If you work in a global marketplace, you will need to create multilingual content — and by that I mean content that is created in whatever native language your customers speak, not just English!

This is important for two reasons:

1. Content is most effective when it leverages the full power of the language it is written in, including puns, local references, alliteration, etc. If you just speak to your global customers in their second language (in most cases English), you will fail to engage them with the words and phrases that have the most cultural and linguistic significance for them.

2. Search engine optimization (SEO) is more important than ever, and creating content in a non-English language will help you rank in SERPs (search engine result pages) served in that language. This is especially true if your competitors aren’t creating multilingual content — and any edge you can gain in the world of SEO is one worth pursuing.Continue Reading

Cover image ©2013 Spider Trainers. Used with permission.

I used to manage a large creative team, and on a regular basis we had to generate ideas for content marketing projects. Content marketing is driven by fantastic concepts, so if you work in this field you’re very likely to spend a lot of time doing the same.

Like most organizations, brainstorms were our primary means of creating content ideas. Generally we found what we were looking for, but occasionally we would come up against a brick wall and find ourselves completely unable to generate a great concept for a specific project. Continue Reading