Past Events

What's remarkable is how many marketers continue to specialize in one particular medium, as opposed to an integrated approach.

Join us on May 22 for an in-depth conversation on this topic with Gini Dietrich, nationally recognized PR pro and author of Spin Sucks: Communications and Reputation Management in the Digital Age. Dietrich will offer advice on creating valuable, shareable content and how to effectively leverage earned, paid, social and owned media to reach your customer no matter where they are. Gini will join us through Google+ and you'll have a chance to ask questions at the end of her presentation.

About the Speaker:

Dietrich is the founder and CEO of Arment Dietrich, a Chicago-based integrated marketing communication firm. She also is the founder of the professional development site for PR and marketing pros, Spin Sucks Pro, author of Spin Sucks: Communication and Reputation Management in the Digital Age and co-author of Marketing In the Round.

The Primetime Companion was a feature that lived within the NBC Olympics Highlights and Results application. The feature offered engaging, complementary and interactive content that tied directly to the primetime shows as part of the second screen experience. Typically 200-250 pieces of content were produced for each show and released to the app at approximately the moment it was relevant to viewers. From the hours of 7p-12p, the app defaulted to the Primetime Companion.

About Caroline

Caroline Engle produced the Primetime Companion feature for NBC for the 2014 Sochi Olympics. She was previously an employee of the CBS television series "Person of Interest" in New York as well as The Golf Channel in Orlando. Caroline graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2013 with a bachelor's degree in communication studies and a focus in media studies and production. She is also proud to be a Virginia native, having grown up in McLean.

About the presentation:

What do content strategists do? How are they different from content marketers? In this presentation from SMX Advanced 2013, Jon takes a look at content strategy and how it can enable better marketing by focusing on the entire system, the entire experience of content. And better content means a better experience for your users and customers.

Originally presented at SMX Advanced 2013 in Seattle, Washington on June 12, 2013.

About the speaker:

For over 15 years, Jonathon Colman has helped people and organizations build, find, and use the best stuff on the Web.

Jonathon has worked with organizations like Facebook, REI, The Nature Conservancy, Conservation International, and IBM to connect with their customers, launch platforms and tools, and build communities. By leveraging expertise in SEO/Inbound marketing, social media, web analytics, content strategy, and agile methodologies, Jonathon helps organizations become better at what they do so that they can succeed in fulfilling their missions.

But never fear! Andrea Goulet Ford of BrandVox is back in this month's meetup, and she'll show you how to keep your blog content rolling. You'll complete a three month editorial calendar to help you map out your content and plan ahead. This helps you:

-Create quality content on a regular schedule

-Use your blog to map back to specific business strategies

-Manage multiple authors or contributors

-Track publication and marketing efforts

-Capitalize on trends and increase visibility

You'll walk away with much more than a spreadsheet. You'll also learn how to give your blog character and help it stand out from the crowd.

Brad, Edward, and George from Recurve Services will talk about why quantifying a brand is an essential and attainable component of a complete content strategy. They’ll even identify some metrics you can use. But no one’s crunching numbers out of a love for statistics (OK, maybe Brad is). The right data can give anyone involved with guiding a brand better insights and farther reach. And it all starts with a new, content strategist-friendly way of looking at the relationship between people and brands.

Bradley Robb

Bradley Robb has a background in both strategy and production. Bradley enjoys turning strategic objectives into operations and boy does he hate cinnamon.

Edward Baldwin

Edward Baldwin is a strategist who grew up on the wrong side of the creative brief. He now hunts for brand insights like the Predator–in the least sporting way possible.

George R. Perry

George has a long history writing content and analyzing data, which he now uses to provide actionable insights into client markets and users. George is the ebony to Bradley’s ivory.

Learn how to bake-in SEO principles into your existing content development process as well as tools, strategies, and resources for outranking the competition. Whether you're a web developer, copywriter, designer, or business owner, you'll come away from this session with valuable advice you can put into practice immediately.

Join RVA Content Strategy's own Andrea Goulet Ford as she leads us on the charge to create content with best practices. If you're a business owner, product lead, content geek, or just want to learn how to communicate more effectively, this is the session for you.

It's our party, and we'll cry if we want to, cry if we want to...cry, "WOOHOOO!" that is.

We're celebrating our first twelve months of awesome with good company. Jonathon Colman, Principal Experience Architect at REI, will join RVA Content Strategy for cheer, merriment, and a rollicking good presentation called "Data Sets You Free: Building the Content-Driven Organization." 

There will also be cake. Delicious, delicious cake.

This month we are reading and discussing Content Strategy at Work by Margot Bloomstein. And, we are going to Skype with Margot to thank her, praise her, and ask her questions.

Content folks have been praising this book for its real-life, down-in-the-trenches case studies. For many of us who have already read it, we've changed the way we approach content based on the stories in this book.

We hope that you'll join us for what promises to be a great evening of learning about how to embrace content strategy on every interactive project you encounter.