The Subject Matter Expert (SME) Content Paradox and Pulling Teeth

When it comes to creating quality content assets for high-tech companies at scale, we have noticed the following paradox in the marketplace:

  • Writers know how to write but they don’t have hands-on, intimate knowledge of the technology.
  • The SME live and breathe the technology, but they don’t know how to effectively and engagingly write about it.

Of course there are exceptional individuals who are both knowledgeable and good writers but, let’s face it, they are few and far between—and, if you find one, worth his weight in gold.
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The Secret Sauce of Tech-related Blog Content

By Tina Ornstein, IOD Editor
Blogging on technical topics for a knowledgeable audience is a little bit like tightrope walking — it requires incredible balancing skills and one false step sends you plummeting into oblivion. In other words, if you don’t find the right balance between technical expertise and audience engagement, then your blog will be ignored (which is the equivalent of oblivion in the content world.)
At IOD, we have developed and perfected our own secret sauce for helping our customers reach their target audiences. Our methodology is based on one simple mantra: “writers are not experts and experts are not writers.” Thus a successful technical blog, (i.e., a blog that gets traction with its target audience) requires the collaboration of an expert and a content person — either a writer or a proactive editor.
Although chefs tend to guard their secret sauces carefully, we at IOD believe in transparency and are happy to share with you the key ingredients of ours.
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Why Marketers are Planning More Content for 2018 Than Ever Before

By Tina Ornstein, IOD Editor
You have to hand it to him—Bill Gates once again positioned himself as a visionary when he postulated in 1996, when the internet was still in its infancy, that content would be king. What kind of content? Here’s what he wrote:
If people are to be expected to put up with turning on a computer to read a screen, they must be rewarded with deep and extremely up-to-date information that they can explore at will. They need to have audio, and possibly video. They need an opportunity for personal involvement that goes far beyond that offered through the letters-to-the-editor pages of print magazines.
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