Podcast With Jess Cook

Leverage AI to Master Content Marketing in 2025 with Jess Cook

Show Notes

Are you ready to leverage AI to master content marketing in 2025? In this episode of the Agency Insider Show, host Navneet Kaushal sits down with Jess Cook, a content marketing powerhouse, to explore the future of AI-driven strategies that will shape the content marketing landscape. Learn how Jess transitioned from creative director to a trailblazing content marketer, and gain insights into how AI is transforming content creation workflows, streamlining processes, and amplifying creativity.

Discover actionable tips on crafting standout content, navigating B2B vs. B2C strategies, and utilizing subject matter experts to deliver high-quality, trustworthy content. Jess also shares her expertise on building a strong personal brand, creating engaging LinkedIn content, and how AI tools can enhance—not replace—human creativity.

Whether you're a seasoned marketer or just starting, this conversation is packed with valuable insights to help you stay ahead in the ever-evolving world of content marketing. Ready to elevate your strategy and dominate content marketing in 2025? Hit play now and take the first step toward mastering the art of leveraging AI for impactful marketing!

Chapters:

00:00 - Intro

00:50 - Jess Cook’s Journey: Creative Director to Content Marketer

02:20 - Evolution of Content Marketing Trends

04:15 - B2B Shift's Impact on Content Creation

06:50 - Prominent Content Formats in Marketing

07:50 - AI's Impact on Content Marketing Future

09:47 - Favorite AI Writing Tools Discussion

11:41 - Role of SMEs in Content Creation

13:22 - Collaborating with the Right Experts

15:18 - Challenges of Including SMEs in Content

16:46 - Ingredients for Standout Content Creation

19:00 - Common Agency Mistakes in Marketing

20:13 - Notable Content That Stands Out

22:50 - Refreshing Stale Content Strategies

24:50 - Personalizing Your Content Strategy

28:20 - Personal Branding in Content Marketing

33:23 - Essential Advice for Content Marketers

34:54 - Balancing Personal and Company Branding

36:15 - LinkedIn Tools for Marketers

37:06 - Engaging LinkedIn Content Tips

38:06 - Rapid Fire Round of Questions

39:07 - Future Trends in Content Marketing

40:40 - Preparing for the Future of Marketing

41:32 - Valuable Skills for Future Content Marketers

42:45 - AI's Role in Augmenting Creativity

43:42 - Final Advice for Aspiring Marketers

44:11 - Connecting with Jess Cook

Transcript

Intro

0:00 welcome to the another exciting episode of the agency Insider show I'm your host navit kosel and today episode is packed

0:06 with actionable content Insight I'm thrilled to have Jess cook a true content marketing Powerhouse joining us

0:13 today if you don't know Jess yet she's an expert in creating engaging value driven content that truly stands out

0:20 Jess has been a guest on multiple industry-leading shows and her expertise is transforming the way we think about

0:26 content creation she also co-host the marketing baby podcast [Music] [Applause]

0:33 [Music] [Applause]

0:41 [Music] Jess welcome to the show how are you today I'm great what an intro thank you

0:47 so much na you are welcome before we dive into the main topic could you give our listeners a brief overview of your

Jess Cook’s Journey: Creative Director to Content Marketer

0:53 journey from creative director to content marketer yeah sure it's a very

0:59 kind of Meandering journey I started out as a junior copywriter on B Toc brands

1:04 on the Ad Agency side I did a lot of work on Rice Krispies and poptarts and

1:11 cotton out toilet paper a lot of consumer packaged Goods I wrote the jokes on Happy Meal boxes for a little

1:17 while so that was a ton of fun I did copyrighting creative Direction on BDC

1:22 brands for about 15 years and then decided to Pivot from the agency world I

1:28 was looking for a little bit better work life balance and it's funny to say that I was looking for better work life

1:33 balance and I went into Tech but that was actually where I found

1:39 you know this this uh I was able to find a remote position doing content marketing and I've worked at a a number

1:46 of places over the years now mostly you know tech companies some of them marketing to marketers some of them

1:52 marketing to developers marketing to event production companies and now uh it

1:57 audience at Island uh the ENT prise browser so that's where I am now and I head up all things content there social

2:04 media the blog paid awareness plays anything to do with thought leadership

2:10 you know kind of data stories storytelling narrative anything like that so yeah that's my journey in a

2:15 nutshell yeah that's quite a lot yeah okay so let's start by discussing the

Evolution of Content Marketing Trends

2:22 evolution of content marketing of course you have been doing so long the content Parts how has the landscape changed

2:28 since you first entered the field uh it's changed a lot and it's only been five years since I started you know

2:34 doing content marketing inous so I think when I first started I was on a decently

2:40 sized marketing team and content team I was on a marketing team of about 40 marketers which included corporate

2:46 marketing and growth and product marketing and we had I think at the time four or five content marketers alone and

2:53 so you know that was one it was just kind of a great like if you will a boot camp of you know what what does content

3:00 marketing do how do we work with other parts of marketing how do we work with other departments outside of marketing

3:06 because there were four or five of us we each kind of got to own a very specific piece of content marketing and so I I

3:13 just learned a ton and I had a very kind of specific Lane that I was in and that

3:18 was at the time we called it Cornerstone content so anything that was kind of like big interactive very story Le I did

3:26 a lot of editorial work and those were kind of the two main pieces of my role

3:32 and then I moved to smaller teams and now I'm I'm at a decently sized and and

3:37 highly valued company and I think the trend there is the team sizes are small

3:43 at all three of those places I've been the only content marketer and so I think that's kind of the trend I see is that

3:49 even though companies are growing um the the content marketing aspect of it is

3:55 going to stay kind of small and rather than hiring more content marketers I see people bringing on Freelancers and

4:01 agencies more so than actually hiring full-time employees yeah it actually makes sense

4:07 because you get better I think better Talent that's most important right I agree with that now so how has the shift

B2B Shift's Impact on Content Creation

4:15 from b2c to B2B affected your approach to content creation well I think one of my

4:22 superpowers is that I still think like a b Toc marketer which means that you know you look at a product and assume that it

4:30 has parody with another product meaning the only way to get people to care is through emotion and storytelling and so

4:38 I think that that's a big a superpower of mine I think something that I did not know how to do very well moving over to

4:43 B2B was build a business case that is something I really had to sit down and figure out and learn from others in the

4:50 agency world you know the the coolest most Innovative idea wins um and you

4:56 know the the currency of an ad agency is its ability to create original work

5:02 things that people have never ever seen before um use today's technology to

5:07 create you know original ideas and new formats um and and storytelling a way

5:14 that are is going to excite people and on the B2B side and in-house it very

5:20 much has to be interesting but it also has to connect back to the business goals you know I think in the agency

5:27 world people were much more prone to take a big risk on an idea because it was interesting and new um in the B2B

5:35 world it's less so and that has its pros and cons right Pros are that like we're

5:40 very very in tune with what is going to impact the business we have to understand how is this actually going to

5:47 help the company grow on the con side it it keeps us safe we don't typically

5:53 venture out into something that is really bold and different and maybe a little scary and so I think that's why

5:59 why you start to see a lot of B2B feels very similar like we're all doing the same stuff we're all saying the same

6:04 thing because we're a little bit afraid to be the first one to take that step out into kind of Uncharted Territory so

6:10 do you must so and you know there is still a lot of fun to be had it is a

6:16 very different world it is a lot of fun just to sit around and think of like we have to launch this breakfast cereal

6:22 like what are we going to do right I mean you can get kind of silly and crazy um and there's a there's less of that

6:29 right in B2B just because you still have to be seen as um a sophisticated product but there still has to be some of that

6:36 like you have to bring the fun and as one of my heroes Anne Hanley uh always says like you have to bring some weird

6:43 into your B2B marketing your style of weird like whatever that looks like for

6:48 you okay now in your experience what content format have gained prominence in

Prominent Content Formats in Marketing

6:54 recent years I would say five years ago like the blog was King right like

6:59 everybody was doing long form content and you would drive to that it was just

7:04 I mean we were churning out three to four blog posts uh and these were thought leadership blog posts a week

7:09 these were not just like SEO focused and now it has completely flip-flopped right

7:15 it's video first get that video out and now with AI you can pull off the

7:20 insights you can turn that into a text asset so much faster and so I think the process has really done a 180 in that

7:27 starting with video is much simpler uh than it was five years ago um and it

7:32 can get you just to generate more content faster that all kind of says the

7:38 same thing which is what you want you want to be speaking that same language presenting that same message over and

7:43 over and starting with video is usually the fastest way there okay so so of course uh you

AI's Impact on Content Marketing Future

7:50 mentioned AI so how has AI impacted content marketing and what role do you

7:55 see playing in future would you need less writers would you need more AI driven videos what do you how do you

8:02 think it has impacted it has uh forever altered the landscape of content marketing uh we're

8:09 never going back right um which is okay and I think we just have to figure out how to use it the right way I think we

8:16 very quickly learned using it to write is probably not the correct way to use it and I'm glad we all learned that very

8:22 quickly using it to synthesize you know here's three video scripts and two blog

8:29 posts that kind of all touch on the same topic help me find the synergies Within

8:34 These pieces of content help me understand like what other new angles could I pull from this right like taking

8:40 a lot of information and boiling it down quickly is one of its strengths that I

8:46 think we content marketers really need to figure out how to use and I think eventually we will probably use it to

8:52 write because these tools are going to get so well trained and so smart that

8:58 we'll we'll need to use it to write and that day is not far away I don't think right now it's not quite there um but

9:05 we're getting there right there's a ton of tools now where you can inject your brand personality and your tone and voice it can get you most of the way

9:11 there I mean we're getting very close I think the point of contention will be do you do you want to use AI to write does

9:18 that take away does it kind of weaken your skill set does it make you super

9:24 reliant on technology and kind of make it harder for you to kind of come up with these things on your own time will

9:30 tell I think it's kind of feeding the wild animal scenario right when you when you give a wild animal food that's

9:37 readily available they lose their ability to hunt that that will be uh a very similar metaphor for Content

9:44 marketers using AI I like that analog yeah you're right now which one is your favorite the CL uh llm is is are you a

Favorite AI Writing Tools Discussion

9:52 chat GP fan or a Claude I'm so experimenting with a lot of them I do love Claude for its ability to just be a

9:59 little more conversational I find chat GPT the results I get from there are still a little bit formal um so I do

10:06 love I do love Claude for that you know copy AI I've done some really cool experimentation with copy AI which

10:13 builds actually AI workflows so instead of just asking it to do one thing you're actually asking it to perform multiple

10:20 actions in a row right so read this transcript scrape the five best

10:25 takeaways summarize the takeaways use this guy guide and this structure to

10:31 write three LinkedIn posts based on those takeaways right so it's not it's

10:37 such a complex prompt that we as humans probably would never have the patience or the ability to write out all in one

10:45 paragraph but in order to get the best results you need that deep and complex of a prompt and so copy AI is is one for

10:52 me that that does that really well right so have you experimented with the AI agents which is the new things coming

10:59 into because you can use AI agents to plug there and I've been trying to thinking to do that so I thought maybe

11:04 if you had I have not yet I'm excited to I think you know I think that's the

11:09 other kind of best use of AI is just automating the minutia right uh okay I

11:16 just recorded a zoom with someone and now I need to get the transcript into a word do like that takes a couple of

11:22 minutes that I could probably automate like that and those are the kind of workflows that are I think going to just

11:29 make us all smarter faster stronger marketers those

11:36 LA right okay now uh let's move on to one of the subject which you often

Role of SMEs in Content Creation

11:42 talked about is the power of subject matter experts yeah so yes so you often

11:48 talked about the importance of subject matter experts in content creation can you share why they are critical for

11:54 producing high quality trustworthy content absolutely so on a marketer and

12:00 yet I'm a marketer at a company where we are talking to you know CI cesos heads

12:08 of it and cyber security at Enterprise companies I have no experience in that

12:14 realm I can try to put myself in their shoes but I can only really do it about a quarter of the way through reading or

12:21 research or speaking with a customer in order to get the rest of the way there I have to speak to the people we're

12:28 talking to so customers or prospects or advisers I have to speak to our internal

12:34 team to really understand like what are the jobs to be done what keeps them up at night what are the things that like

12:40 really give them heartburn or frustrate the hell out of them right like what are the tools they hate what are the

12:46 processes they hate what are the tools they love what are the things they love about their job right how can I best build empathy for this person who I know

12:55 very little about because I'm a marketer and I not an IT leader in an Enterprise company so I think that is really the

13:02 key lesson in real in understanding how to build relationships with your smmes is that you have to lean into them to be

13:09 a better marketer to really understand why you're creating the content you're creating and how you're going to what

13:15 what that piece of content is going to allow them to do once they've seen it or read it okay now how can agencies identify

Collaborating with the Right Experts

13:24 and collaborate with the right expert especially when resources are limited

13:29 it is a tough job and everyone's time is precious right I have a ton of smmes in

13:35 our company and they already have a job they have a a job description and most

13:41 of the time you know talking to me and contributing to content is not a bullet point in job description you have to

13:48 build that culture of content you have to show them the impact of when you sit

13:53 down with me for 30 minutes and talk to me about one topic this is what comes out of it you know we get all kinds of

14:00 blog posts we're able to pitch it to press we get social media posts that we can put out there into the world and

14:05 bring people into our sphere we get page traffic we get recognition right so a

14:11 lot of it has to do with helping your smmes understand one how to work with

14:16 you you know make the Light Lift sorry make the lift light for them make it

14:22 very easy to work with you but then also what happens when they work with you right you're helping grow the company a

14:28 lot of times smmes they are experts in their field not in marketing right they

14:33 don't understand fully like what is it that you do here like how are you actually helping us what you know what

14:40 does a blog post do again like why is that important um so it's really important to to make that clear so that

14:49 they want to work with you pretty soon now you're not having to go to them for stories they're coming to you and you

14:55 kind of have the pick of the litter right like they're coming to you saying I have an idea for a blog post right or

15:01 I have an idea I want to kind of do a video about this amazing let's sit down and talk about it so you have to kind of

15:07 build that culture so that because resources are limited you aren't going to them every time eventually they're

15:15 coming to you okay now uh are there some other

Challenges of Including SMEs in Content

15:20 challenges which brand typically faces when trying to include smes in content creation and how do you recommend

15:26 overcoming these block uh roadblocks there is so I think smmes because they

15:32 are experts right they tend to get into the weeds very quickly and get very

15:38 technical especially for you know a product like Island that is for an IT audience or for products that are for a

15:45 developer audience it's very easy to get down into kind of the technical nitty-gritty very quickly and so as a

15:53 Content marketer it is our job to really help them Elevate the story like kind of bring them back up to a little bit

15:59 higher level and to make it readable for others who maybe aren't as deep of an

16:04 expert as they are you know hey I'm going to repeat back to you what I think I just heard in a way that like my brain

16:10 can comprehend right and then kind of give them back what you just heard from them in a really relatable way and

16:16 they'll tell you like yeah that's that's kind of right or you know hey a good metaphor actually for it would be this

16:23 right and so if you can help them kind of get out of their own way and back out of the technical details

16:29 you can really help build a great story and I think that's the nice symbiotic relationship the brings the credibility

16:37 and the knowledge and the content marketer brings the ability to build narrative and story and combined that

16:43 creates great content I agree with that let's talk about content that stands out so in one

Ingredients for Standout Content Creation

16:51 of your talks you have mention making content that resonates and stand sound so what are the key ingredients for

16:58 creating standout content uh today so many things especially in the

17:04 world of AI where Everything feels like it starts with you know in the fast

17:09 changing landscape of whatever whatever so I would think first is don't start

17:15 your content the way AI would start it right no but in all seriousness making it feel human is one way to very quickly

17:22 stand out and to do that there there's a lot of ways to do that so making sure

17:27 that it's written in a way that feels like a person wrote it right like how

17:32 they speak or or just little you know a parenthetical that kind of breaks the fourth wall every once in a while helps

17:40 understand that there was a person behind this thing so making it feel human making it feel readable for a

17:45 person is is huge having a strong point of view even you know a howto guide as

17:51 kind of straightforward as that is can have a point of view of a way that something should be done and so that

17:58 always helps helps I think just elevate a piece of content into um you know the

18:04 next level and separates it from the how-to content that doesn't really have a point of view it just kind of gives

18:10 you the steps without any kind of imperative of like this is the way it

18:15 should be done so I think point of view making things feel very human original data is such a huge way to separate

18:23 yourself from anything that could be construed as AI so surveying your customers even if it's just a quick

18:29 Scrappy survey to get data that no one else could possibly have around a topic

18:35 that makes sense for your audience is a huge way to stand out especially because press Publishers they love those data

18:41 points that's a way that you can pitch that to you know a media publication in

18:47 your industry or across industry and really get some attention those are kind

18:52 of the three pointers I always give people right just like make sure it feels like it comes from a human that third that original dat is super

Common Agency Mistakes in Marketing

19:00 important okay okay what mistakes do agencies often make when trying to stand

19:05 out can you share an example of content done right that caught your attention oh yes so okay so I think that that feels

19:13 like two questions mistakes they make right I think the biggest mistake I see agencies make is that they they don't

19:20 fully dive into the audience that their client is trying to Target so we've had

19:27 agencies before or I've worked with agencies before that come back with an idea

19:34 that while there's been some thought put into it and definite time put against it

19:39 it just is not going to be something that I know is going to connect with my audience it feels off it feels off for

19:46 the audience and it feels off for the brand I think that's another thing is that that maybe there's two parts to that right like you have to fully

19:52 understand the audience and you have to fully understand the brand and those two have to come together in the work that

19:57 you present your clients so I think that those are maybe one kind of combined mistake just really understanding the

20:04 voice of the brand really understanding the audience and bringing those two things together to create great

20:11 work work that has stood out to me is anything that began with a customer

Notable Content That Stands Out

20:19 Insight so you know hey we heard from customers that let me sorry n let me

20:26 think of a good example for you okay work that stand out to me is something that comes from uh a customer or anme

20:32 Insight right and you were able to kind of blow that up in an emotional way so my role previous to Island I was at a

20:39 company called lasso and we targeted event production companies so if you run

20:45 an event production company that you know you're you're producing Taylor Swift's concert tour right and you're

20:51 bringing in all of the audio and visual equipment right like you can run your entire company and make sure that like

20:57 all of the people are on the right schule schedule and all of those things within this lasso tool one of the things

21:02 they have to do is they have to scan equipment in and out for every job so

21:08 you know this speaker right here is going with Taylor Swift for the next 24

21:13 months and then is going to come back to our warehouse and so lasso wanted to introduce a new part of their tool that

21:20 would allow event production companies to inventory their their equipment and you

21:27 know I'm talking to our smmes people who have kind of worked in a a warehouse like this before and all I asked was

21:33 like what what does it sound like in there like tell me what it sounds like feels like smells like right and they're

21:39 describing this Warehouse to me it's loud it's maybe kind of smells like diesel because trucks are pulling in and

21:45 out you can hear the beeping of the truck backing up you know people are scanning the labels to like move things

21:52 in and out and so we built a video announcing announcing the product launch

21:58 around that feeling right it's loud it's messy it's chaotic the shot kind of begins and

22:04 you can see you're inside a warehouse and we're pushing in on like one case of equipment and right at the last second

22:10 someone slaps the barcode on it that has the lasso logo and it was like coming soon lasso inventory right and so all of

22:17 that together really combined to create this really exciting launch video and it

22:23 really stood out for us it it got people really excited people were commenting it's like Christmas day I've been

22:28 waiting for you guys to have this tool right and that all came from just a simple question of tell me what it

22:34 sounds like in the environment that these people work in right so it's it comes down to asking really good

22:41 questions and again understanding the brand and the audience to get the best possible

22:47 work okay all right now moving on if you were guiding a team to refresh stale

Refreshing Stale Content Strategies

22:52 content where would you recommend them to start woo this is a good question okay I

23:00 would first start with is this even still like a relevant piece of content is this still a problem people are

23:07 dealing with today right and if the answer is yes okay great they're still dealing with this problem so what about

23:13 this piece of content makes it so that it's not it's kind of falling flat right

23:19 and I would look at the competitive pieces of content perhaps they have some insights that are that are that are

23:25 ranking better like okay this this piece of content is outranked us they have a really nice you know graph that kind of

23:32 gets people to help understand this topic maybe quicker a little more visually they have a list of kind of the

23:37 top things to do that we maybe don't have and then I would also again go back to those smmes and say like hey we have

23:44 this piece of content that used to perform for us it's starting to decline what about what are we missing in

23:49 today's landscape that would help this piece of content perform better right and most smmes if they're really are an

23:57 expert on the topic of that piece of content they'll be able to give you a handful of ideas that will help you

24:03 bring that piece of content back up in the serps and give it more relevancy

24:08 make it more valuable for people to read and and and all of the ways that they

24:14 would engage with it but I think it really starts with like first of all is this even still a problem people have

24:20 because if it's not if you know that's a three-year-old blog post let's say that used to perform really well and now

24:27 there's a tool that everyone kind of is in love with that solved problem now maybe we don't need that piece of

24:33 content anymore maybe we just prune it and we move on but if it's still a problem that's relevant to today how can

24:38 we make it even more relevant how can we make it more visual how can we make it multimodal maybe it's a wall of text and

24:44 we need to break it up a bit with some other ways to understand the information these are all great ways to to refresh

Personalizing Your Content Strategy

24:50 still now let's move to talk about personalizing content strategy now every

24:56 brand and audience is unique of course how do you recommend building a tailored content strategy that align with

25:02 audience need I think you have to really again understand that audience so I

25:07 think one of my favorite things to do when I first start a role or you know we're we're launching a new product or

25:14 we're repositioning something is to talk to customers and ask them

25:21 like what what are the things that you're trying to solve what did you do

25:27 before us um what is you know what is your like biggest frustration I think you fully

25:35 have to understand who you're talking to first before you can do anything else

25:41 and then you know I think you have to find that intersection between what your audience is dealing with what their

25:48 frustrations are and the problems they're trying to solve and the things that your product does right and where's the

25:54 intersection okay and then what are your points of view on that kind of crossover

25:59 piece right like there's some bleed in between those two pieces and you have to have some sort of opinion on how best to

26:07 help those people solve their problems with your product right so I think

26:12 there's there's a bit of upfront kind of research customer research to be done um

26:18 there's really an understanding of the most relevant moments where are you going to be able to kind of capture

26:25 their attention you know for for retailers it's looking at consumers it's

26:31 Black Friday right like that's their big day what's your Black Friday is there an event that almost everyone in your

26:38 industry goes to maybe that's your Black Friday Focus around that tent pole right

26:43 like find the moment that people are going to be most interested in what you have to say and focus around that so

26:50 really starting with customers understanding what their needs are how your product aligns with that and then

26:57 when is best to to talk to them and try to trying to find those moments throughout the year to put that opinion

27:04 out there in the best way okay tools and data are Central to

27:10 personalization are there any tools or framework you swear by when creating data backed

27:17 strategies I think you really have to lean heavily on your Ops Team if you have an Ops Team or some sort of

27:23 dashboard right like understanding who is the person that is most likely to come to our site and hit book a demo

27:30 that's a great place to start if 30% of the people who hit that button have the same job title okay there you go start

27:37 there right I also like to look at you know what are our top unbranded keywords that bring people to

27:45 the site unbranded because it means they don't know about our company at all and

27:50 because this means these are the problems these are the things they're searching for that point to our site

27:55 okay there's some overlap there let's figure how we can capitalize on those

28:00 terms and build some content build the library content around those things they're searching for to bring new

28:07 people into the fold those are really like the two favorite ways for me to understand like who are we talking to

28:13 who are we going to be most successful with and what are some lwh hanging fruit for people who don't know who we are to

28:18 bring them into our our sphere okay now let's talk about building and leveraging personal brands

Personal Branding in Content Marketing

28:25 of course you have built a strong personal brand on LinkedIn that's how I discovered you let's discuss the

28:30 importance of personal branding in content marketing so how has building your personal brand on LinkedIn impacted

28:36 your career and your I think it has completely changed my life um I so I started posting in April

28:45 of 2022 um and I I had never you know I had never

28:53 been on a podcast I had never been asked to speak at any kind of event um I

29:01 always had to apply for a job just like anyone else right and now I've gotten to

29:07 the point where I'm being sought out where people are coming to me with um

29:13 hey we'd love for you to speak at this event we'd love for you to be on this show or this podcast right we would love

29:19 to pay you for your opinion I mean I think just in terms of

29:25 like what am I trying to say in terms of just like worth and being able to change

29:31 the course of my family's trajectory right I'm now able to do things that I I

29:36 just could not do before I actually started because I never wanted to apply for a job ever again I wanted to people

29:43 to come to me and I can like check that box now that that has happened and um

29:48 and it's very exciting to you know be able to kind of stand out from the pile of applicants in that way I think for

29:55 the companies I work for it also has a level of value as well right they get um

30:02 a level of recognition or credibility as either a thought leader or just someone

30:08 who hires smart people and this is not I'm not trying to kind of like brag here but this is just in general when you see

30:15 companies who really value you know people who take the time to post and grow a personal brand on LinkedIn and

30:22 bring them into their fold you know that that is a company who really understands marketing and the power of influence um

30:29 and I think that that you know that's something that I've been really lucky and able to do for the handful of

30:35 companies I've worked for there have been times where you know in the how did you hear about us field right it's like

30:40 just ess cook on LinkedIn uh and that's always that's always a great feeling to actually have the impact of helping your

30:46 company grow okay now now do you have any specific strategy of posting on LinkedIn

30:53 any any any any uh timetable you follow or any

31:00 schedule I think more than I I like to post first thing in the morning um just to like do it and have it have a nice

31:07 kind of uh what would I call that life cycle for the whole day right okay but I

31:12 think even more important than that is finding out what you want to talk about

31:17 and what you could talk about every day for years and that's difficult right there's that there's very few subjects I

31:24 think each of us could passionately talk about every day for years and years to come so I think it's really figuring out

31:32 like what can what could you talk about and say a thousand different ways that is GNA you know that you actually have

31:38 some credibility and some experience and expertise in so that that's one I would also say make sure that you aren't just

31:45 like posting and then walking away You're Building Community you're you're commenting on other posts you're

31:51 supporting other creators you're asking provocative questions or thoughtful questions in the comments not just like

31:59 I agree right because that doesn't really do anything for anyone so I think it's it's more

32:05 about understanding the content that you want to put out and that you could

32:11 consistently create and then also who are the people you want to follow who are going to build you up as a Creator

32:19 and that you can support as well and you kind of all it's that you know Rising tide lifts all boats situation where um

32:26 you know we're all kind of helping each other in in a way that is helping educate others that are you know reading

32:34 and and in the comments and and following along so do do you do any

32:40 outside LinkedIn any other social media Network you are active on or is just focused on LinkedIn I know you focused

32:45 on LinkedIn say it again I know you are doing YouTube shorts as well I'm I'm

32:51 mostly focused on LinkedIn which I know is like so risky you know like just the one channel I do need to diversify I

32:58 haven't found one that I just like as much as LinkedIn so you know when that

33:03 day comes along and it's hard too to have time to split between multiple platforms and channels right and I think

33:10 that's kind of a best practice that I always tell people is like focus on one channel and dominate there um don't

33:16 spread yourself too thin so I think I'm just trying to follow my own my own advice and just stick to

33:22 LinkedIn now now uh what advice would you give to content marketers looking to

Essential Advice for Content Marketers

33:27 establish their personal brand I know you couple but more than that it's funny

33:33 someone commented on a post I did this morning and they said you know I've been working up the courage to try and post

33:40 and my response to her was don't wait for the courage do it scared just start

33:45 because imagine where you will be a year from today if you start right now if you

33:50 wait for the courage who knows right so just start scared your first couple of

33:55 posts are going to flop you know like your friends will like them but you know they're not going to go anywhere you

34:00 have to build the muscle of like understanding what people are interested in you have to put stuff out there to

34:07 learn from even get an idea of like oh people liked that I I'm going to talk more about that they want to hear more

34:12 about that from me right so I would say don't wait for the courage and second don't put yourself in the Trap of who am

34:20 I to be out here talking about anything I'm no expert right because you're the

34:25 only person who has your unique career path and your unique

34:30 experiences and use that I there are very few people who have 15 years as a

34:35 copywriter on b2c Brands who then made the pivot to B2B content marketing right

34:41 I use that to power what I talk about use your experience and your unique um

34:49 perspective to create your content and you cannot go wrong okay that's a fair advice now how

Balancing Personal and Company Branding

34:57 do you balance creating content for your personal brand versus your company's brand well my company is the one that is

35:04 consistently giving me a paycheck so they always come first that is kind of the rule of thumb um but I think a lot

35:12 of that has to do with finding the best time for you to be able to post the time

35:18 that you know you're willing to kind of take from your personal life to to make

35:24 this a habit for me that's first thing in the morning right so I think that's why I do it first thing in the morning

35:29 so before I really get into work and before I really sit down to to think about okay you know Island content where

35:35 are we right now and what what's you know priority and all of that I'm I'm getting my my posts written and I'm

35:42 getting it out there you know on my own kind of personal time it definitely is a balance but I also think the things that

35:48 you do in your day job are going to power what you and fuel what you put out there in your personal content so I

35:56 often talk a lot about like how I'm building strategy at island or how I'm creating content at Island you know here

36:03 some lessons learned from a project we just wrapped so it's okay that to bleed over a little bit in the content for

36:10 sure because people want to hear what you're learning and doing right now do you do you recommend

LinkedIn Tools for Marketers

36:16 or use any tools LinkedIn for LinkedIn I do have a couple tools I really love one

36:21 is Shield uh it's an Analytics tool kind of helps me see how I'm growing what

36:26 posts are performing really well Shield actually was a huge help for me in the

36:32 first year or so of posting of really understanding what posts resonated what didn't as much kind of the hooks that I

36:39 was using that were working things like that and the other tool that I love is called authored up it is also it's a

36:45 browser extension and the thing I love about authored up is it allows me to see

36:51 what the post is going to look like before I post it so it kind of shows me where that you know line break is going

36:57 to be and so that I can make sure that those first couple of lines of the post are are really powerful to get people to

37:03 want to read more so those are the two I would recommend now can you share some tips for creating engaging LinkedIn

Engaging LinkedIn Content Tips

37:09 content that drives meaningful conversations I think lean into to story

37:16 again kind of going back to that idea of you're the only person who has your exact career path and your exact

37:23 experience so lean into the stories from your career path in your experience like tell people about the things that you've

37:30 done right and then hear the things that you learn from them the other day I I did a post around one of my first jobs

37:37 as a junior copywriter was to write the the descriptions for all 200 more than

37:44 200 Rice Krispies Treats recipes and here's what I learned from that exercise

37:50 right um and so I think story really helps people understand why you're an expert in the things that you're an

37:56 expert in because you know hey I have these stories I have these experiences to back it up and I have these Lessons

38:02 Learned From the things I've done that I can share okay rapid fire round here we go

Rapid Fire Round of Questions

38:09 so GNA ask you a question you're just going to answer what's come first in your mind okay okay okay we ready yep

38:16 all right favorite content tool that you can't live without discrep okay one marketer or Creator who

38:24 inspires you the most Le okay biggest myth about content

38:30 marketing you would love to bust SEO is dead okay I with you is not right it's

38:37 not best book podcast or resources you would recommend exit five the podcast the

38:43 community and the founders book Dave Garts book founder brand okay your go-to snack or ritual

38:52 when brainstorming content ideas oh I'm a Coke Zero girl so I

38:57 always have a can of Coke Zero yeah it's a it's my one Vice you

39:04 know okay uh so as we wrap up let's look ahead of the future of content marketing

Future Trends in Content Marketing

39:10 now what trends do you see shaping the future of content Marketing in the next couple of years these are not rapid

39:17 fires okay okay all right all right um I I think the video Le trend is going to

39:24 continue um it it's going to be a game of how can you make it unique and

39:30 interesting in a world where now everyone is going to be doing video like how can you make it look you know look

39:36 and feel very different from what people are used to um I think people are uh if

39:43 they're smart just going to continue to get better at using AI tools to help

39:48 them create the best possible pieces of content they can and let me think of a third because

39:54 I think there's just magic in three um

39:59 I think we're going to see marketing teams stay really small like as small as

40:06 possible to continue growing and so I think that means a lot of you know those

40:11 leaders and those director level folks are also going to have to continue to be individual contributors and so I think

40:18 hiring is going to really have to take that into consideration am I hiring a leader who is okay being in the trenches

40:25 and doing the things that their director reports are doing or maybe they don't have any direct reports maybe they have to be very familiar with overseeing

40:33 agencies and Freelancers because that's kind of the way the model is going okay and how do you think content marketers

40:39 can prepare for these changes first I think get very familiar with a video first approach how can you you know how

Preparing for the Future of Marketing

40:47 can you start start with a video and where can you go from there quickly so I think that that's the first thing second

40:53 would be get used to AI tools start using them start experimenting with them if you

40:59 aren't already if you are start building workflows in them start streamlining

41:04 your processes in them that's really going to differentiate a good content marketer

41:09 from a great content marketer moving forward and third don't be afraid to dig in if you want to be a Content leader in

41:16 this day and age that does not mean all you're going to do is oversee people it still means that you're going to be

41:22 doing the day-to-day work uh and you know overseeing either people or

41:27 Freelancers or or agencies so keep that in mind okay what skills do you think

Valuable Skills for Future Content Marketers

41:33 will be most valuable for Content marketers in the coming years of course you said one is video content but

41:39 besides these I think the very best content marketers talked about this before on LinkedIn have the ability to

41:45 connect the dots so they're they're reading industry Publications and then

41:51 they're going into you know their meetings with people smmes and they're kind of like oh I read something about

41:57 this that you just said and you know there's a lot of overlap there right or we're releasing a product you know I

42:03 just saw heard in My All Hands meeting that we're releasing a product and I saw you know one of our customers in a Gong

42:09 call talk about the the the challenge that that product really solves so I I

42:15 want to kind of connect those dots right I think the ability to to kind of see and observe and then collect those

42:22 threads together is such a huge it's a characteristic of the best content

42:27 marketers out there it's a very journalistic approach and I think we're all going to have to take that approach

42:33 moving forward in this world where we will continue to have to do more with

42:39 less okay uh now uh just one sec yeah so AI tools are

AI's Role in Augmenting Creativity

42:47 becoming increasingly powerful for Content creation how do you see AI augmenting rather than replacing human

42:55 creativity yeah I think we we hit on a bit already I think you know as content marketers we're going to have to

43:01 understand how to use AI to synthesize data to streamline our workflows like

43:08 right do all of the things around the process but not the actual thing itself

43:13 right and there will be some of that I use AI to write you know hey give me a meta description right but I'm going in

43:19 and I'm making sure that it is the exact right words or hey you know give me some ideas for a title of this thing but then

43:26 I'm like ah this one and this one are okay but if I really put them together like that's the best possible version right it's still going to take that

43:34 human intervention to to Really create the best content

43:40 possible okay any final advice for aspiring content marketers or those

Final Advice for Aspiring Marketers

43:46 looking to level up their skills listen more than you speak get

43:52 into those meetings with your smmes and really sit and listen um

43:57 and understand their pain build empathy uh yeah I think that would be that would be the big thing just be a sponge soak

44:04 it all in okay okay that's short and uh very meaningful advice I mean of course

44:10 yeah thank you J thank you so much for sharing your insights with us today uh before we sign off where can our

Connecting with Jess Cook

44:16 listeners connect with you and learn more about your work definitely on LinkedIn uh I'm there all the time if

44:22 you shoot me a message and let me know you heard uh heard me on this show uh let's definitely connect I have a

44:28 podcast myself called that's marketing baby I am I co-host that with my friend Susan wad so she's kind of like the paid

44:35 uh media side of things and I'm the uh owned and organic side of things and and we have uh a lot of fun conversations

44:43 around all things marketing uh those are probably the two best places to find me

44:48 okay okay thank you uh again J and to our listeners uh thank you for tuning

44:53 into the agency Insider show until next time keep keep creating amazing content thank you