I had to take a few days off of work to attend to my mother, who was gravely ill. I had to be by her side every minute, which left me with little time for anything else. To pass the time on my only day off, I decided to look online for some fun and a distraction. That’s when I came across a website that I knew would provide just the thing I needed.

The website I found was called Buzzfeed – social media focused on content strategy, marketing, and content creation. The thing that initially drew me in was the cute little animated videos at the top of the homepage.

There were videos of adorable animals doing funny things, there were short comedic bits with snappy dialogue, and there were interesting facts that I could learn and share with my team.

I had just enough free time to explore the website a little bit before I had to return to work. But even when I was there, I wasn’t really doing anything – I was just scanning the homepage for interesting videos.

I had a bad feeling that I was wasting my time. I’m someone who loves her work, so I hate doing anything that takes away from my “busy-ness.” But if I wasn’t going to get any work done, then I might as well be having fun. I found a funny cat video, clicked on it, and watched it without thinking too much about it. I didn’t even realize I was being distracted from my work – I thought it was a fun break!

When I got back to work, I pulled up my Buzzfeed homepage and saw a message from a user – thanking me for watching their hilarious video and inviting me to check out their blog. Bingo! Just what I needed – a way to stay motivated and entertained while working on my business. So I clicked over to their blog to see what all the hubbub was about.

At first, I didn’t see anything special about the blog. It was just a standard corporate blog with a few lines of content about SEO, content marketing, and web analytics. But, when I got to the end of the blog post, I saw that there was a YouTube video at the end – and the animation was different from the other videos I had seen on the site!

The video had a button at the top that said “Click here to subscribe.” So I did. And then I watched the little guy walk around the office, look at all the monitors, and then sit down and shut off all the computers. It was adorable!

I felt a little guilty watching that video – I mean, it was a pretty short video. But the cuteness of it all was too much to resist! I found myself laughing and watching it over and over again… Until I had to go back to work. Then I would watch it at my desk, just to try and stay awake while putting in the hours. I seriously considered making it my screensaver so I could sit back and relax whenever I wanted.

I’ve been watching videos like that one for years – sometimes I’ll watch a funny YouTube video and think of a blog post idea. Other times, I’ll just want to laugh at a video and hope that it will make me think of a good idea. I love that you can find content that will inspire, educate, and entertain you – all in one!

What is a Marketing & Content Mixing Blog?

If you’re curious, you can click here to read the full description of the blog I found on Buzzfeed. But, in a nutshell, a marketing & content mixing blog is basically a blog that publishes content on various platforms (mostly digital but some traditional, too) designed to generate leads, sell products, or grow a business. A marketing & content mixing blog can range from digital marketing, content strategy, and blogging – to SEO, referral marketing, and video creation. In addition, these platforms can be used to build a following, position yourself as an expert, and attract and retain high-quality customers – all vital components to growing a business.

If you’re looking to build a business around fashion, you might want to consider starting a blog where you combine fashion and lifestyle content with marketing and sales. For example, if you love L’Wren Scott’s designer handbags, you can start a blog that features beautiful handbags and accessories paired with witty commentary. Or, if you’re a fashion stylist, you can use your platform to show off your work and recruit new fashion clients.

Keep in mind that the content you create for your blog doesn’t need to be incredibly sophisticated or highly polished – just straightforward and easy to understand.

How does this relate to my work?

I think the best way to answer this question is with an example. Let’s say you’re a consultant who helps businesses with their digital marketing. You’ve been in this field for years and know what types of content perform best – including videos. So, you decide to start a blog where you combine your love of fashion with your knowledge of digital marketing. You want to make sure your video content is as polished as possible, so you enlist the help of a freelance video editor. Together, you decide to create a marketing video explaining the importance of SEO in ensuring that your business’ web pages are found – when someone searches for your product or service – so that they can click on your website, visit your page, and eventually, make a purchase. You want to make sure that this video does its job of attracting visitors to your site, so you put a lot of thought into the messaging and the overall video strategy… Only to have your carefully crafted masterpiece be undermined by an annoying dog jumping around in the background – ruining the overall effect!

Here is where the content strategizer, marketing maven, and video editor come in. The content strategist takes the raw material – the video that you and the video editor worked so hard to create – and turns it into a blog post, a pitch, a press release, or a social media campaign. The content strategist looks at all of the different platforms (typically including content creation, social media, and email marketing) and decides what will work best for each – and creates content for each one, ensuring that your video content stays top of mind when a potential customer, subscriber, or member goes online to find information about your product or service. The fact that your video was once an active part of a marketing campaign, but can now be used to promote something else, can be frustrating.

The marketing maven then gets to work on measuring the success of your various campaigns and establishing benchmarks for comparison. They may look at traffic, conversion, and engagement metrics to determine the effectiveness of various marketing tactics, including your video content. Once the benchmarks are in place, it’s easy for the content strategist to determine what is and isn’t working, and make adjustments as needed – determining, for example, that the video content isn’t as effective as previously believed, and devising a new strategy along with the content strategist and marketing maven.

Lastly, the video editor takes all of the content that the other two individuals created – typically including the video, blog post, and pitch – and turns them into a high-quality, polished product that is easy to share.

This is just a rough outline of how a typical marketing and content creation process goes. Some businesses may choose to outsource even more phases of the process – like SEO, content marketing, or web design – while others may choose to handle these processes in-house.

Make it your screensaver!

I knew I had to include this piece because it’s a subject that I feel strongly about. I love my work, I love my clients, and I love my coworkers. However, there are times when it feels like work gets in the way of living. I’ve been working hard, and it’s been quite the battle to keep my sanity. Sometimes, I just want to sit back and relax, and you know what? I think I might just make that my screensaver from now on. I’ll definitely check out their blog post tomorrow – and maybe even their YouTube videos, too.