This week’s ‘Engaging Reads’ feature brings you the most interesting insights we’ve gained from Twitter over the last few days including why women are at the top of the content marketing industry, the launch of #leedsbizweek on Twitter and a new take on the notion of ‘followership’.
Why women are at the top of the content marketing industry
Clare Hill, Managing Director of the Content Marketing Association wrote an interesting opinion column for Brand Republic last week on why, unlike many others, this niche sector has women at its helm. Coming from the media industry, Clare knows all too well that even in female dominated industries where women tend to hold senior roles, they rarely reach the very top. However, 11 of the 30 members of the Content Marketing Association have female leaders. She said: “By its nature – and now more than ever before – the content marketing business is collaborative. For those processes to work well, partnership and teamwork are essential, both within the agency and between agency and client. It may be that women work more easily in those environments.” This really reinforces our point that when it comes to digital content, it’s about quality of engagement and not quantity of ‘hits’, ‘follows’ or ‘likes’. Whilst many have focused on the ‘techy’ side of content littering it with SEO keywords and back-links to drive volume traffic, others are now realising that good content is really just about good communications – something that us females tend to be better at.
#Leedsbizweek hits Twitter
After months of build up, the Yorkshire Mafia unveiled the full programme of events for Leeds Business Week on its own dedicated website. Already there is a huge buzz on Twitter using the #leedsbizweek hashtag. We’re running a (very Yorkshire) ‘Tech That!’ social media workshop on ‘recreating the customer experience online’ on the Monday and I am also sitting on a panel of social media experts for a CIPR event on ‘sharing the future of the social web’. Leeds Business Week represents everything that’s great about the Yorkshire business community combining a fast-paced programme of ‘bitesize’ events with a down-to-earth humour which naturally gets people involved and engaged. We can’t wait!
‘Followership’ not leadership is the key to employee engagement
Logistik Group’s Andrew Payne published a blog last week on employee engagement questioning whether a focus on leadership is the right approach. Instead, he puts forward a case for the forgotten art of ‘followership’. He refers to a book by Michael Shermer called The Believing Brain, which sparked his interest in the human instinct to be both a leader and a follower and argues that, when it comes to employee engagement, leaders are always looking for counsel on followership – how to get employees to share and work towards the same business goals. Whilst there is an abundance of leadership theory books, there are virtually none on this notion of followership. Payne looks at the negative connotations that come with followership and the corporate tendancy to focus on leadership and says: “I’m not campaigning for followership at the expense of leadership – just a desire to get a better balance of understanding between the two.”
