-AJ
Inbound MD

While we should not strive to be boring, we also should not appear to be trying too hard. Both come with their own set of drawbacks.

Wholeheartedly agreed with comic potential. Specifically though for awareness campaigns. It’s tough to be funny all the way through the conversion process.

And gosh, while I love HubSpot and all the thought leadership they’ve provided to the inbound space, I’m starting to find the shtick annoying – even when it’s creative and repackaged well.

- Tewks

http://www.youtube.com/user/loopfuse#p/a/u/0/UFiy3ohWusw

I should have specified that there’s lots more involved with creating effective stuff other than an element of “fun,” (or, as someone said it over on the Content Rules Book blog, “Enjoyment,” which I thought even more apt). So yes, you are quite right. You definitely want to make sure you are doing everything possible to be found by the major search engines. In line with that, I’d also say you want to make it easy to be shared, so that your community of readers/viewers can help you reach your audience for you.

I agree with all of your points, especially on creating value and having a little “Fun” along the way.

The other aspect of creating effective content relates to “understanding different users.” One type of user is obviously the individual consumer of any product or service. The other important type of users are the Major Search Engines. Unless Website Content is also attractive to Google – http://www.stellarpointgroup.com/internet-marketing.html – our online content never reaches individual consumers. In our experience, the key to effective content comes down to “Balance.”

As with most things, “Balance” is a key element. Thanks Again…(I will keep an eye out for the book…Good luck with it)

Will your book outline how to create an “effective” editorial calendar and align it to your marketing communications objectives? It would be great to see real world examples as to how these strategies are implemented.

Yeah — clearly enterprise B2B is where I’d expect the most resistance to fun content. I can’t say I know of many that are embracing the element of fun in their content, but EMC comes to mind as a company that is doing some interesting stuff. Many of its employee blogs have some personality. “Confessions of an eBiz Junkie” comes to mind:

http://lensblog.typepad.com/

And the video EMC produced with Erik Estrada (yeah.. THAT Erik Estrada!) was pretty funny:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFZWx7UY14Y

To clarify my point, I don’t think ALL your content should be hilarious and amusing… but I do think it’s good to surprise your audience once in a while, and do something unexpected. My hope is that as social media becomes more prevalent, other large enterprise B2B companies will truly see the value in lightening up a little, in truly speaking the language of their customers–who are still people, after all, even if they do represent companies. (I would say that a good start for them would be to buy cases of my book, but that would be self-serving, wouldn’t it?)