As stated in my first introduction to the Content Marketing 101 series, which now resides on the Traction.co blog, I was extremely new to the world of marketing when I first started as an intern at Traction, which was Buzzstarter content distribution platform. Aside from some academic research that I had done about social media and a marketing class in school, I was unexposed to the concepts and practices being used today. I was constantly looking up terminology and acronyms in order to follow what my coworkers were talking about and fully understand what I was editing and researching. Considering the rate of evolution within the marketing field, I knew it was going to be a challenge to keep up unless I found something to keep me submerged in it. I learn best by writing, so I decided to start a series called Content Marketing 101.

This series served two purposes:

• To help me educate myself about the field I suddenly found myself smack in the middle of, with tons of interest, but very little background.
• To create content that was valuable to the consumers of Buzzstarter, as part of my job was content creation (two birds with one stone).

Since then I have moved on from Buzzstarter. I am currently writing for the San Francisco Chapter of the American Marketing Association, but I believe this information to be useful for those interested in expanding their knowledge of content marketing. I have expanded on the topics to make them more comprehensive and I will be continuing with the series as I expand my knowledge base.

Throughout this series I will continue to:

• Define new and existing terminology
• Share what experts say about different practices
• Give multiple sources for each posting to ease your exploration into the topic
• Discuss what types of companies might benefit from certain practices
• Share my opinion on occasion

Overall, I am hoping that this blog series is a launching point for people to increase their knowledge, so that they can make informed decisions for their business. I will be learning right alongside everyone so stay tuned!