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Knowledge management for content marketers: My tech stack

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Knowledge management for content marketers: My tech stack

Knowledge management for content marketers My tech stack

While I’m not technically a content marketer, the workflows I’ve developed as a journalist and researcher can benefit anyone creating content in our diverse, information-rich environment. In this article, I’ll explain my philosophy and share the elements that are working for me, with the aim of sparking ideas that benefit your content marketing program and, by extension, the audience you’re trying to reach.

First, let me take a step back and explain a term I used in the headline: Knowledge management. I remember back in high school learning about how the U.S. economy was becoming driven by information. As a budding writer, it instantly made sense to me — I was going to be a “knowledge worker.” What wasn’t so clear back then was how complex this task of knowledge management was going to be. Instead of going to a library and furiously documenting book-borne facts on notecards, today, the information is everywhere.

The knowledge juggling act

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I have ADHD, so this issue may be more intense for me than for others, but do you ever find yourself lying in bed at night going through a mental list of things you’re afraid of forgetting? It’s like you’re juggling dozens of bits of information in the foreground of your mind, which is preventing you from doing the important job of recharging your brain with a good night’s sleep.

Taming the beast

The goal of knowledge management, in my view, is taming all of the important information coming at you — emails, newsletters, trade publications, webinars, events and even conversations — so it’s available when you need it, and only when you need it. For content marketers, some of the things you might want to manage include:

  • Article ideas.
  • Points you want to make in upcoming articles.
  • People you want to interview or otherwise tap for their wisdom (such as asking a colleague to do a blog post for your company’s site).
  • Research material, including writing by others as well as data.
  • Your editorial calendar and the status of content in production.

A few factors make this challenging. First is the fact that different types of information are optimally stored in different ways. An editorial calendar might be best captured on, say, a calendar application, or something organized in a temporal order. Information about people and companies lends itself to a CRM-type organizational scheme, with multiple contacts per company. Content status might call for a checklist or other task-management application. Data might be best stored and analyzed in a spreadsheet.

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And then there’s everything else — web content you read that sparks ideas, a white paper you download that makes an important point you want to cite, a great infographic or data visualization whose structure would apply perfectly to something you want to express, a Twitter thread that captures the zeitgeist better than you ever could by yourself. I’m sure you get the idea. And I haven’t even mentioned email.

I’ve struggled with this for years and tried just about every productivity tool you can imagine, but, recently, perhaps because of advances in machine learning and artificial intelligence, things in my world are starting to take shape. The principles guiding my knowledge management these days include:

  • Use as few tools as you can. Switching contexts and cutting and pasting are time sucks, plus they increase the risks of introducing errors. Given that guideline…
  • Get as close as you can to a “best-of-breed” solution for your use case. It just doesn’t make sense to store contacts in a Google Document or use a spreadsheet for things that can’t be sorted and filtered. You’ve got to be able to use the information you’re collecting. The key to making best-of-breed work is that…
  • Everything must connect as seamlessly as possible.

Here’s how I do it

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Over many free trials and proofs of concept, I’m settling into a few tools that I’ll describe to you below. I’ll start with connectivity here because it’s the most important element. With the ubiquity of APIs, connectivity should be a given. But not all integrations are created equal — the way an API is set up can make a difference between seamless synchronization and endless frustration.

  • For connecting things: Zapier. I’m not a coder, though I’m teaching myself how to use Webhooks and APIs with the much-needed help of Zapier. Typically, though, the built-in triggers and actions work just fine for most purposes. Honestly, I don’t know what I’d do without a tool like this. Zapier integrates with all the other tools and allows you to achieve the “flow” part of workflow.
  • For task management and timelines: ClickUp. While primarily a task management app, the company seems to aspire to be everything to everyone (with uneven results, thus far). The task management elements are fantastic and I love the flexibility and design of the interface — the usefulness of color coding cannot be overestimated.
  • For people and companies: Airtable and Noloco. Because my primary responsibility is to create our company’s MarTech Intelligence Reports, I gather a lot of data about marketing technology vendors, and, of course, the contacts at those companies are key. I’ve used ClickUp for tracking people and companies, but it’s clunky — it’s just not made to do that. The best combination I’ve hit on thus far is using Airtable to store and establish connections between different tables of data and Noloco to set up displays customized to individual users. I could share my whole Airtable with our sales team, but then their eyes would glaze over and they’d never find the information they need. Two observations: Airtable is trying to develop better views through its Interfaces beta functionality, but it isn’t quite there yet, in my opinion. And Noloco also works (in beta) with Google Sheets, though it’s very awkward at the moment. All this to say that I’d love to make this one tool rather than two, but nothing I’ve found seems to do everything I need in this area.
  • For gathering structured data: JotForm. Yes, there are better-looking form applications, but JotForm is incredibly flexible (offering conditional logic, direct integrations with lots of things, pre-filling, etc.) as well as CSS control of look-and-feel. I even use it internally when I’m gathering structured data like information that eventually goes into Airtable or ClickUp.
  • For unstructured data: Mem. This one could be an article in itself (and it probably will be, in the future), but, for me, Mem is where I dump “everything else” — emails, bookmarks, scrapes of web content, notes and transcripts from meetings and virtual events, etc. Eschewing the folder structure that made Evernote a non-starter for me, Mem connects your entries via hashtags and, now, the recently-debuted Memex artificial intelligence capability. The idea is that you are writing or looking at something in the main window of the tool, and Mem automatically surfaces everything that’s related in the right sidebar, making it easy to find “that thing I saw last month” that relates to the project I’m working on now.

There’s so much more to say, and in the coming weeks and months, I’ll continue to explore these personal-level technologies that can boost your productivity as a marketer. Stay tuned for deeper dives into the subjects I’ve touched on here, including specific examples of workflows that make a difference.


About The Author

20 questions to ask digital asset management platform vendors during

Pamela Parker is Research Director at Third Door Media’s Content Studio, where she produces MarTech Intelligence Reports and other in-depth content for digital marketers in conjunction with Search Engine Land and MarTech. Prior to taking on this role at TDM, she served as Content Manager, Senior Editor and Executive Features Editor. Parker is a well-respected authority on digital marketing, having reported and written on the subject since its beginning. She’s a former managing editor of ClickZ and has also worked on the business side helping independent publishers monetize their sites at Federated Media Publishing. Parker earned a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University.

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How To Combine PR and Content Marketing Superpowers To Achieve Business Goals

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A figure pulls open a dress shirt to reveal the term PR on a Superman-like costume, reflecting the superpower resulting from combining content and PR.

A transformative shift is happening, and it’s not AI.

The aisle between public relations and content marketing is rapidly narrowing. If you’re smart about the convergence, you can forever enhance your brand’s storytelling.

The goals and roles of content marketing and PR overlap more and more. The job descriptions look awfully similar. Shrinking budgets and a shrewd eye for efficiency mean you and your PR pals could face the chopping block if you don’t streamline operations and deliver on the company’s goals (because marketing communications is always first to be axed, right?).

Yikes. Let’s take a big, deep breath. This is not a threat. It’s an opportunity.

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Reach across the aisle to PR and streamline content creation, improve distribution strategies, and get back to the heart of what you both are meant to do: Build strong relationships and tell impactful stories.

So, before you panic-post that open-to-work banner on LinkedIn, consider these tips from content marketing, PR, and journalism pros who’ve figured out how to thrive in an increasingly narrowing content ecosystem.

1. See journalists as your audience

Savvy pros know the ability to tell an impactful story — and support it with publish-ready collateral — grounds successful media relationships. And as a content marketer, your skills in storytelling and connecting with audiences, including journalists, naturally support your PR pals’ media outreach.

Strategic storytelling creates content focused on what the audience needs and wants. Sharing content on your blog or social media builds relationships with journalists who source those channels for story ideas, event updates, and subject matter experts.

“Embedding PR strategies in your content marketing pieces informs your audience and can easily be picked up by media,” says Alex Sanchez, chief experience officer at BeWell, New Mexico’s Health Insurance Marketplace. “We have seen reporters do this many times, pulling stories from our blogs and putting them in the nightly news — most of the time without even reaching out to us.”

Acacia James, weekend producer/morning associate producer at WTOP radio in Washington, D.C., says blogs and social media posts are helpful to her work. “If I see a story idea, and I see that they’re willing to share information, it’s easier to contact them — and we can also backlink their content. It’s huge for us to be able to use every avenue.” 

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Kirby Winn, manager of PR at ImpactLife, says reporters and assignment editors are key consumers of their content. “And I don’t mean a news release that just hit their inbox. They’re going to our blog and consuming our stories, just like any other audience member,” he says. “Our organization has put more focus into content marketing in the past few years — it supports a media pitch so well and highlights the stories we have to tell.”

Storytelling attracts earned media that might not pick up the generic news topic. “It’s one thing to pitch a general story about how we help consumers sign up for low-cost health insurance,” Alex says. “Now, imagine a single mom who just got a plan after years of thinking it was too expensive. She had a terrible car accident, and the $60,000 ER bill that would have ruined her financially was covered. Now that’s a story journalists will want to cover, and that will be relatable to their audience and ours.” 

2. Learn the media outlet’s audience

Seventy-three percent of reporters say one-fourth or less of the stories pitched are relevant to their audiences, according to Cision’s 2023 State of the Media Report (registration required).

PR pros are known for building relationships with journalists, while content marketers thrive in building communities around content. Merge these best practices to build desirable content that works for your target audience and the media’s audiences simultaneously.

WTOP’s Acacia James says sources who show they’re ready to share helpful, relevant content often win pitches for coverage. “In radio, we do a lot of research on who is listening to us, and we’re focused on a prototype called ‘Mike and Jen’ — normal, everyday people in Generation X … So when we get press releases and pitches, we ask, ‘How interested will Mike and Jen be in this story?’” 

3. Deliver the full content package (and make journalists’ jobs easier)

Cranking out content to their media outlet’s standards has never been tougher for journalists. Newsrooms are significantly understaffed, and anything you can do to make their lives easier will be appreciated and potentially rewarded with coverage. Content marketers are built to think about all the elements to tell the story through multiple mediums and channels.

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“Today’s content marketing pretty much provides a package to the media outlet,” says So Young Pak, director of media relations at MedStar Washington Hospital Center. “PR is doing a lot of storytelling work in advance of media publication. We (and content marketing) work together to provide the elements to go with each story — photos, subject matter experts, patients, videos, and data points, if needed.”   

At WTOP, the successful content package includes audio. “As a radio station, we are focused on high-quality sound,” Acacia James says. “Savvy sources know to record and send us voice memos, and then we pull cuts from the audio … You will naturally want to do someone a favor if they did you one — like providing helpful soundbites, audio, and newsworthy stories.”  

While production value matters to some media, you shouldn’t stress about it. “In the past decade, how we work with reporters has changed. Back in the day, if they couldn’t be there in person, they weren’t going to interview your expert,” says Jason Carlton, an accredited PR professional and manager of marketing and communications at Intermountain Health. “During COVID, we had to switch to virtual interviewing. Now, many journalists are OK with running a Teams or Zoom interview they’ve done with an expert on the news.”

BeWell’s Alex Sanchez agrees. “I’ve heard old school PR folks cringe at the idea of putting up a Zoom video instead of getting traditional video interviews. It doesn’t really matter to consumers. Focus on the story, on the timeliness, and the relevance. Consumers want authenticity, not super stylized, stiff content.”

4. Unite great minds to maximize efficiency

Everyone needs to set aside the debate about which team — PR or content marketing — gets credit for the resulting media coverage.

At MedStar Washington Hospital Center, So Young and colleagues adopt a collaborative mindset on multichannel stories. “We can get the interview and gather information for all the different pieces — blog, audio, video, press release, internal newsletter, or magazine. That way, we’re not trying to figure things out individually, and the subject matter experts only have to have that conversation once,” she says.

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Regular, cross-team meetings are essential to understand the best channels for reaching key audiences, including the media. A story that began life as a press release might reap SEO and earned media gold if it’s strategized as a blog, video, and media pitch.

“At Intermountain Health, we have individual teams for media relations, marketing, social media, and hospital communications. That setup works well because it allows us to bring in the people who are the given experts in those areas,” says Intermountain’s Jason Carlton. “Together, we decide if a story is best for the blog, a media pitch, or a mix of channels — that way, we avoid duplicating work and the risk of diluting the story’s impact.”

5. Measure what matters

Cutting through the noise to earn media mentions requires keen attention to metrics. Since content marketing and PR metrics overlap, synthesizing the data in your team meetings can save time while streamlining your storytelling efforts.

“For content marketers, using analytical tools such as GA4 can help measure the effectiveness of their content campaigns and landing pages to determine meaningful KPIs such as organic traffic, keyword rankings, lead generation, and conversion rates,” says John Martino, director of digital marketing for Visiting Angels. “PR teams can use media coverage and social interactions to assess user engagement and brand awareness. A unified and omnichannel approach can help both teams demonstrate their value in enhancing brand visibility, engagement, and overall business success.”

To track your shared goals, launch a shared dashboard that helps tell the combined “story of your stories” to internal and executive teams. Among the metrics to monitor:

  • Page views: Obviously, this queen of metrics continues to be important across PR and content marketing. Take your analysis to the next level by evaluating which niche audiences are contributing to these views to further hone your storytelling targets, including media outlets.
  • Earned media mentions: Through a media tracker service or good old Google Alerts, you can tally the echo of your content marketing and PR. Look at your site’s referral traffic report to identify media outlets that send traffic to your blog or other web pages.
  • Organic search queries: Dive into your analytics platform to surface organic search queries that lead to visitors. Build from those questions to develop stories that further resonate with your audience and your targeted media.
  • On-page actions: When visitors show up on your content, what are they doing? What do they click? Where do they go next? Building next-step pathways is your bread and butter in content marketing — and PR can use them as a natural pipeline for media to pick up more stories, angles, and quotes.

But perhaps the biggest metric to track is team satisfaction. Who on the collaborative team had the most fun writing blogs, producing videos, or calling the news stations? Lean into the natural skills and passions of your team members to distribute work properly, maximize the team output, and improve relationships with the media, your audience, and internal teams.

“It’s really trying to understand the problem to solve — the needle to move — and determining a plan that will help them achieve their goal,” Jason says. “If you don’t have those measurable objectives, you’re not going to know whether you made a difference.”

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Don’t fear the merger

Whether you deliberately work together or not, content marketing and public relations are tied together. ImpactLife’s Kirby Winn explains, “As soon as we begin to talk about (ourselves) to a reporter who doesn’t know us, they are certainly going to check out our stories.”

But consciously uniting PR and content marketing will ease the challenges you both face. Working together allows you to save time, eliminate duplicate work, and gain free time to tell more stories and drive them into impactful media placements.

Register to attend Content Marketing World in San Diego. Use the code BLOG100 to save $100. Can’t attend in person this year? Check out the Digital Pass for access to on-demand session recordings from the live event through the end of the year.

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Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute

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Trends in Content Localization – Moz

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Trends in Content Localization - Moz

Multinational fast food chains are one of the best-known examples of recognizing that product menus may sometimes have to change significantly to serve distinct audiences. The above video is just a short run-through of the same business selling smokehouse burgers, kofta, paneer, and rice bowls in an effort to appeal to people in a variety of places. I can’t personally judge the validity of these representations, but what I can see is that, in such cases, you don’t merely localize your content but the products on which your content is founded.

Sometimes, even the branding of businesses is different around the world; what we call Burger King in America is Hungry Jack’s in Australia, Lays potato chips here are Sabritas in Mexico, and DiGiorno frozen pizza is familiar in the US, but Canada knows it as Delissio.

Tales of product tailoring failures often become famous, likely because some of them may seem humorous from a distance, but cultural sensitivity should always be taken seriously. If a brand you are marketing is on its way to becoming a large global seller, the best insurance against reputation damage and revenue loss as a result of cultural insensitivity is to employ regional and cultural experts whose first-hand and lived experiences can steward the organization in acting with awareness and respect.

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How AI Is Redefining Startup GTM Strategy

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How AI Is Redefining Startup GTM Strategy

AI and startups? It just makes sense.

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