• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, November 30, 2012

In his new book Search & Social, iCrossing VP of Strategy Rob Garner discusses the marriage of social and search and why real-time content marketing will become imperative. Content marketing is not a new topic or strategy, but the role it plays in search experience marketing (SEM) continues to change. Create -- don't disseminate. Make it shareable, not just comparable. And optimize, optimize, optimize.

Somewhere around chapter 3, Garner begins to provide advice by explaining how to set up a foundation for real-time publishing and developing content, emphasizing content planning, strategy and getting communities of people involved. He runs down the elements of developing content, and also provides tactical ideas for creating effective content and the importance of real-time without moving too far in advance.

Marketers now define "content" as news, stories and anecdotes; complete lists and reviews; videos and how-to articles; contents; statistical analysis; downloadable or shareable assets; and more.

Some 86% of B2C marketers use content marketing compared to 91% of B2B marketers -- and on average, B2C marketers use 12 tactics to achieve their content goals, according to research from Content Marketing Institute. The most popular are social media at 84%, articles on a company’s Web site, at 84%, and eNewsletters, at 78%.

It turns out that on average, B2C marketers spend 28% of their marketing budgets on content marketing, compared with 33% of budgets for B2C. Some 55% of B2C marketers plan to somewhat increase the amount spent on content marketing during the next 12 months.

As Garner states in his book, analysis and benchmarking will become important metrics. The Content Marketing Institute put together a set of benchmarks. This report is intended to offer insight into what businesses are doing, the practices and tactics that are rising and falling in popularity, and it even provides a list of all the types of content marketing that you should consider tracking.