, another great speaker he uh has presented at least the past three years, I believe, at content marketing world.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_02: He was one of the uh closing keynote speakers last year, I believe.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_02: His whole talking track, which he had said, is it's the non-traditional where it's not exactly as, you know, here's what you can take and do with, but rather kind of a call to action to just stop churning out stuff that nobody is going to read.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_02: Stop.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um, sometimes you do things that aren't going to scale, and that's okay.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_02: That still has value.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_02: And in resetting your strategy, really realigning on why are we doing this and is it actually having value for that person?
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_02: And that ties back into the complexities of justifying your investments and justifying where your time is spent.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_02: However, in this age where there's just so much content and there's only going to be even more, and so much AI-generated content that no one's going to engage with, you want to be that trusted source of actual intelligence for actual people.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_02: And so I appreciated Will on his insights there.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_02: And to lightly extend on that and close my key takeaways, beloved friend of content chat, Michelle Gomez.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, she either founded, I believe, or leads, I believe founded the African American Marketing Association or African American Marketers Association.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_02: And her track this year was about stepping into leadership roles and as a marketing practitioner, transitioning more to people management.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_02: And this was such an inspiring session, distilled very clearly.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't want to put words in that weren't actually shared.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm going to share more once I can access the replay.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_02: But being a marketing leader requires a very different skill set than being the practitioner.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_02: And there are opportunities for growth and learning and ongoing team development that many people unfortunately don't invest in because we're kind of in a hamster wheel, you know, constantly churning out, appeasing different expectations.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_02: But what Michelle laid out, which uh I'll share these in a comment once it's available, it's essentially four guiding questions to understand where might there be gaps in my team strategy.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_02: Am I giving my team that freedom and flexibility to explore and try new ideas with safety of failure?
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_02: Or am I hand holding or micromanaging to a degree that's actually holding us back from succeeding?
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and ultimately by freeing that time and trusting in your team, marketing leaders can then focus on that messaging consideration that we were thinking, or that innovation of how a different content format may benefit the uh overall strategy and results.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, so that is one I will share more, but I wanted to give Michelle that plug.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, I I was so excited just hearing that.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_02: Also, being I've been in marketing for more than 10 years now, slightly navigating that transition where I'm largely a practitioner role.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_02: I have some uh client engagements where I am more in that leadership role.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_02: And it's important to be conscious of that distinction in what you can accomplish in both of those and not fall too far back on the practitioner side when really what the team needs is more of a leadership side.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_01: I love all of that.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_01: So, Carmen, I know you actually monitored, you were the host for an entire track again this year.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's something you've done a number of times.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_01: So I wondered if you could share um some highlights from that track.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I had kind of an interesting track.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_00: I think I was just looking back to see what it was called, Marketing Core Concepts.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_00: So it was a little bit of a popoy category.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_00: Had a a little bit of a lot, you know, different things.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um one was uh, you know, one of the sessions was about email marketing.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, that's not not a novel format, but I think especially that's you know, that's where your own channels, platforms are still really important.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you don't need an LLM to find your, you know, subscriber in that same.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_01: Was it Nancy?
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: No, um, it was actually Dennis Shao, also, you know, speaking of uh friends of the chat.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but that that was kind of, you know, it goes back to the just because somebody filled out a subscriber thing doesn't make them a lead, don't, you know, harass them and phone them 85 times in the next 10 hours.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_00: So that one, you know, that that's that's one of those evergreen topics that um is is always uh good to remember.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_00: There was one that was kind of interesting.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_00: It was called Let's Talk About the F-word.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: So that was uh that was a you know a title that was very compelling.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_00: But that was what was interesting about that was not not the F word you're thinking of.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: The F-word in question was actually fail failure, failing.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the speaker in that case has the most interesting job title.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um sorry for the um airplane noise going by there.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: But um, she was actually her job title was actually head of failure and experimentation.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_00: And it, you know, basically when you talk about, you know, it's in a sense, I mean, that's definitely uh, you know, a compelling job title, right?
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: But it's basically, you know, not a new concept of setting aside some of your budget, some of your time to experiment.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's like that 10% of your budget is to try new things, or it's innovation, or it's like however much, you know, many hours of a person's work week should be focused on innovation.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_00: But that was basically just trying things and seeing what worked and doing more of the things that did work.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_00: So that was that was um really interesting.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_00: And then kind of circling back to that idea of the fundamentals haven't changed, but the way that we're applying them have.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_00: So Karen Hopper, who was that was like the the fire marshal was being summoned um literally for her her session, which was jam-packed, but her her uh session was about how a a content calendar is not a growth strategy, how to build a content growth engine.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_00: But it's not that, I mean, if you look at it, you still need a content calendar.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's not that you don't need a content calendar, it's what maybe those attributes that you include in the content calendar, how you use it, who has access to it, how you're um using it to actually, you know, produce and distribute content maybe has changed.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_00: But um again, you know, the the details of how we're we're orchestrating all of all of these things in our content programs is constantly evolving.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_00: Even I mean, I I have heard, well, Will Reynolds, brilliant, Andy Crestedina, who I've been, you know, we all have been listening to since the first time I saw him 2013.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's I can I can see him talk on those topics over and over and over again because they're constantly changing.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, the the underlying premise hasn't changed, but the details are constantly changing.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think that's where not only attending events and sessions, but also as you as you noted, it's the in-person behind the scenes conversations.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's talking to your peers about how are you solving this challenge, or um just, you know, I think it it, if nothing else, it's validation that that we're not alone.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, one of the most interesting top formats um I saw this year, one that we're going to steal for the uh content strategy PDX, which is Portland meetup event, was content therapy, which we joke about, but this was actually content therapy where you could put anonymous questions into a box, you know, over the course of, you know, a day or morning or whatever it was.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_00: And then the session was Melanie Diesel uh took, you know, pulled the questions out of the box and and provided group therapy, which was just such an interesting, you know, uh format, a way of approaching that, because you could be anonymous and you could say, I'm really struggling with this, ideas about how to do it, without, you know, kind of putting putting um your your own cards out on the table in public or or putting, you know, being risking having that conversation maybe with your manager or your own, you know, colleagues.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I always say that content therapy, marketing therapy is a core part of my uh retainers when I have uh a client that I'm on retainer.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's always at least, you know, the first 10 minutes of any, you know, ongoing recurring meeting, it's the marketing therapy part.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_01: And it's really important.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_01: We all need it.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_00: And that I I think that, you know, for for me in a nutshell, whether it's in a formal sort of structured session or if it's you know just the informal behind the scenes happy hour or whatever, having having those conversations is really valuable.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you know, um, we've all participated in the PDX uh content marketing meetup.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_01: I was, you know, thrilled to get to uh chat about content foundations, my book earlier this year.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_01: And I know you've, you know, Carmen, you resurrected it and have been really shepherding it um with some other core folks, and it's been really cool.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_01: But before we talk about that, I wanna I wanna kind of dig in a little bit.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_01: We do so many of these things virtual and like the topics that you're talking about from the event, any of those you could have sat in a in a you know, uh sat at home and watched it just over Zoom, and like now you'll be looking at some of them um that are in the replays.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_01: But if you could just sort of share, because I have a lot of opinions on this too, and I want to hear yours, you know, what makes it worth it to leave your house, pack you know, to pack a bag, leave your house, leave your dog, and you know, get on an airplane, spend the money and actually spend that time to go to an in-person event.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's a qualitatively different experience to be it there's it an energy in the room rooms that that you can tap into.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_00: I think anytime, you know, whether it's content marketing world or marketing props or south by southwest or whatever it might be, there's just it's it's uh you're at least temporarily, at least the way I approach going to an event like that is everything else is on hold, out of office, it's focused on you know, being present, being present with the content that's shared there, being present with the people who have also, you know, made that investment of time and money and um all of all of that to to come and be there.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_00: And it's I I think it's that that sense of presence and focus and connection that you don't get over Zoom.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_00: And it, you know, it also partly this this event in particular, I think marketing props is the same way.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_00: You know, some of the big events, you know, if I if I went to Dreamforce or something like that, I might I probably wouldn't have the same experience.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but the the thing that makes this special is you you have it it's you're seeing your friends, it feels like a family reunion.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think that's a pretty common um analogy that that we've made.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so it it's it feels personal and um it's it's just a it's it's different than sitting on Zoom, it's different than doing you know online training or you know, LinkedIn learn.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_01: If you're laughing, because the if something just really resonates and you're laughing, you'll just you'll see that other person who's laughing, and then you know, maybe make some eye contact and chat with them later.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, people you can say something to your neighbor because you know this person is there with you know at least some shared experience with you, and you don't get that when you're just virtual.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I think too, I mean, even you know, if it is virtual, it's still public.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_00: There's conversations that you have that aren't, you know, on stage or on Zoom where you can ask questions and get someone's you know, unfiltered perspective on something that they might not say on stage or that they might not, you know, share you know in a virtual environment.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I think those those things are sometimes the most valuable takeaways is is just getting that firsthand perspective that that's you know, the true unfiltered opinion that that might not you know that might not be as um I don't know, popular is not quite the right word, but you know, that would that would be more candid.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_02: So and to kind of jump on that uh Carmen and everything that you said, I love as well just where you started with you sign off, you go to the event, and that is your focus.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_02: Because that human-to-human connection, it's just so it's so wonderful.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_02: It's just it's a completely different energy.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_02: And so, Erica, to go back just to the question of why that is why having that in-person connection, and you can still get that same, you can just go to session after session and just cram as much information as you can.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_02: But I also try to like uh I and because I am lucky and privileged in this case to have access to the on-demand recordings, I often skip a session or two to instead focus on networking with people or scheduling a lunch uh when I can, because A, I know I'll be able to watch the replay, or I can find someone who tells me the information.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_02: But it's those in-person uh connections that are just so so important.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_02: That and that's how friendship is built.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_02: You you can do that online, you can do that.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_02: It just is a harder barrier than and necessity for consistency than one very genuine in-person meetup can have.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_02: And Carmen, as you were saying as well, just that transparency, uh, and you know, people maybe being more willing to say things in person than on stage at something their company is very likely paying them to be at.
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I was chatting with Rachel Moore, who was also on content chat recently.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_02: Adore her.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, she also has blue hair.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_02: And so I told her, I was like, Rachel, I'm also gonna have blue hair.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_02: I promise I'm not copying you, but I'm copying her, and it's a great networking tip.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_02: So anyone going to an event, please do uh colored hair of any sort or tie a balloon to yourself.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_02: People will recognize you.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, but on her but wait, there's more podcasts, her uh series on marketers barely managing.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_02: The hard truth is it's very difficult for marketers these days, and organizations are making a lot of financial decisions and optimization.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_02: That unfortunately means not all of us um are at the same job currently that we were last month or last year.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_02: Some of us have gone through multiple jobs, uh, you know, three, four, five in just the past few years.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_02: And that's nothing about us as individuals.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_02: It's the reality of working for organizations.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_02: And with that, when you're able to connect with someone kind of at that human to human level of like, okay, we all have our corporate hat on, we all have our corporate experience, and obviously we won't do something to undermine our companies, but we can have that just raw human connection of we have this challenge, what are Thinking about it?
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_02: How are you thinking about it?
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_02: And when you're able to engage in that authentically and kind of take off some of that, you know, work cap, that's something that, again, is just very difficult to do entirely virtually.
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_02: And so the connections that I've made through content marketing world, and Erica, thank you.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_02: I cannot thank you enough for bringing me into this world of content marketing and showing me not just this line of work, but the wonderful people who work in it.
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_02: People such as Amy Fair, who I adore her, and she's so adamant, you know, don't look at your phone, don't sit there and be connected online when you're in this rich in-person space.
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_01: Taking people, yeah.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_02: And Anne Wynne, who won community champion of the year this year, uh joining very good company, if I might say.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_02: Uh both Erica and Carmen have been named.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_02: Uh she also is so focused on creating uh connections and in-person connections through her uh social media breakfast in the Dallas area.
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_02: Um so I guess the short summary to that long-winded ramble.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_02: In-person connections are huge.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_02: You just have to give yourself that opportunity and vulnerability to spark conversations.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_02: And it's difficult, it's hard to network, and especially if you're tired.
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_02: But if you give yourself the opportunity to completely disconnect from work and invest in that in-person, it's gonna pay off leaps and bounds for your entire career.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_01: You know, Alec, that's such a good segue for me to ask Carmen, you know, what made you reboot the PDX content marketing meetup?
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_01: Because I, I mean, I obviously have some thoughts because it's like it's one thing when we have the opportunity to all get together at an event that, you know, has been going on um for a long time and that is happening every single year.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_01: But then out of the blue, something can happen and you can be in that situation where, oh, maybe that annual event's not happening, or you know, so many of us work from home, you know, work from home in our home office, and we don't have, you know, colleagues in person.
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_01: We don't have a job office to go into.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so it can be hard to like know people locally that do what you do.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_01: So I'd just love to hear more about kind of like what inspired you, and if you could share a little bit about the mix between online and in person.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_00: Well, um, we mentioned uh Dennis Shao, he's a co-organizer of the Bay Area content meetup.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_00: And uh he, along with his co-organizer Rich Schwerin, actually kept their meetup going throughout the pandemic.
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, Portland just went on hiatus.
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um and the cool thing about that was that you didn't have to live in the Bay Area to participate in their meetup, and they had programming, virtual programming on a monthly basis.
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_00: And then once, you know, over over time they they started having in-person events as well quarterly.
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, Seattle did the same thing.
• 47:08
  SPEAKER_00: And having seen what some of the other meetup groups in other cities had done, um not only to well, it it opens up the opportunity for more people to participate.
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_00: And even in places, especially in places like Boston and Los Angeles and Seattle, where the metropolitan area is so large and so sprawling the barriers for people in that area to actually get somewhere that's you know in the central part of the city to attend a meetup can be really difficult.
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so having that online component, I mean, we've you know touted all the virtues of in-person, but also the the benefit of being able to do that online is that more people can participate.
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_00: And that's you know, from your your own area for sure.
• 48:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but also it's like I've done content meetups with that are hosted in Australia, and you know, they're they coordinate, you know, a few different time zones, and you can jump on.
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_00: That gives you access to a lot more um people and and ideas and expertise.
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so I I was inspired by how other groups had done it.
• 48:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I had attended the very first content strategy meetup in Portland, and it was at a time when content strategy was kind of like a new um concept.
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_00: Christina Halverson had written the book literally and introduced that as a career choice.
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I think over time that's evolved as well, just as content marketing has.
• 48:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um but some of the job descriptions are ridiculous today.
• 48:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_00: Also true.
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but but anyway, I I, you know, having seen what other groups have done, having felt like, you know, it's like our last, our last meetup event was scheduled for April of 2020.
• 49:13
  SPEAKER_00: And ironically, we had two content strategists from GitHub who were talking about how to work as a content strategist in a distributed organization, and they were talking about how they worked remotely as content strateg.
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_00: That's what they were going to talk about.
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but we had cancel our April of 2020 um meetup.
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so in any case, the the reboot was really um, you know, I thought, you know, we had this great group that had just gone dark and it was just really an effort to bring people back together.
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_00: So we followed, we we um copied with respect um the Bay Area model of uh having more frequent online um presentations and then pairing that with a quarterly-ish um in-person and both are valuable.
• 50:03
  SPEAKER_01: So I love that.
• 50:07
  SPEAKER_01: I think I think it's just so cool when you get to meet other people who do what we do.
• 50:13
  SPEAKER_01: So to me, having having these kinds of meetups, it means you get to meet or re-meet people that you've uh met at conferences, reconnect with them.
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_01: And so to me, it's so important.
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I know I'm inspired to go and take a look at meet uh meetup and find some more content strategy uh meetups because I would love to have those kinds of conversations on a more regular basis, because that's the thing, is I haven't found my content marketing folks here in Sacramento.
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_01: And no, I'm not gonna start a content marketing meetup.
• 50:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um I've thought about it.
• 50:50
  SPEAKER_01: I've thought about doing a content chat, monthly meetup.
• 50:54
  SPEAKER_00: In-person content chat?
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, um, because I have on occasion, back when content chat was a Twitter chat, I did have some in-person content chats where it was a tweet up and we were all in a room together um talking about something that you know people were still um coming in from other places, but that we had a room, a conference room full of content practitioners.
• 51:19
  SPEAKER_01: And there's just something so magical about when we all get together.
• 51:23
  SPEAKER_01: We inspire each other, we support each other.
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_01: And to me, that's the whole point.
• 51:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's like you you're learning not just from somebody giving a presentation, you're learning just from having these people to talk to and from the way that you're all getting that same um stimulus to your brain to be.
• 51:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's just really important.
• 51:44
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the content therapy used to happen on Twitter, and um, you know, so many of the people that we met on Twitter, um, we met for the first time at an event, and there was, and that just like it was it was so great.
• 51:58
  SPEAKER_00: And you're BFFs.
• 51:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's like you already knew each other, and it's kind of you know, it's kind of unfortunate now that I I I I used to spend my whole content marketing world on Twitter, but it wasn't taking me away from the event, it was putting me, you know, even more fully into it in a way because somebody could be on the other side of the room, you could be having a little, you know, enjoying the the content with someone who was there but not next to you.
• 52:26
  SPEAKER_01: But um or when you had free time, you could find people.
• 52:29
  SPEAKER_01: There was the year that I ended up inviting two strangers to come with Amy, Amy Higgins and I to go vintage shopping in Cleveland because I love doing vintage shopping, and I had a list of favorites, and I was like, well, I'm gonna throw it out there if anyone wants to come along.
• 52:43
  SPEAKER_01: And two people we'd never met before turned up, and I mean that's so cool, isn't it?
• 52:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 52:49
  SPEAKER_00: So so we have lost, we have lost, you know, that the magic of that, but um, but anyway, the the the in-person the in-person experiences are so important.
• 53:04
  SPEAKER_01: Totally.
• 53:05
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we're about out of time uh for this edition of content chat, but before we go, I would love for each of you to share where folks can find out more about you and um what you're doing.
• 53:16
  SPEAKER_01: So Alec, let's start with you.
• 53:19
  SPEAKER_02: I am largely on LinkedIn and I will be liking and engaging uh with this episode today, but also most of my content is uh hosted on Ericahealed.com.
• 53:30
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and stay tuned because I'm gonna be doing several uh recaps of various conversations and extending again kind of on the conversation about Michelle Gomez and some of those leadership lessons.
• 53:43
  SPEAKER_02: So Erica's site is one of the best places to see my latest content and as well, please do connect with me on LinkedIn.
• 53:49
  SPEAKER_02: I'd love to meet some new folks.
• 53:51
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and then hopefully that way, if you are attending Content Marketing World 2027 or similar events, we can already build that friendship.
• 53:59
  SPEAKER_02: So by the time we're seeing each other, it's saying hello to a longtime friend.
• 54:03
  SPEAKER_00: Love that.
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_00: 100%.
• 54:06
  SPEAKER_01: I don't forget to plug uh content meetup.
• 54:10
  SPEAKER_01: Folks can find out more about it.
• 54:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 54:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so um very quickly, LinkedIn for me also, although um I, you know, I don't post a lot, but I'm there a lot.
• 54:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, my website is chillcontent.com.
• 54:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so you can find me there.
• 54:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um and the content meetup, um, it's you know, hosted or it's um it's on the the meetup platform.
• 54:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you search for content strategy um Portland, for sure it will come up.
• 54:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um if you're in Portland searching, then probably more likely um that it'll it'll be at the top of your feed or or top of your page, what have you.
• 54:50
  SPEAKER_00: But um yeah, and and even if you're not in Portland, we welcome, yeah, we we uh ha don't have a current next topic or presentation planned, but um we we will so love it.
• 55:04
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you guys so much for being on the podcast today.
• 55:09
  SPEAKER_01: I really had the FOMO seeing all of you hanging out with each other and doing fun things in Denver.
• 55:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I was like, I even have a really great Giants jersey that I could have won.
• 55:19
  SPEAKER_01: I could have worn um rather to the ballpark.
• 55:22
  SPEAKER_01: Like, oh pickles.
• 55:26
  SPEAKER_01: Gosh darn it.
• 55:28
  SPEAKER_01: But thank you so much for sharing the highlights.
• 55:30
  SPEAKER_01: And uh in the recap, we'll have um we'll have a bunch of information, including the names of the folks that um Alec mentioned, so that way you can go and follow them, the folks that Carmen mentioned, so that way you can follow them on LinkedIn and start building your own uh virtual network of people who are talking about interesting things and finding out about events happening near you.
• 55:54
  SPEAKER_01: So thanks again, and we'll see you next time on content chat.
• 55:59
  SPEAKER_01: Bye everyone.
• 56:00
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.