Make It With Michael

By Victor Ijidola Should we ask something from users before they gain access to this tool or content? If so, at what stage should we gate it… when they go to use the tool for the first time or at another point? Will people continue once they know it’s gated or will we lose a conversion? These are just some of the questions that cross the minds of marketing professionals today when it comes to creating and protecting substantial content assets. So if you’ve ever found yourself asking the same questions, know that you’re not alone. In fact, if you try searching ‘when and how to gate content’ , here’s what you’ll find: That’s a lot of results, and many of them are from the biggest marketing publications on the internet. Apparently, there are a lot of people with strong views on the subject. Hang on, what exactly is gated content? Gated content is online materials, such as ebooks, checklists, articles and webinars, that require users to fill out a form before they can access the...

By Ryan Holmes This post was originally published on LinkedIn. Recently, I broke some major company news… on Snapchat. Using a special lens that made me look like a bunny rabbit and talk in a high-pitched voice, I announced that my company had acquired a tool for tracking social media analytics on Snapchat . The update was a bit silly, but I wanted to prove a point. Snapchat isn’t just for the kids anymore. The proof? This little video was viewed more than 100,000 times across different networks, drawing thousands of likes and hundreds of comments on social media. Meanwhile, news quickly spread to mainstream media. The Wall Street Journal , TechCrunch , and two dozen other outlets ran stories. It was easily one of the biggest responses to a Hootsuite announcement… ever. Snapchat’s $20 billion plus IPO earlier this year put it on the radar of lots of people who had dismissed it as a toy for teens. But I think there’s still an exceptional amount of misunderstanding about what Snapc...