Content Marketing World Conference and Expo, the largest content event in the world, just wrapped up its seventh and most successful event yet. More than 3,500 attendees from over 50 countries spent the week learning from and networking with the best of the best in the content marketing industry and tasting every kind of orange colored food imaginable since orange is CMWorld’s signature color.
This year’s attendees came from more than 550 companies across the world including 44 from the Fortune 100. During the four-day event in Cleveland, Ohio, (Sept. 5-8), attendees had a pick of more than 220 speakers and 120 sessions from over a dozen different tracks focusing on all facets of content marketing including demand generation, social media, video, content strategy, influencer marketing, email and more.
Here are just some of the highlights that #CMWorld trended on Twitter all week:
- Content Marketing Institute founder, Joe Pulizzi (pictured right), kicked off the show by sharing a sneak peek at stats from CMI’s upcoming B2B Content Marketing Research Report. Of the B2B organizations most successful in their content marketing programs, 92% are focused on building audiences. Of those least successful in content marketing, less than two-thirds (65 percent) are focused on building audiences. Pulizzi explained why an audience can be a company’s biggest (and most profitable) asset.
- General Electric CMO Linda Boff explained how the powerhouse uses its content to find “the human in the digital” because people relate to people.
- Producer, director and YouTube star, Casey Neistat shared his personal journey as a creator and encouraged the audience to “Do What You Can’t” as inspiration to think differently.
- Coca-Cola’s Integrated Marketing Lead, Kate Santore revealed that rather than asking themselves at Coca-Cola how to sell more, they ask, “How do we find space in the hearts and minds of our consumers?”
- Pulitzer Prize winning author Colson Whitehead shared amusing and witty insight into his journey as a writer, offering inspiration for others on persevering even when faced with failure.
- Actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt delivered the closing keynote where he shared how his online community called HitRECord is creating a truly unique and successful online collaboration among creators that he feels could be a model for others.
- Jay Acunzo, host of Unthinkable podcast, proclaimed (and supported his proclamation) that brands and companies shouldn’t follow best practices but instead trust their intuition, setting them apart from everyone else.
- The top four prizes in the Content Marketing Awards program, the largest and longest running content marketing awards program in the world, were awarded live during CMWorld. Paolo Mottola, managing editor of REI Co-op was named Content Marketer of the Year. For a complete list visit: http://contentmarketingawards.com/
- Visual artist Kelley Kingman and her staff from Kingman Inc. created 20 graphic recordings from CMWorld sessions. To see all the graphics visit: http://cmi.media/qhxp
- If you were unable to attend CMWorld 2017, you can still order the Video on Demand package. To order, visit: http://cmi.media/video17
Content Marketing Institute is the leading global content marketing education and training organization, teaching enterprise brands how to attract and retain customers through compelling, multi-channel storytelling. CMI’s Content Marketing World event, the largest content marketing-focused event, is held every September in Cleveland, Ohio, USA, and the Intelligent Content Conference event is held every spring. CMI publishes the bi-monthly magazine Chief Content Officer, and provides strategic consulting and content marketing research for some of the best-known brands in the world. Content Marketing Institute is organized by UBM plc. UBM is the largest pure-play B2B Events organizer in the world. Our 3,750+ people, based in more than 20 countries, serve more than 50 different sectors. Our deep knowledge and passion for these sectors allow us to create valuable experiences which enable our customers to succeed. For more info, visit www.ubm.com
