CMworld 2024 Edition

It’s hard to believe this was my 10th CMworld conference in 11 years! I always call this event my content marketing family reunion because it’s the one time every year I get to see so many of my friends and colleagues in one place (many of whom have been #ContentChat guests).

But this year is different from any of the prior years for one HUGE reason—it’s being held in San Diego instead of Cleveland. While that’s fantastic for me and my West Coast folks, I suspect we will be missing some of our usual Clevelanders.

I presented an updated version of my brand voice session, focusing on?how to define and reinforce your brand voice ? with the assistance of a few simple AI prompts. It’s a condensed version of my hands-on workshop format, which I’m considering offering as an interactive course next year.

I’ve had the opportunity to recently test out the prompts and process with some client work and definitely surprised them with how easy it was to get a working brand voice chart in hand that stakeholders could react to. In one case, it helped the client push back on a stakeholder’s feedback about how they’d approach one of their channels. The stakeholder had some very prescriptive content suggestions that, when distilled into a voice chart, clearly were not compatible with the brand.

It was validating to see that the updated approach made it possible to give a very quick response for discussion, allowing us to keep the editorial calendar on schedule.

In the past, I’ve heard content teams state they simply don’t have time to define a brand voice and get it through the leadership team’s approval process. I’ve always maintained that the time invested is quickly repaid in the time you save not having to significantly rewrite content.

But now, I’m able to show teams how they can document their ideal brand voice, audit their online content against that ideal voice, and get concrete feedback on what and how to adapt to it in just a few minutes.

I appreciate having the opportunity to share this approach with those who are new to the core concept of using a defined brand voice as part of their?content governance ? toolkit.

The other big thing I shared at the conference was our launch of The Content Academy for Operations and Strategy (CAOS) ! I can't wait to share more about my collaboration with Carmen Hill and Pamela Muldoon .

Expanded photo caption?since our full names wouldn't fit below our photo b/c the caption field just can't contain so much awesomeness: Back: Amy Higgins , Cathy McKnight, PMP , Monica Noordam Norton , and Carmen Hill . Front: Michele Linn , Erika Heald (me!), Jenny Magic , Andi Robinson , Sydni Craig-Hart , and Pamela Muldoon .

Coming Up on #ContentChat

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ICYMI

Until next time, stay safe and be well!

Cheers,

Erika