[Part 3 of a Series: See: Introduction. See: Links to other posts in this series.]

One of the ways you can measure the importance our culture places on different kinds of content is by observing the awards associated with them. For example, film and video have all sorts of awards that lots of people seem to care about — even people who don’t watch that much film or video. Music has all sorts of awards, and not just Grammys or CMAs. In the headquarters town of Hammock Inc., Nashville, almost every day there are short items on local websites about parties celebrating Gold or Platinum Records (or whatever they call “records” these days).

To compete a decade ago, a small business’ marketing budget had a great big line item called Yellow Pages advertising. Small businesses would spend hundreds of month on a tiny ad that got them nowhere compared to their competitors who spent thousands on the full-page ad.
But today, thanks to the demise of the Yellow Pages and the rise of content marketing, the game has changed, according to ContentMarketingToday.com:
“For a capital investment of $5-$10,000 a business of any size can build a credible and compelling website that integrates a blog, an eNewsletter and social media in order to compete effectively with companies that might be 10 or 100 times their size.”
An even better snippet from the post is this: “Although the website of a small business may lack some of the polish and pizazz of its giant brethren, it can be every bit as successful when it conveys content that is truly relevant and compelling for its ideal target customers.”
At Hammock, we call that Content That Works.

Digital marketing is all the rage right now, but recent statistics show that you shouldn’t count print out when planning your marketing strategy, according to the Junta42 Content Marketing blog. Statistics from APA (the UK’s association of branded editorial content) reveal the following:
•The average time a reader spends with a custom print magazine is 45 minutes.
•Custom print magazines get an average 44 percent response rate and an 8 percent increase in sales annually.
•And most surprising of all, men and women between 18–24 who receive custom magazines from a corporation are the most engaged age group.
One company that’s doing this is Fortune magazine, which has a content marketing strategy for its Web site and social networks, but is also investing heavily in its print magazine. The magazine, in addition to adding more useful news for readers about careers and entrepreneurship—and extending those conversations online—is also switching to higher quality paper and making significant design and font changes. The reason for the redesign? To make the aesthetic experience of flipping through a print magazine more rewarding for readers.

The jury is still out on how the iPad and other tablets will impact what has been a struggling magazine industry the last few years, but Wired editor Chris Anderson has a positive outlook on the potential of the tablet to change the industry. Why is Anderson so confident in the opportunities tablets will create for magazines and content marketers? He shared the following insights at the American Association of Advertising Agencies’ Transformation Conference in San Francisco last week:

If you are a marketer, you depend on effective content to reach and serve customers. However, we’re now experiencing a tsunami of change in the ways such content can be created and distributed. Change may be good, but it can be filled with risk and confusion.

[Part 2 of a Series: See: Introduction. See: Links to other posts in this series.]

The subject line of this post is a bit misleading. There is no one wiki entry that will teach you every thing you need to know about research content. Fortunately, you can pick almost any entry on a well organized and managed encyclopedia-model wiki to learn what I’m about to explain. Typically, I’d use a page from SmallBusiness.com, as many of my theories about research content have come while spending hundreds of evening and weekend hours structuring it and learning what works and doesn’t by serving as “head-helper” to people who’d like to add content to it — or who can’t find something they’re looking for.
However, I’ve decided to use the Wikipedia entry Metal umlaut as the example for today’s “lesson.” If you’re curious why, it’s because many years ago, Jon Udell used this entry’s history to demonstrate what a screencast is. Also, after the first draft, I felt this post needed more cowbell.
So here’s what you can learn from a well-done wiki entry about the elements needed in great “research” content:

As a friend aptly put it, the Oscars are like my Super Bowl. Ok, yes, I am totally addicted to lists of must-see movies, I geek out on Oscar-related trivia and I’ve even had parties where I served food items related to the nominees. (There Will Be Blood pudding, anyone?)

Some of my favorite moments from this year’s list: Carey Mulligan blowing off her A-levels to go to Paris in “An Education.” Meryl Streep enjoying French feasts with her husband in “Julie & Julia.” All those beautiful balloons rising in “Up.” So many of Jeremy Renner’s powerful scenes in “The Hurt Locker” that explore its theme: War is a drug. An under-the-influence Jeff Bridges singing in the bowling alley in “Crazy Heart.” The smooth George Clooney in every scene of “Up in the Air” (ok, I’m prejudiced. His female co-stars were pretty great, too).

My film-loving pals are throwing out their predictions over on Team Hammock. What’s your pick?

With the Oscars on tap for Sunday, March 7, we asked Team Hammock members to give us their picks for best picture of 2009. In an apparent grab for bigger ratings and louder buzz (if that is even possible), the Academy Award pool expanded to 10 nominees this year. More Hollywood manipulation? Maybe. But the blend of huge, popular movies and smaller, niche films makes the prognosticating a lot more fun.

Esteemed Hammock Academy members give the Oscar to:

Ben Stewart: I’ve only seen Up, Avatar, Hurt Locker, Inglourious Basterds and District 9. I think The Hurt Locker is far and away the best movie of all of these, so I would have to pick that as my favorite.

John Lavey: The Hurt Locker. Only seen two others: Up and Inglorious Basterds. From what I’ve seen, I will say the performance by the Nazi colonel (Christoph Waltz, up for Best Supporting Actor) in Inglorious Basterds was memorable.

Megan Morris: The only movie of all of these that I’ve seen is Inglourious Basterds, and despite its historical inaccuracies I really liked it. (Funny, good plot, Brad Pitt, etc.)

Barbara Logan: Ask me tomorrow after I watch The Hurt Locker tonight. I do like the idea of Kathryn Bigelow beating her ex-husband. I will be rooting for Jeff Bridges for Best Actor. Loved him in Crazy Heart. Great story about second-chances with a lovely soundtrack.

Rex Hammock: I saw all but three of the films nominated for Best Movie: I missed District 9, An Education and Precious. That means that every movie I saw in 2009 was nominated for Best Movie. Oh, except for “The Hangover.” And it should have been.

I feel certain Avatar will win for best movie, but each of the movies nominated were good in their own way. The Hurt Locker was riveting. Up was beautiful, charming and wonderfully executed. The Blind Side was inspiring — and the best Sandra Bullock performance ever (although my geek friends would say that distinction goes to the 1995 film, The Net). And Inglorious Basterds was both disturbing and funny. But a $2 billion box office goes a long way in garnering Oscar votes, I think.

Jamie Roberts: I’ve seen everything but Precious and Inglourious Basterds, and I’ll try and get in those two this weekend. Hurt Locker would be my pick, even though Up in the Air, another movie of our time, was wonderful, too. (And George is never a bad idea.) Its consolation prize will probably be best adapted screenplay. As for best actor, I’m with Barbara: Jeff Bridges is THE man. Although she won’t win, best actress should go to Carey Mulligan. She was fantastic in An Education, a gem of a movie. The scenes of Paris made my heart explode.

And for the less active movie-goers in our office:
Bill Hudgins: I went to a movie last year but cannot recall what it was. [30 minutes later] STAR TREK! – I knew I saw a movie last year!

Patrick Burns: I don’t see The Hangover on the list.

On a sunny early-March Friday morning, we looked out the office window and saw the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile parked across the street (see previous post). By the time we made it downstairs, the wienermobile was back on the highway. So a group of us did the next best thing: We went to Nashville’s Hot Diggity Dogs for lunch. Yum. Here’s a Flickr set of photos from the hot dog day.

After 30 years of thinking about content, creating it or working with other content creators, Rex Hammock knows quite a bit about helping business people communicate better with their customers. In fact, our resident content marketing expert is in the middle of a new series, Content That Works, in which he outlines some practical ways to create engaging content that people actually look forward to reading and experiencing.