119: LinkedIn Live w/ Michael Brenner, the CMO slide, the real story of Salesforce, moral content, and... teledildonics?
Hi friends, happy Saturday. This is me after a two-conference week:
Speaking of events, some promised housekeeping first:
INBOUND19 friends - click here for slides from yesterday's talk on the 7 "deadly" sins of startup marketing. Video will be live next week once captions are in.
Content Marketing World friends - click here for my slides from Wednesday's talk on the trust imperative. Ditto on the video.
Learn more about booking me to speak here.
In this edition (#119) of The World's Best Newsletter:
1. The Secret Life of LinkedIn Marketers
2. This week in women at work (soy sauce and innovation)
3. Your content is good, but is it moral?
4. CMOs continue the Cha-Cha Slide
5. The Real Story of Salesforce and Siebel
6. Teledildonics and the risk of hacking
7. Quote of the week: Hungry Forever
Let's do it!
1. The Secret Life of LinkedIn Marketers
This past week at Content Marketing World I had the distinct pleasure of joining speaker, consultant, author, and the nicest guy in business, Michael Brenner on a LinkedIn Live broadcast hosted by the wonderful Alex Rynne of LinkedIn Marketing Solutions (check out her great course on Marketing on LinkedIn.)
FYI: Michael has a new book coming out in October called "Mean People Suck."
Some of my favorite moments from just the first 30 mins include:
9:25 Why RuPaul's Drag Race is a great example of a content empire
13:39 The story of my most successful LinkedIn long-form posts
15:41 The content that catches Michael Brenner's attention on LinkedIn (hint: snark) + the biggest mistake most businesses make (hint: thinking you're more important than you really are)
29:17 I do the evilest laugh on camera I've ever done...
And so much more. Watch the full video (1 hr) and stay tuned for a blog post summarizing our biggest takeaways.
2. This week in women at work
What happened this past week in the world of women at work?
Well, the co-writer of the crazy successful 'Crazy Rich Asians,' Adele Lim, quit the sequel due to her male co-writer being paid 10X more than her. That's not a typo.
"Lim... believes that women and people of color often are regarded as "soy sauce" — hired to sprinkle culturally specific details on a screenplay, rather than credited with the substantive work of crafting the story."
And, Cindy Gallop points out that the latest list of "America's Most Innovative Leaders" in Forbes includes 99 men and 1 woman. Sigh.
We got 99 problems but gender parity ain't one.
3. Your content is good, but is it moral?
My friends at Managing Editor Magazine explore the imperative of moral marketing in a piece by Ginny Engholm inspired (thank you) in part by my rants on the topic.
"Katie Martell’s recent article on “pride marketing” points out the dangers of “rainbow-pandering” — exploiting LGBTQ rights in a company’s marketing without meaningful action or social change efforts... examples of companies — and marketers — abdicating their moral responsibility to use ideas for good, not just for gain."
I agree wholeheartedly with Ginny's final line:
"Thought leadership means being a leader. It’s your choice what kind of leader you want to be and what bold ideas you put out into the world."
4. CMOs continue the Cha-Cha Slide
Executive search and leadership consulting firm, Spencer Stuart, has been tracking the CMO tenure and career journey.
Their most recent finding: the shuffle continues.
An alarming number of companies across industries have undergone a change in the top marketing role once again this year.
I dunno, this really was a missed opportunity to rebrand this the Cha-Cha Slide... one hop, right foot, left foot, crisscross, two hops, time to get funky. That's what it feels like. Just my professional opinion. I digress.
Traits of those CMOs bringing stability to the marketing function:
Creative and compelling communication – Being a contagious evangelist to drive positive change.
A self-reflective commitment to learning – Possessing a high level of self-awareness to acknowledge what they don’t know, along with the humility to shed their preconceptions and curiosity about what they might learn.
A deep-rooted focus on team-building – Creating a marketing team that works together and can thrive in a disruptive environment, where employee satisfaction and engagement are key priorities.
An appreciation for alliances – Building relationships with C-suite peers and drawing both inspiration and improved collaboration from these interactions.
Yaas.
Read more.
5. The Real Story of Salesforce and Siebel
In my talks I often reference the Salesforce ascend, and inevitably address their David vs. Goliath story of taking down Siebel through category-creation, disruptive marketing, and enemy-creation.
But, this 2014 article from one of the founding members of Siebel's senior exec team tells the full story, giving important context due to other factors - namely timing, the recession, shifting target customer, and a planned turnaround interrupted by Oracle's acquisition.
It's not to diminish the lessons learned from SFDC's marketing moves, but rather, to give full appreciation to the other factors that must align for that kind of incredible success to happen.
6. Teledildonics and the risk of hacking
This is probably going to get me caught in quite a few corporate spam filters so let me try to delicately explain what this wild article is about.... the teledildonics industry (yes it's real) is dangerously exposing personal instruments of pleasure to hacking.
These items are Wi-Fu enabled and webcam-connected and... well you can extrapolate the potential implications of such connectedness.
Read the full piece and... maybe keep things offline.
7. Quote of the week: Hungry Forever
"If you are fed by the approval of others, you will be hungry forever."
I have no idea who said this but this past week I was discussing ego, life, love, and self-fulfillment with Mitch Joel (officially the best person to be stuck on a tarmac with) and we got to chatting about what motivates speakers and those in the public eye.
This quote rings so true, for all of us.
Have a great weekend, and thank you as always for reading.
Katie
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Catch me TUESDAY September 10th on a social livestream (1:30pm ET) as I interview Nnamdi Nwoke Vice President, Demand Generation Marketing at GreenSky. We'll chat about what it means to be a fearless marketer and about the upcoming MKTGnation Live event Sept 18!
I'm hosting the 2019 Together Digital National Conference, September 18-20 in Columbus, OH. Use code SPEAKER19 for $100 off your ticket and register here.
I'm moderating a GREAT lineup of marketing leaders for the keynote panel of Connect 2 Convert here in Boston, September 25-27 (we speak on Friday). What does the next decade of marketing look like? What do you need to know to be prepared? Join us!
The MarketingProfs B2B Forum is October 16-18 just outside of Washington DC. Check out the great lineup here and save $100 with code B2BFriend19.
West Coast! I'll be back in December for the Growth Marketing Conference, December 10-11 in San Francisco.
xo