 This Everybody how are you today? I feel really weird wearing a headpiece like this like I'm supposed to sing and dance or Do magic tricks or something so? So this this talk this is a new talk what I've never done before so like most word camp talks when you get up here So is your content helping or hurting you? So I want to go through just a whole bunch of points and I guess kind of the subtitle of This talk that I came up with the other night is you know the good the bad the ugly and the superb So I want to just kind of go through all this stuff But but first off you know Thanks everyone for being here today's a beautiful day in San Diego You could be anywhere else on the beach or something like that You chose to be here and thanks to all the other speakers the organizers the volunteers everyone who makes word camp possible and as great as it is and I've been the word camp San Diego a couple times before but this is my first time speaking here as a San Diego resident So I chose to wear the Padres hat today just to commemorate that Although I did grow up in New York and I'm a Yankees fan and my grandfather Polly kill me right now But anyway, so who am I my name is Greg Taylor and I run a marketing a WordPress development and marketing firm called marketing press We have a couple offices San Diego, Tempe, Arizona and New Jersey right outside of New York City and My passion is content, you know, I kind of I got backdoored into the development game you know as a content creator and I founded a small content agency with another gentleman and We were launching all these great content strategies on these lousy sites So just made sense for us to kind of go into that Into the development and that's where marketing press was found and that was seven years ago So now, you know, everything is changing everything keeps changing, you know with content, you know, I'm a again I'm passionate about content Blogger a vlogger. I love blab My mom your cat periscope all that stuff any kind of you know photography music any kind of content that you can push out There, you know, I absolutely love and WordPress is just a perfect platform For you to express that and for you to put push that stuff out there. So on social media I'm GR Taylor to and that's across the board pretty much anywhere if you ever wanted to find me so I'm a pretty casual low key guy. This is a nice word camp Sunday. This is actually a huge crowd for a word camp Sunday This is fantastic If you have a question, just raise your hand. Let's just talk about it. Interrupt me. Let's talk about it I don't want to sit here and talk at you. I want to have a conversation in a dialogue You know, just because I'm up here. It doesn't mean that You know all those words that I hate guru rockstar Jedi and all that stuff I'm just a little bit further on the continuum with this topic than Than other people. So let's just talk about it. Let's help one another and hopefully one day I show up at a work and I see one of you guys talking on a car on the topic just like this. So Forget things started. So who are you guys? So just by show of hands, how many do we have marketers out there? We have any other creatives like designers or photographers musicians good stuff like that All right, I hate asking this question. We have any developers out there. Oh my god, you got scared of shit out of me That's what I talk about content all the time because it's like the developer is like no, that's not how you do that I have a better way to do it But no, you know one time I spoke in a work camp phoenix and I had a lady right as I started to segue from this part of the talk and She goes she raised her hand and she said well, you missed me. Okay, I'm a writer Like so do we have any writers out there? There you are. All right. Thank you. Thanks for not sticking it to me this time, right? So so superb content is imperative when it comes to moving the needle on your business goals You know, we always want to move the needle and just kind of you know I always say, you know in our company, you know, we want to push the needle in the red on all the dials You know, we want to make sure that we are going As hard as we possibly can and pushing out as much as we can And making sure that we are using the correct channels For each one of you know the goals that we're we're trying to achieve You know the big thing now is the competitive landscape content is busier than ever I mean think about how noisy content Is think about who you know, who are we competing with when it comes to People's attention now when it comes to content, you know There was a time that we were probably all you know competing with one another or different people who look like us in different rooms But that's no longer the case We're competing now with Netflix We're competing now with you know amazon who you know all the big guys pushing out content while that content is different And probably more sophisticated and you know nothing that we touch here You know it's still Trying to get people's attention You know and and the big thing also is consumption habits have changed As the channels change consumption changes think about you know I don't know I was going to say on a nice rainy day, but it doesn't really rain here But you know if it was like a nice rainy day, what would you do? You know you binge watch something i'm sure You know and That's how content is now consumed So us as content creators of people who want to be successful When it comes to creating some sort of content, you know, we have to think Like our audience we have to think like a user We have to think like a fan, you know a friend of mine, brian fans. Oh, you know i social fan fans Oh, he says think like a fan, you know, he's big on like the periscope and a mere cat type of Blab and like all that broadcast stuff like we have to think like them so that we can reach them and capture their attention so Consumption habits have changed more probably in the last five years and ever You know if you think about it So the three goals for content as i always look at it are one content to position yourself as a subject matter expert And to increase search visibility to content that that uh Creates a community around your product service or brand Then three conversion And for the sake of this talk You know and and every time I go through these three goals It's I define conversion as us getting a user or somebody on our site to act In a specific manner that we want them to to increase a business goal You know to to to move something now. Is there any goals that i'm missing out there? It's always a trap question. Any am I missing anything? Well, usually you guys are smart people's but usually the the dumber word camps I go to that you always I'm kidding. I love them all they always say it. Well, you know generating revenue making money is a goal And and while that's the overarching thing that we try to do I don't consider that a goal. I consider that a byproduct of meeting those three goals If you meet one of those three goals eventually you're going to start to generate revenue And it might be quick. It might be long, you know, who knows You know what I mean, but that's a generating revenue as you know I always define it is a byproduct of meeting your goals. So Yeah, sure. So it's uh one is content to position yourself as a or your brand as subject matter experts And to increase your search visibility to Creating a community around your product service or brand, you know, the podries hat was a great idea when I was in the car But now it's hot up here To creating community around your product service or brand and then three increasing conversion We cool with everything so far. Any yeah question. Love it. Interrupt me. Let's do this So can we do you think that we can make that as like a sub of community? You know, are we Right around there Yeah, that's a that's a great point and you know I get to it a little bit later about how we educate people nowadays And you know, maybe we can elaborate and talk a little bit more about that and if I don't address it Just let let's talk afterwards because I think that that's an interesting point to actually just to discuss. Yep Okay, okay. That's that's another interesting point. I mean so now You know what what you were saying what what's your name? Liza what liza was saying was You know education here, you know, and what we're saying is maybe it's community Maybe it's it's positioning subject matter expert, you know, I'm sure that there's some conversion in there somewhere They got them to do something. So it's really interesting how that one Area is sort of a blend of all three you know and uh This is the first time I've ever actually thought about that. So that's actually thank you for saying that Was there another hand somewhere? Did I anybody else? No Okay, hey, if you want to interrupt me, you just want to talk. I'm cool with that too. I mean This is just stuff that I thought that you maybe we could I could Give to you. But I mean if it's not what you want ask me questions Let's let me give you what you want. So there I did see a hand back there. Yep, okay So then you know, it truly is a blend of all three. I mean and it's interesting It's it's you know, you said one thing. I said something liza said something in the back They said something else. It's like it's also in You know How the audience is receiving it, right? Because I imagine that different people will receive that message And that content differently And how they interact with it, you know is going to be You know different than how somebody who's not interested or how somebody who maybe is on a deeper level You know than the one person. So Definitely an interesting thing to talk about. I bet you there's a word camp talking there somewhere. So What are the various types of content? I mean I kind of went over this but blog posts video All that new rich media stuff, you know the the blabs and the periscope and the the meerkat instagram, you know photography podcasts You know, um, I don't know. What am I missing? Uh music, uh Anything, you know, uh broadcast. I mean all that stuff is all content You know, there was a time a place a time and place at word camps that When we talked about content, we just talked about blogs. We just talked about the written word And now how cool is it that wordpress has evolved to be a true publishing platform for almost anything that you want to publish? I mean like that's pretty freaking cool, right? I mean and you know back to what matt's vision was, you know, if you ever hear matt mullenweg talk or if you ever Read anything they said, you know, his vision for wordpress was to democratize publishing You know, and you know, we always hear publishing as publishing words You know, we always think of that or my mind always goes there, but it's actually publishing anything You know and wordpress now is that platform to get you know any Wordpress now is that platform to exercise your voice no matter what it was You know, I found wordpress because I I don't know. I always felt like I had something to say and nowhere to say it and then I was like, holy How I can actually publish something on the web myself You know, this is like way way back when You know, it first started, you know, a true story. I'm not gonna lie. I actually started on blogger How many how many other people started on blogger? All right, I'm not alone. See that's like the the progress It was like something and blogger and then wordpress wordpress.com and you went to self-hosted and you're like, oh my god I can do all this stuff. How amazing so Did I say that? Yeah, various types. Okay. So do you think the goals vary based on the medium? Based on on how on whether it's a photo or a podcast or Uh, a blog post or this or that you think the goals vary They absolutely do And I can't stand here and say You know Liza if you go Liza's the only person in the room who whose name I really know so I'm gonna pick on her I appreciate it and oh no Now it's here across the bear here, but but you know, I mean like I can't stand here and say What I do for my clients Is gonna work and the same goals are gonna be attached for Liza's clients or for Liza or for any of you guys You know the the goals And it's up to you to figure out what the goals are And how that you can go ahead and make things better for your brand, you know, whoever you're working with You know, etc. Etc. Yep Welcome to point loma It's the same. I'm using the same context pretty much I'm using it in the same way. I might have used the wrong word. How about that? Okay Yeah, no, you're the way that you're thinking about it is exactly correct So All right, just a real quick reality check here. That's a lot. I'm hot and sweat We all together here. I mean, is there any other questions we want to talk about before we kind of go forward with stuff No This is actually, you know out of like 15 or 20 word camps I ever talk about this is the most questions I ever got in the middle of the presentation I absolutely love it because again, it gives me an opportunity To actually address what you want, you know, when you when you speak at word camps You know, there's always so much you can Cram in to a short session to get people to go ahead and learn So it's like I always want to give people something that they can go out and they can make a change to make things better You know in the hallways or on the way home or whatever. Yeah Shoot well Yeah, first of all If you know any musicians and they wrote songs and have them publish ask them To use them Because that's going to be easiest way to go. You know other way, you know, otherwise you do have to get the rights and clearances and depending on the piece and piece when I say piece depending on the music depending on who it is is going to kind of be Your battle right there So like if you want the Rolling Stones to do something for you Oh, good luck. And if you do get them to do it, tell me how you did it and then let's let's all talk about it But if you know, you just have to make sure you have rights and clearances Uh, a lot of times youtube will strip that out You know if it's posted there There are sources uh creative common type sources where you can get some music I know iMovie comes with a whole bunch of licensed Music you can buy some rights But yeah, yeah It's always error on the side of buying it and not infringing on somebody's copyright Because you're gonna be really bum when you get that Certified letter or whatever, you know for whatever, you know for a 15 second clip so Okay, so now the good the bad the ugly I actually got permission from Clint Eastwood to use this because if I didn't he'd kick my ass No, I'm kidding So let's talk about the good The good content and I want you know good content is not good enough anymore But good content is traits of good content is it's informative I hate that I have to say the second bullet point all the time, but spelling and grammar is right I mean this is like a sixth grade paper now, you know what I mean make sure that it's the commas are correct or whatever It has good information It's shareable It's a good length It's potentially addictive Now I say I'm gonna go right back to that one. It connects people to people And it's delivered with some velocity So I want to explain the last three points because I'm big on these three, you know, uh, and I'm gonna go I'm gonna start in the middle People to people, you know when I was in college and you know when I was first doing whatever and and ever Are you guys taking photos of the slides and stuff? I have This ready to launch on my website With a voiceover that I recorded last night when I was practicing this because Just this these words on the slides may not you may lose the message So I actually went through and did that so I'll post that as soon as we're done. So It used to be two different two types of businesses, right there is business is consumer and business the business Right and that's what everybody tried to do. Are you a b2b marketer? Are you a b2c marketer? Well now none of that matters Right nobody should ever worry about being a b2c or a b2b We all need to focus on being p2p people to people Because what we do is there's people creating content people behind the brands and you know Big brands and all brands nowadays are more human than ever, right? You can get somebody from southwest airlines to tweet you back Kind of put a name and a voice to the brand, you know to help you with different things You know, we're all working with people. You have to remember that People are responsible for brands and people are responsible for the buying decision So that's what we're trying to do when it comes to content. We're trying to connect people to people potentially addictive Anybody listened to the first season of cereal How addictive was that right? Out of the people who raised their hand and did listen to it or let's say like house of cards or whatever, you know You use your favorite series Did you guys actually that's a house of cards is a bad example, but Think of like You know the cereal episodes dropped once a week or once every other week whenever sara cana, you know did it How many of you guys listened to them and waited the next week with like baited breath? I can't wait for the next one to come also. How many of you didn't listen to it because you wanted to stack a bunch of episodes Right, you want to talk about content that's addictive I mean if i'm putting stuff out there and I and people are telling me like oh You know greg I didn't watch your latest video because I want to wait until you publish three or four more So I can watch them all together Awesome, right or they said oh, I can't wait for the next one Rarely does anybody say that but you know, I mean it's just like it's addictive and then deliver it with some velocity I'm a big believer in business and marketing and anything of the velocity of the idea you know I get ideas all the time And you know my associates and people I know and real well and you know a lot a lot of people You know that I've seen here this weekend. We all get ideas and the biggest mistake sometimes we do with our ideas Is we sit on them too long We sit on them and we wait for them to be close to perfect in our mind or a close to perfect plan and then they either Sit in your computer somewhere or in the back of your head somewhere or my favorite on a cocktail napkin Bar cocktail napkin somewhere and nothing ever happens to it So I'm a big believer in the velocity idea when you have an idea I love to take it to about 70 80 percent and launch it put it out there into the wild and let the world tell me what they want to do with it Because unless you do that you don't really know you're using you know My grandfather used to say you know when you're in your own head, you know, you're behind enemy lines So don't think too much kid It's the same thing, you know what I mean you can overthink all that stuff So I'm a big believer in velocity idea get something get it out there and go So now and forever good will never be good enough for success It's just the way that it is there's too much noise too much competition that we all have to get through So let's go through the bad And how am I on time? Am I all right? Okay, perfect. I'm gonna have the cruise do this Traits are the bad it's vague. It's too long or too short. It's self-serving There's no focus. It has a so what factor And a so what factor to me is when somebody like Consumes the content and they're like meh, all right You know you go to a restaurant. You're like, oh, yeah, how was that meal? You know, that's bad. You don't want that. You know, we want to avoid that as much as possible The ugly Oh man So has anybody cut the cord from cable in here? All right, you know what I I kind of did not well. I I guess I didn't I have it in one room in the other room. I stream shit, right? So I was streaming some stuff the other day Actually working on this presentation and I was watching some stupid show on a and e and you know episode and episode episode And in their little durations there like what's a nine or 12 minutes, you know, they cut for like those little commercials They've played the same commercial Right. How annoying is that? I almost wanted to stop watching the show. They play the same It was like an lg phone commercial Every day and then I was streaming something today on esbn and the same commercial came on I just thought it was a and e always pissed off at I guess it's all of it, you know, but it's like it's It's one of those things where that's ugly. That's the repetitive stuff You know other traits of ugly content. It's over promotional It's boring It's look at me look at me content like You know, my company is so great. My you know, we did this we did that we Invented slice bread, you know clickbait titles clickbait titles if anybody is still working with clickbait titles Oh my gosh, please. Please stop. Please 2006 is gone Content has no purpose it lacks goal. It has it like the what the f factor like what what what, you know Like that's all ugly. That's no good. So now let's get to the good stuff The superb And these are traits that I found of really good content and I work with a lot of really great content creators I work with j-bear. I work with gary vayner chuck I work with some of those guys and I get to watch what they do And like it's amazing how How it all comes about so It's helpful You know j wrote the book utility, you know, if you can help somebody else if you can solve their problem before they Have the problem or before they realize it's a problem or while they're searching for the problem That's a win for you You know the creator thinks like a reader or thinks like an audience member like we were discussing before It stimulates thought You know anything that stimulates thought it might inspire somebody to do something it might make them or They might do things differently It moves the needle on your goals. It helps you go towards your business goals that we talked about in the very beginning those three goals Again, you know increases conversion one of those goals But I was important enough that I want to put up there again. It helps somebody else become an expert If your content could go out there and help somebody else become an expert I guarantee that you will be their hero Your company your brand will be Their hero and they will always remember and they'll tell everybody how great your content is It's the perfect length now Anybody know what the perfect length of content should be So not too long not too short it depends. Yeah, absolutely. What's that? No, so my definition of the perfect length of content is However, many minutes word seconds, whatever it takes for you to clearly and concisely convey your point Right. I like brevity. I don't want to go in there and just kind of elaborate on stuff because my 9th grade english teacher said I need 2,200 words on this paper. You know, I mean, we're not there anymore But we're all fighting for people's attention If the quicker we can make it the more helpful we can make it the better it's going to be for everybody Maybe a viral if you're lucky. I don't know You can't plan for viral content You know, uh, I I had one piece once go viral. I was a A diner on kitchen nightmares And I was living in arizona. It was a crazy amy baking company episode If you go back to watch it, I'm sitting there with my Then at the time girlfriend and It was a nightmare Hence the name, right? I went home. I wrote a piece on medium And I woke up in the morning and it had 133,000 hits My good god now Why because it was relevant and it was timely and because of the velocity of which I put it out there I publish it the next morning right after the show It's shareable and quotable it connects people Possibly there's multiple voices and that's mostly when we're getting into like bigger blogs and bigger sites, you know The voice of which, you know, I write or you know, my videos will not connect with everybody Which is not going to happen You know, if you can find other voices to kind of head your bet to connect with other audiences and everyone that's fantastic and If you can do it, I definitely Suggest it multiple mediums It's posted means Post the damn shit, please Evergreen everybody know what evergreen content is It's timeless. You can read something that was written in 2016 Three years from now and it still has the same value you know, uh A lot of blogs a lot of people that I work with one quick second A lot of people I work with they strip the dates off their blogs now You know a lot of reasons for it but part of it is for the evergreen factor yet Something that you want to go ahead and tell your circle and your sphere of influence about Whether it's on social or at the kitchen table or however you want to do that your co-workers Your employees your clients It's a piece of content that you want to tell somebody about Not me the reader No, it's terrible. I mean it's it's something that you know, you're gonna The shit that I went through the the bad the ugly and and now the good I'm sorry. I swear a lot. I did grow up in New Jersey. I apologize My mom's even worse than me trust me She's like a truck driver from the Bronx Actually a school teacher from the rocks, but anyway, but it's it's that beginning stuff That's not shareable anymore because it's garbage Right only great and suburb nowadays Are shareable. So what's the scariest button in the whole WordPress user interface? publish How many times do you guys have things queued up and like, I don't know, you know what? I don't know. Let me see, you know, nothing happens until you've hit publish You know what I mean and a lot of times you're going to think your content is superb And your metrics and the analytics are going to say no that was just okay You know some of the pieces of content that I wrote that are I created that I was like the most proud of Got like zero response it's like Echo so A lot of times so We have any questions here. I got like five minutes left I'd love to answer questions rather than go through more of the stuff that I have planned because you can get that online or whatever So you want to just talk about it? Let's Yep So we all have to be we all have to We all are our own media companies nowadays Right We all are our own brand storytellers nowadays. You've got to tell a better story I think that that's the long and short of it. I would concentrate on what story are you What story are you telling? What story do you want to tell? What story is being received? and Within your organization, I don't know how big it is but within your organization Everybody has a different story to tell My story is the founder of the company is way different than employee one, which is way different than employee five You know what I mean? And which is way different than the client story So it's like you have to kind of find what story is going to resonate with people. Yep Uh, I think that if you can if you can connect with the people that you're trying to connect with that's fine But I just think that somebody like myself like I can't connect with everybody that I would want to Now With that being said, I know that not everybody is an ideal client to work with us but at the same time like you know Maybe you can just you know Make the pool bigger by using different voices especially if like somebody's voice is like, you know Gary Vaynerchuk's and like really annoying to a lot of people Right. I mean it's annoying to a lot of people. It's like a Howard Stern. You love Howard Stern You hate them. It's like Jim Rome. You love them. You hate them. You know, it's like that type of stuff So if you can find a different voice to kind of connect with the middle, maybe Give it a go. I mean Yep, you know, I think that that's a that's something for you to ultimately decide with Recognizing the traits and the personas of your audience, you know Our our blog posts on our site are WordPress 101 blog posts Right because that's our client If your clients were sophisticated in that Then I would recommend maybe splitting out the content. You know categories are great You know, I mean maybe do something like that But if your client is like a WordPress kind of newbie or like a 101 type of person run with that content Help them learn more about WordPress because what happens the more you teach somebody about something They're going to realize a couple of things One It's way more complicated than I thought Two it's going to take way more time than I have Or three. Holy shit. I don't even want to I don't want to do this Right. One of those three things are going to happen four may happen They may do it on their own, but they'll always remember where they learn I don't okay last question In the way in the back Yeah, absolutely. I'm a big believer in personas A big believer in knowing who your audience is You know, just like I asked who you guys are You know, you guys are my audience right now. You guys are the pool of people maybe consuming the content Yeah, it's very very important to know because then you know How to speak to them and also how not to speak to them, you know, a lot of times we get caught up in jargon and all this Institutional knowledge and phrases and stuff that nobody else knows what the hell we're talking about So I would definitely spend some time on personas and uh It'll also make you a better business owner and something now that you actually know I mean, it's an amazing exercise. So All right. Thank you guys. I really appreciate you guys being here