Content marketing IS the long haul for corporate communicators. That is the summary of two days of the Web Excellence Conference in the VIP lounge of the Leverkusen stadium. Our review of two excellent days is teeming with sporting metaphors. Here are all the game-changing scenes from halves 1 and 2 at breakneck speed.
But before that, a big thank you goes to our host, Covestro Digital Communications. The setting as well as the spirit and especially the Covestro program contributions were terrific, many thanks for that!
The 48th symposium wins 87 to zero
Covestro's top performance was also acknowledged by the approximately 50 guests from 2 dozen companies. According to their assessment, this symposium was only just below our all-time high. On the other hand, we have to attest to the weak performance of all NRW transport ministers of the last decades. There has never been so much congestion among the participants. We had actually thought differently about the "long haul". Rhineland, there must be more train!
Strategy - long haul needs good targets
Matthias Poth, Covestro's Head of Communications, opened by showing how important it is to set the right goals at the beginning. This is not easy, because content marketing is a marathon in which you also have to score goals. Skewed language, like this one just now, is forgivable on the long haul, but leaving your own employees behind is not. "If you want to push boundaries, like we do, you have to activate all your employees." This crystal-clear instruction to the company's own management was also put into practice. The result is two Guinness World Records that Covestro teams set right at the start of the new brand.
Implementation - only those who loop win
Maren Krämer, Lead Content Marketing at Covestro, then presented how long and well planned the training and start-up phase for the content marketing marathon has to be. Her "boot camp" was not a Felix Magath medicine ball training hell, but an impressively complete insight into her own organizational toolbox. From the Content Marketing Loop process model to the internal Collaboration Network. Anyone who enters the race so well prepared, grounded and clearly focused is sure to run at the front of the pack. We can look forward to Covestro Content Marketing in 2019!
Benchmarking - short substitutions pay off
The record for the shortest appearance at Bay Arena was then set by .companions Justus Hug. Home or away player? It doesn't matter, it took him a whole 15 minutes to trigger a "best talk" in the comment columns of the digital executives present. Yet he only presented 6 KPIs with rankings. However, they had it in them. They were simple and therefore actionable milestones for marathon runners of all classes, on all platforms, whether website, LinkedIn or Instagram.
Collaboration - releasing team spirit is not doping
Team spirit is not just a World Cup soccer ball - which, by the way, flies and bounces better with Covestro special coatings. Team spirit also releases energies that make cross-country skiing easier. But how do you find it across corporate silos? That's what Janine Langlotz and Sebastian Kohlberg from Bayer showed live on stage. In their contribution to the internal communication method Work out Loud. The systematic "outing" of one's own questions and challenges via internal social networks is an important key to finding fellow campaigners for one's own path.
Collaboration - no speed without standards
Andreas Voss and Fabian Radix from Air Liquide demonstrated how to implement collaboration in an impressively practical way. Without further ado, they took the entire forum on a real-life excursion into their own digital crisis room. Learning: common open tools accelerate immensely, if you have radically simple processes, as well as people in charge who lead so well that everything loves it when someone "cracks the whip".
Collaboration - even more speed with open source
Not live, but via video, we then went right into the middle of Deutsche Bank's content marketing workflow. Jens Tangemann showed the bank's own work suite. Impressively simple and comprehensive. An important inspiration for half of the attendees, all of whom were looking for process support for their "newsroom" or "campaign room". They were able to see how well a tool can support finding good topics, planning, and above all, respecting the soccer metaphor, flexibly moving the posts in the space between the silos.
Tech trends - the future remains strongly changed but somehow unclear
At the end of the first day of the program, two speakers sent the symposium into the time machine and gave a glimpse of what is to come. Armin Sieber showed how the car is already becoming a rolling digital media machine today, and even more so tomorrow. And Sven Krüger, ex-CMO of T-Systems, initially let a lot of hot air out of the hyperhype topic of "artificial intelligence," only to show how big and powerful the changes will be that it will trigger, even when viewed soberly.
Creative breaks - important, indispensable!
Finally, a visit to the holy turf, above which a chic hard plastic roof from, of course, Covestro, and a tour of the Lukas Podolski memorial safe in the visitors' dressing room. The fabled cabin container is intended to prevent the repeated unexplained disappearance of a considerable sum of private Cologne cash from a Leverkusen cabin. For this to happen, however, the club fusion from North Bonn would first have to be promoted again...
Campaign tracking: pressing hard helps score goals
The second half began with a compelling tactical shift. Michael Heine and Jan Schoenmakers used the example of analyzing public conversations about the Consumer Electronics Show to show not only how monitoring tools can deliver truly actionable campaign KPIs up front in the storm, but also how in the defensive midfield, dashboards can help shut down the back by mapping output and outcome KPIs together. I can see what I'm doing, and I can see if it's working. Content marketing can be as simple as that.
Social Media Power - Loud CEOs Create Spaces You Can Use
What it means in real life to support the positioning of Siemens and Joe Kaeser in social media was made clear by Flavia Negwer and Fanny Schlutius in an exemplary dialogical contribution. Half the room joined in the discussion - great!
Using spaces - the Xing thing can also score goals
The plan was, after the fact the curator can reveal it, actually a covert melee. Xing against LinkedIn on the open stage. The fact that this did not happen was not due to Jennifer Lachmann. The Xing editor-in-chief did not cancel her appearance at short notice, as her opponent did, and spoke very exciting plain language. Alone, the opponent was absent due to cancellation. LinkedIn, you stay on our list.
The best for the end - Markus Brandl rocks the stadium!
It was clear to everyone who was there that Markus Brandl, social media ghostbuster at Bayer, would get the best rating of all the speakers for his presentation (wasn't it more of a performance?). He simply put EVERYTHING he had into the scale. The hall was amazed at how Brandl was on fire as he pushed his heartfelt topic. But it is possible to use the great social disruptor social media in a way that brings peace, happiness and progress. So much passionate and very personal effort was rewarded. Markus was voted "Man of the Match" of this WebXF symposium with a terrific 98 out of 100 points. His analysis of algorithm logic and the successes of his open troll therapy practice were captivating. A fantastic conclusion, a big special thank you!
