Ask it Forward. 26 Questions for 26 Content Marketers

Andy Crestodina

We were at Content Marketing World and the idea was simple. Answer a question, ask a question. Ask it forward. The #AskBucketChallenge. Here’s what happened…

It’s a video “chain letter” format. Each person answers the question of the person before them, and asks a question of the person who comes next. Simple right?

How could we spend four days in Cleveland for Content Marketing World 2014, the biggest and orange-est conference in the industry, without making a little content?

Here’s a run-down of the questions and answers.

00:36 Ian Cleary answers “Why content marketing?”

ian

01:08 Kyle Akerman answers “There’s so much content, how do you stand out?”

01:47 Andrew Davis answers “What metric do you measure and how often?”

drew 1

02:35 Brian Clark answers “What makes a great story, a story that inspires an action?”

03:13 Hunter Boyle answers “What is the role of email in 2015?”

04:03 Bernie Borges answers “What are the most useless social media analytics?”

05:19 Marilyn Cox answers “What is stopping you from podcasting right now?”

05:46 Tom Martin answers “How do you adapt your content for specific industries?”

06:37 Mark Schaefer answers “Is it ethical to use social media data in sales prospecting?”

07:11 Brody Dorland answers “Is Google Glass going to be the big wearable technology? Or does it just make you look like a dork?”

08:19 Deana Goldasich answers “Are small businesses ever going to be able to do content marketing well?”

09:15 Grandma Mary answers “Are comments dead in blogging?”

gma-mary

10:26 Arnie Kuenn answers “How much should you automate Twitter?”

11:12 Phil Mershon answers “When will we reach the saturation point with content marketing?”

11:58 Gini Dietrich answers “How should you handle negative comments?”

12:49 Jeffrey Rohrs answers “Would you rather be trapped on a deserted island with Scott Stratten or Marcus Sheridan?”

13:18 Ann Handley answers “Underwater dogs or above ground cats?”

Andy-Ann

13:58 Doug Kessler answers “Is native advertising a total mistake? Or just a really bad idea?”

14:58 Ramon De Leon answers “What is the next medium for content marketing?”

16:03 Paul Roetzer answers “If you could go back five years, knowing what you know now, what would you do differently?”

paul

17:06 Jason Miller answers “Are we going to continue to have many marketing technology tools? Or will they converge in the future?”

17:48 Lynette Young answers “What’s the best marketing analogy you’ve ever heard?”

18:16 Jon Wuebben answers “Who rocks orange the best at the conference this year?”

19:05 Heidi Cohen answers “Who will rock orange the best next year?”

19:24 Laura Mansfield answers “Which issues do most marketers miss?”

20:17 Andy Crestodina answers “How can we reconnect with each other and collaborate on content?”

You made it!

Yes, some of the questions degraded a bit toward the end, becoming more about fashion and less about marketing. Actually, the entire format was silly. As soon as we finished, Mike Stelzner gave us four ideas on how to do it better.

But it was really just an excuse to collaborate. To make friends. To have fun. I think the outtakes tell the real story of how goofy this mini-project really was…

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Last year, we created the Content Marketing World Yearbook, and this year we did it again with the help of Amy Higgins and Erika Heald. We’ll share that once it’s live.

Ask it Forward

Until then, if you like the “Ask it Forward” format, turn on your own webcam and ask a question of your favorite marketer. Invite them to pass it on and ask a question themselves. You never know where it might lead to. Maybe Cleveland!

ask-it-forward

What are your thoughts?

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Comments (24)
  • The creativity of this little project starts with the name. That it got a little goofy is okay with me. We’re human. Humans get goofy…

    • Maybe the goofiness was inevitable. You can’t control these things, right? Create the concept and see what people do with it.

      Thanks for contributing, Bernie! Let’s collaborate again someday…

  • We actually shot the blooper real and somehow answered the questions. As we say on Twitter +1

    • Thanks for the answer, the question and the blooper, Ramon. Great to see you here in the comments!

  • Well done Andy. Genius.

    • Glad you liked this one, Tom! You guys do events, don’t you? I wonder if you could do something similar…

      • The wheels are already in motion my friend! I’m taking your “please steal this idea” suggestion to heart.

  • Andy – you prove over and over again that in the game of content, it’s quality over quantity – which is why I always read yours 🙂 Another great post.

    • Thank you, Lauren. But this one might show that silly beats serious, at least sometimes. 🙂

      Nice to see you here in the comments! Hope all is well for you and everyone at Halock…

  • Andy, thanks that was a great take and offered great tidbits of Content for the Web.

  • First the orange yearbook, now the video chain letter … Andy your ideas are always a #CMWorld highlight. Thanks for keeping the party going and including me in the fun.

    Great catching up and I’ll see you in a few weeks here at #ASCENDSummit2014!

  • Ha! Brody Dorland’s comment on Google Glass – lol !

    • I like Brody’s question!

  • Love it!

  • Andy: As usual, VERY Creative and super informative — great “content,” great video!!

    Oh, and I learned a lot — that’s why I follow you, Andy, Digital Media Guru.

    Grace Healy, loyal follower

  • Talk about free 50 yard line tickets to watch the content marketer’s Pro Bowl. This was just fantastic and a lot of fun.

    Thanks for taking the rest of us to the conference with you, Andy and Amanda.

    • Thanks, Kurt! I knew if I thew a gif in here we’d win you over 🙂

  • Wonderfully eclectic, ‘weird’ and creative. It feels like boundaries are blurring and the differences between marketing, story-telling, art and a whole load of other stuff are becoming harder to pin down, which is kind of scary but also extremely liberating. And thanks Andy for putting all these good folk on my radar!

    • Thanks, Tony, for the comment. Unless we play around sometimes, we’ll never learn what else might work. We do so many long form, how-to blog posts. It was time to do a fun little video to give our readers a break! We’ll see how this does compared to the others…

  • Fab post Andy, I love it. Thanks for including me.

    • Thanks for starting it off, Ian! Did you hear your voice in the outtakes? It’s right at the two-minute mark. You were holding the laptop for Ramon… “Hurry up, me hands are killin’ me!”

    • Did you like the pic I chose for you, Ian? hahah Your outtakes were the best.

  • #askbucketchallenge OMG brilliant!

    • So much fun! We should do it again next year and get you involved. Start thinking about your question…
      🙂

 
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