The great thing is that there are many, many great TED talks out there about content marketing. In this article, we will mention some that we have found useful. Do keep searching yourself as well as many new ones are constantly added. It is also important to view them both for the content they offer, and also how they are delivered. Badly presented talks (yes, even for TED, some work better than others) are also useful too, to help you understand what does and does not work, see our sixth recommended talk for an entertaining analysis of this.
While there are many great TED talks out there, and the list is constantly growing, one speaker who you should include among the people you watch or listen to is Seth Godin.
Seth has written many many enjoyable, readable books on marketing, in its many guises and evolutions, over the last fifteen years. His books are smart, insightful, and easy to read. If you watched no one else, then watching his TED talks would ensure you will still come away with some useful insights. If you can, beg, borrow or steal one of his books, and subscribe to his free blog for regular updates on his insights into marketing and how to effectively reach your audience.
Next up, for joyfully counter-intuitive but deeply-interesting insights, is Malcolm Gladwell. This is one great both for the ideas he conveys but also the engaging and compelling way that he delivers his story.
This next one by Susan Cain on ‘The Power of Introverts’ is one (with over 15 million views) you may have seen. However, this presentation is both a highly watchable TED talk and also a great reminder that less obvious topics can still make for compelling and insightful talks. You don’t need to be a super-confident, charismatic speaker. It might be nice to be one sometimes, but if your story is interesting enough then a larger-than-life personality is less important. Cain’s story is well worth watching.
Next up, for those days when we need some inspiration to remind us to keep plugging away, is JK Rowling’s great story and lessons learned from her own difficult battle from rejection to massive global success. Even now, having become globally successful she is still looking at how to help others now that she has the financial means to do so.
J.K. Rowling Speaks at Harvard Commencement from Harvard Magazine on Vimeo.
The great thing too is that not all TED talks are the whole eighteen minutes long. If you don’t have that much time! Here is a great TED talk by Joe Sabbia which comes in at under four minutes long. This is a good reminder that, like your literal elevator pitch, if you practice, you can still deliver your message shortly, powerfully and effectively.
Then, to get meta about TED talks, here is a great one that aims to dissect what the common trends for a successful TED talk. Sebastian Wernicke gives you the opportunity to use his statistical analysis to ensure you deliver a good engaging talk. It’s funny, light hearted, but there are still some useful insights to help you in your own storytelling and content marketing.
Finally this article on LinkedIn outlines the value of curating the content once you have created it, and examines how TED has done this well over the years. This is a good idea as you may actually already have great content, but you have not been using and re-using it as strategically as you might realise is possible.
Overall the TED and TEDx talks are a great resource for us to quickly learn and gain insights into how to effectively present and communicate ideas. Even better they are concise, and can be watched anywhere. Content marketing itself is about all of these things and is definitely something that we get better at the more we practice it. A good personal goal, butterflies and fear of public speaking to one side, is to aim to give a TEDx talk yourself at some point. Ideally, after having watched some of the masters for inspiration, you will have a much better idea of how to deliver a powerful and convincing TED talk yourself.
