Our latest Guest Post comes from Meg Temple, our new Director of Product Marketing. Just two weeks into the job, it was a perfect opportunity for her to attend Gilbane and blog about her experience. 

Last week I attended the Gilbane Boston conference. The timing was perfect for this “newbie” because I got the chance to immerse myself in web content management. As a marketing manager and content contributor, I am not new to content management – I have struggled along with the rest of you to keep web sites fresh and engaging. But I am new to this side of the house – the world of Web Content Management products, applications, frameworks, gurus, etc. Gilbane was an excellent opportunity to meet people, check out vendors and fight Boston traffic, but most importantly to listen and learn from a lot of smart people.

So what did I take away from last week? In no particular order:

• “Success comes from doing something over and over until you get it right.” Keynote intro by Frank Gilbane. We all know this intellectually, but how many of us remember it at the moment of failure? Frank mentioned this in reference to developing a business but it relates to everything we do. When writing or painting (what I do in my other “life”) I have to beat back the perfectionist demon, so the more reminders of this fact the better.
• “Content Marketing is the only marketing that is left” Seth Godin as quoted by Joe Pulizzi, Founder of Junta42, the Content Marketing Institute, and SocialTract. With the Google Panda changes it is more important than ever to make sure that your content is “shareable”.  Joe called it “social proof” of the value of your content.  When creating content think about what your audience really needs to know.  Do they want a big sales pitch (no) or do they want information they can relate to, learn from or eases their pain? Think like a publisher.
• “All of our channels form a messaging trail. If the trail goes cold, our audience will be frustrated,” Georgy Cohen, Crosstown Digital Communications. If you’re going to commit to social engagement in your marketing and customer engagement strategy– and you should – you better be fully committed.  Monitor all your channels and RESPOND!

I took pages and pages of notes and every presentation/workshop was valuable but the 3 quotes above summed up the high level messages that I took from the Gilbane “Customer and Engagement Track.” I have already begun to incorporate what I learned from the conference into my content planning for 2012. If you manage your organization’s web content marketing strategy or execution, I highly recommend that you attend Gilbane Boston next year.  

@MegTemple