I have a confession to make.

When Chris and I founded Spokal in the summer of 2012, I didn’t know what “content marketing” was.

Well, that’s not entirely true.

I’ve always been a fan of permission based marketing, which is the heart of inbound strategies.

But the power of content marketing was a wonderful surprise.

Over the last 2 years, I’ve been amazed at how fast the content landscape has evolved, and how much I’ve had to learn not only to get up to speed, but to really understand where we’re headed.

We are creating, consuming and sharing an unprecedented amount of content.

That’s no surprise.

But if we look at the global trends, we start to realize we haven’t even crossed the start line yet.

What’s the purpose of content?

While marketers love “creating great content” that’s “high quality” and “relevant,” that’s not the goal.

The goal is to attract customers.

And keep them.

This is what you need in a customer worthy content marketing strategy.

I started off thinking I was going to write about “The Top 10 Resources For Content Marketing.”

Then I stopped.

Partially because that post has been written 87 times.

And partially because while I’m a fan of reading, content marketing concepts are simple and well documented. It’s not the lack of knowledge that makes it’s hard, it’s the execution.

So, instead of reading about content marketing, this is what I’d do.

I love events.

I’m one of those people that thrives on the energy of a crowd.

I love meeting strangers. I love the awkward pauses. And I love the “great unknown” of what can happen when we all get together to talk shop.

In fact, the only thing I don’t like about events are the cheap coffee and small name tags (no matter how often I spell “Alexandra,” the “ndra” always gets squished together so it looks like one letter).

So, when Chris and I started Spokal over 2 years ago, I went to a ton of events.

They were great.

There was only one problem – our company wasn’t growing as fast as we wanted. When we started looking at how much time we were spending at events, and what we were actually doing there, the ball dropped.

I realized I was drinking the event Kool-Aid.

To rock a networking event, and make sure you don’t get overwhelmed by the sweet temptation, you need to do these 4 essential things.

We couldn’t emphasis enough how much we love blogging.

And how much it’s allowed us to grow Spokal.

So when people ask us if they should start blogging, I’m at a crossroad.

“Of course!”

Is what my content marketing brain says.

And

“You’ve got to be crazy!”

Is what my small business hat says.

There’s no doubt that content marketing builds million dollar businesses. And there’s no doubt that blogging is one of the best ways to create content that converts on a regular basis.

But, blogging isn’t easy.

Here are the 5 things that you don’t want to hear about blogging.

This is a guest blog post by Matt Carter at MGX Mindshare.

If you’ve read other articles about how to get started writing a blog for your organization, you already know how important setting up a blog is so you can get more traffic and backlinks pointing to your site.

One of the most common things I hear from people hesitant to get started with blogging is how to start a blog in a “boring” industry.  “How do I write a blog about boring stuff?”

This is an excellent question that many people encounter when they start to set up a blog for the first time. It’s hard to make forklifts or pillowcases seem exciting to the everyday consumer.

Luckily though, there is a way for you to take even the most mundane of topics, and spin it into a helpful, educational, and worthwhile blog that will garner you: