For many centuries and across cultures — long before chemistry was a science — alchemists pursued a famous quest: to turn common lead into gold. This ancient challenge piqued the interest of luminaries as notable as Leonardo da Vinci, Sir Isaac Newton, Albertus Magnus, and countless others. But except for the brief experiments of a Nobel laureate in the 1950s, the goal of making common materials into precious metals has proven elusive.
Author: Michael Kolowich
A 20-year pioneer in online content, Michael Kolowich is CEO and founder of KnowledgeVision, a platform for creating interactive video marketing assets from PowerPoint presentations. A former Emmy-winning TV news reporter, he went on to be Chief Marketing Officer at Lotus, founded ZDNet and NewsEdge, led AT&T's new media initiatives, and was CEO of Individual Incorporated, the first internet content IPO. You can follow him on Twitter @MichaelKolowich.
By michael-kolowich published
March 16, 2012
The New Alchemy: 3 Tips that Can Turn PowerPoint into Content Gold
By michael-kolowich published
January 30, 2012
3 Simple Strategies to Tame Your Video Content Budget
Online video works. It brings your message to life. You love it; your prospects love it; even the bean counters love it, simply because it gets results. In fact, a recent Ad-ology study, 2011 Small Business Marketing Forecast, found that 45 percent of small businesses planned to increase resources for online video (double last year’s number). And Interactive Media Strategies reports that bigger companies plan to grow business video spending by 30 percent.
Every message begs for a video. Every product. Every offer. Online visitors expect video. And since messages, offers, and products change constantly, you need to keep churning out updates before your precious online video assets go stale.
By michael-kolowich published
January 12, 2012
How Content Marketers Can Reinvent the Webinar for 2012
I recently spent time with one of the most prolific producers of webinars and online events for big companies (over 300 online events per year) and was startled to hear his confession: Traditional webinars just aren’t working as well as they once did. The erosion in sign-up rates and attendance, he said, was slow but unmistakable.
It’s certainly not time to pull the plug, since webinars are still a reasonably effective way to generate and nurture prospective customers, as well as to educate and engage those you already have. As noted in the recent B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends report, 46 percent of marketers are using webinars, and of those users, 70 percent consider them to be effective. But it’s time to take a good hard look at the tried-and-true 60-minute live webinar formula and ask, “Can we do better?”
By michael-kolowich published
December 19, 2011
5 Tips for Injecting Personality into Your Online Presentations
At the heart of every great presentation is a skilled presenter. Great presenters are storytellers. And because audiences need more than slides, they tell stories with powerful interpersonal communication tools, like gestures, posture, and facial expressions. Great presenters know we’re wired for body language.
But in the digital age we have fewer opportunities to connect with our audiences on a personal level. We increasingly use online presentations, webinars, and meeting tools, which often fail to capture the body language and personality of the speaker.
The result? They fall flat, failing to take full advantage of the power of personality and storytelling that a good presenter offers to a live audience.
So what’s a content marketer to do?Continue Reading
