Andrew Susman, president of Studio One Networks may actually be the godfather of content marketing. He certainly was a pioneer, launching Studio One in the nascent days of the Internet, even before a lot of brands realized they would need content to market to an army of users. During a "Can Content Really Drive Sales?" panel discussion at the Content Marketing Insider Summit on Kiawah Island, Susman shared a keen insight about the role of content in, well, shares. No, not the social-sharing kind of shares, the share of a market kind.

The core of GE's content marketing strategy is actually pretty old school, Director of Global Digital Strategy for GE's Corporate Commercial and Communications Andy Markowitz told the crowd at the Content Marketing Insider Summit on Kiawah Island, SC, during a keynote that opened Day Two. Invoking Don Corleone from Mario Puzzo's "The Godfather," Markowitz said it is fundamentally to make its customers an "offer they can't refuse."

Keep your clients close; come up with your best material beforehand; and hire comedians -- That's how to run an effective "war room," according to Victor Pineiro, Vice President of Social Media at Big Spaceship. Particularly for bigger events like award shows and sporting events, the tools you give your team will make all the difference. "It all comes down to arming the content creators with the right amount of knowledge," Pineiro told those in attendance for MediaPost's Content Marketing Insider Summit on Monday. It's also critical that everyone in the room be armed will an intimate knowledge of the …

It's news to us, but there are apparently some economists that think functioning fire departments don't make sense -- at least from an economic standpoint -- for most communities. From a resource standpoint, they think "it's better to let everything burn," Eric Korsh, SVP of Brand Social & Content at DigitasLBi, told attendees of MediaPost's Content Marketing Insider Summit on Monday. Korsh said the same goes for some media and brand strategists, who argue that the cost of funding always-on "newsrooms" and "war rooms" often exceeds the threat of any fire they are designed to put out. Korsh said he …

That's becoming evident from listening to the "Sellers to Storytellers" panel being moderated by Expion's Bryan Wiener. Not convinced? Think about "suck and blow."

360i Chief Sarah Hofstetter kicked the Content Marketing Insider Summit off with a demoralizing stat for all you content marketers out there: "27 million-plus." That's how many pieces of content are produced daily on the social Web, and that's the environment your messages are competing in.