cf #81 - marketers just want to have fun

(a totally unscientific study I ran this week)

You are reading contentfolks—a fortnightly sporadic blend of sticky notes, big content ideas, and small practical examples. Thank you for being here! ~fio

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Hey there 👋

How was your Q1? Mine felt both very long and kinda exhausting—and part of it was because, while trying to get a lot of stuff researched, planned, organised, managed, delivered, optimised, and measured, I forgot one can (…should?) have fun when working on content stuff.

To get some inspiration and do better in Q2, I asked a bunch of folks a simple question: what made you think “wow, working in content sure is fun!” this past quarter?

Here are their answers + my observations ↓

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1. Interview SMEs and other folks at the top of their game

Running customer and SME interviews is one of the things I love the most about working in content, and I always get cranky when I stop doing it for a while. I didn’t talk to any customers or SMEs in Q1—no wonder this quarter felt hard 🤦 A definite mistake that I’m fixing in Q2.

Here’s what other content folks said:

I feel refreshed after an interview with an internal subject matter expert (engineers, sales people, physicians, etc.). Listening to them describe their passion for a product or the work is inspiring! ~Tess Van Ee

I discovered that asking questions instead of broadcasting is a great joy. People have a lot to say and it’s great to give them a nudge and show you’re curious to listen. ~Leta Lista

I’ve spent more time interviewing people for long-form B2B articles. Honestly, it has been great. I’m naturally very introverted, but prepping for the interview, connecting with people, and picking their brains has been fantastic. I feel like it has reignited my creativity! ~Lucy Jones

Producing my last episode of the DX Talks podcast—it was so much fun to work with cinema-passionate people and Riverside as a recording studio. I realised I’m grateful I get to ‘listen in’ on a smart conversation while silently coordinating the behind-the-scenes. ~Alice Teodorescu

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2. (Re)focus on the human angle

This one is connected to the previous point—and you know what?, while I didn’t run any interviews in Q1, the most fun I had was editing new customer stories and working with the team to make existing content more ‘human’, for example by adding examples and insights sourced directly from our customers:

Some more folks made a similar point:

For me, keeping it lighter from a tech and research point and writing more from personal experiences and working on incorporating people’s perspectives (loved writing case studies) kept my kind of ‘working with content is fun’ alive ~Swetha Suresh

I recently published an article I had a particularly fun time drafting because I found/used a lot of real-life examples throughout. Connecting some of the concepts I was writing about to examples in the wild was kind of, well, fun! And it made me feel like my creative self again. ~Alessia Musso

After almost a year of focusing on mostly SEO content, we’ve added a series of expert-lead pieces. It’s allowed me to do a bit more storytelling, which I love. ~Rob Glover

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3. Experiment with new formats and approaches

This one gets a big yes from me, and is already part of our Q2 content plans.

Occasionally trading traditional long-form blog posts for interactive, infinitely more digestible web pages instead! Has taught me so much about design, UX, and being more succinct. ~Hannah Cohen (Rickerson)

Since nobody knows what the hell is going on, it was actually kind of fun to just experiment and do what you want to do for a change. ~Dusten Carlson

I’ve loved taking a more news-centered approach recently. For one anti-fraud client in particular, it’s been interesting to find live examples of data breaches as they’re being disclosed. Not so fun topic, but reporting on events as they happen puts a bit of time pressure on! ~Shannon Trimble

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4. Work on your own projects

I am forever impressed with (…and jealous of) folks who put content courses together. I’ve wanted to do a product-led content course since 2019, and by this point it’s clearly not going to happen—but I can imagine how fun it is to sit down and work hard on a thing that is 100% yours.

Spent most of the quarter putting together a course that distilled everything I know and put it to paper, so to speak. It was exhausting, but it was so rewarding to dig all the way back to the last 28 years of experience in storytelling and content creation, and return to my roots. ~Tommy Walker

I recently launched a Content Creators series after one of the developer advocates I work closely with encouraged me to share my guidance with a wider audience. It was fun to repurpose and expand on work I’ve used to help my two developer advocates build their brands and improve their content. ~Rease Rios

I have the most fun when I can see the things I’m working on actually impact and transform people. That’s kinda hard to do with client stuff. Much easier to do with my own stuff. ~Erica Schneider

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5. Add variety to your topics

Same Topic Fatigue is definitely a thing, especially when you work in-house. Anecdote: there came a point in my life at Hotjar where I got so tired of writing about heat maps that I spent an evening mocking up a page about wheat maps instead—when you reach a certain point of exhaustion, you’ve got to find your fun wherever you can 😅

Note the ‘harvesting your opportunities for growth’ line. Smooth.

This might be less of a problem if you are a freelancer:

Getting to work on diverse topics, researching and learning about stuff that I would have never been exposed to, had I not been a copywriter. ~Sweha Hazari

I set an aggressive goal to fill my freelance pipeline with clients by the end of March, and I more than smashed that goal. PLUS, now I’m writing content across fields other than B2B SaaS, so that’s a breath of fresh air, too! ~Joanna (Jodi) Ireland

There’s just something fun (admittedly intimidating at times, too) about getting to become an expert on such a vast array of industries. Yesterday, I wrote about mezzanine debt financing (what even is that?) all morning and switched to women’s makeup and a luxury beach hotel in the afternoon. It must at least make us good conversationalists! ~Emily Thompson

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6. Measure your impact and drive results

Sometimes, the ‘fun’ comes at the end of the process—maybe weeks, or even months later—when you watch your growth lines go up and to the right 📈

Working for clients who respect and trust my perspective :) and that + my contractor status allowing me to just do the work that will drive results. ~Ryan Baum

Seeing client results with content (re: SEO, PPC, or leads) is always a nice win! ~Jennifer Lagemann

Success looks like being able to fully utilize my skills and expertise, seeing a positive impact my content is making and enjoying the fruits of the labor I put into all of it. Being part of a supportive team that respects and encourages that is a huge motivator ~Haviva Karon

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7. Learn something new

The second most fun thing I did in Q1 (after editing, see #2) was learning how to build a couple of custom GPTs for the Float team. One of them can parse reviews, find interesting patterns, and present them back to us in nicely formatted tables—it’s still a terrrrrible writer and I wouldn’t dream of using it to write copy for anything, but it’s a fun little toy and I enjoy playing with it.

I was taking a satire writing course online with Reductress. Now when I feel myself getting stressed or uninspired I pause and write down 3 absolutely ridiculous headlines. Most of the time they’re not even funny, there’s just something good about getting ideas out and not making them feel as precious as my other work. ~Meg Johnson

I started digging into data/reporting more, which is something I’ve always been intimidated by (like so many creative people, I identify as "not a numbers person"), and I’m finding it really fun and rewarding! 🤓 ~Rachel Burns

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8. Add memes!

I can definitely say I have done none of this in the last five years. Maybe I’m missing a trick here…?

Adding memes into the mix helped me have even more fun with content. ~Mary Hart, whose meme game was strong this week:

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I hope this list inspires you to have more fun with content in Q2—and if my “marketers just want to have fun” subject line means you’ll have Cyndi Lauper stuck in your head for the rest of the day… you’re welcome!