Twenty-five years ago, a potential technology boon for communicators was simultaneously undermining the communication business.  

Oh, it was awful.  

Awful, and—after I completed a marathon session of vetting many dozens of corporate videos as program chairman of the Strategic Video Awards— suddenly familiar again.  

We’ve all heard that good content is supposed to be engaging. And now there are plenty of tools to measure engagement.

But that leaves a big gap: What kind of content is engaging, and how do we create content that engages our audience?  

Content marketers that focus on platforms and metrics can lose sight of these questions. And the answers you read about don’t tend to be very useful. Good content is supposed to be credible, authentic, relevant, compelling, “high-quality” (I’m guilty of using that last one), and so on. Most of these terms are just different plays on the word “useful.” But what is useful?  

China’s answer to Carrie Bradshaw is sexy, doe-eyed and smart enough to dig a guy who drives a Chevrolet Cruze.

“Miss Puff,” an animated online series about a tech-happy single woman in Beijing, is co-produced by Chevrolet-maker GM and the video website Youku. As of July the first episodes had attracted 20 million views, according to one media-watching China blog, ChinaSmack.

When he first heard the term “content marketing” not long ago, Kent State University public relations professor Bill Sledzik asked, “What kind of content are they marketing?”

That was before he joined me and 650 other people from disparate disciplines and far-flung locales at Content Marketing World 2011. This first-of-its kind gathering was staged in Cleveland, Ohio last week by Joe Pulizzi, the self-described “Godfather of content marketing,” the author of the book Get Content. Get Customers. and the publisher of Chief Content Officer magazine. Sledzik wasn’t the only one still trying to figure out what content marketing was all about, at the same time they were learning its techniques.

Partnering with an industry thought leader is a dynamite way to promote a brand, and it can be a real win-win for both sides. But the thought leader has a “brand” too, and each side has to maintain their integrity. If the thought leader comes off as a shill, then win-win can quickly become lose-lose (witness the commercials Willie Nelson did for Taco Bell).

When the partnership goes right, a thought leader can make a huge difference in a content marketing campaign—lending credibility, creating (or curating) content and influencing the campaign’s direction from behind the scenes.

There is so much talk about communication media these days, and so little talk about the message. When we mention it at all, we call it “content.” As in, “contents,” useful not so much to communicate but to fill a kind of communication container.

The container, these days, is the center of the conversation.

“I can’t talk about a football game in my office anymore without someone reciting his Fantasy players’ points back to me,” a ‘real sports’ fanatic friend recently complained to me. “Who cares how many made-up points they have — what happened to actual sports?”

I can commiserate; as a long-time musician, the first time I saw one of my 10-year-old cousins rip off blistering solos on a 4-button plastic guitar I was a little crestfallen. Who cares about a fake solo and all those pop-up point counters?

Unfortunately for both of us, a lot of people care quite a bit.

Research by McMurry's digital business team shows newer tactics and tools continue to impact content marketing spending. Companies spent $40.1 billion on content marketing in 2010, based on a recent industry report published by ContentWise, the leading source of news, information and research on the content marketing industry published by McMurry. Of an average company’s overall marketing, advertising and communications budget, 29 percent was dedicated to content marketing in 2010.

You’re a marketing person tired of having your brilliantly conceived messages fall like trees in the empty forest. You’re a journalist, wanting to tell stories but needing to get paid. You’re a consumer living in a world of plastic corporate brands all claiming to be “world class” but leaving you feeling disconnected, alienated.

Marketer, journalist, consumer—you’re all about to die and go to heaven, thanks to a simple notion called “brand journalism.”

In an excerpt from a recent Publishing Executive magazine interview, CEO Chris McMurry discusses the continuing evolution of marketing and the crucial role of content across all mediums.

Certain people just exude confidence and have an obvious, clear path for their company's direction. Chris McMurry , CEO of content marketing firm (in "old" terms: custom publisher) McMurry, is one of those people. His focus and ability to anticipate and adapt quickly to market shifts have led the company to grow "around 50 percent in five years [from $33 million in 2006 to $50 million currently], despite the recession and industry shifts," he says.