Content Marketing in Action: Using rich, interactive content to increase brand awareness, build community and generate leads

In 2011, Sun Life Financial launched BrighterLife.ca, a consumer-focused portal for "Sharing ideas about money, health and family." By offering engaging content and useful tools on finances, health, family, working life and retirement, the site and its social extensions provide a forum to engage Canadians in the context of the practical challenges and opportunities they face in their everyday lives.

In this presentation, you will:

• Hear a real life success story of how this strategy moved from concept to implementation
• Learn how it is possible for companies and organizations to think like publishers (even the highly regulated ones!)
• Discover how to strategically use social media extensions and engage third-party influencers - all in an effort to support overall business goals

In just one year, BrighterLife.ca (and its French-language sister site SimplementBrilliant.ca) has been recognized across North America as a content marketing platform to watch: its honours include a prestigious Gold SABRE Award, Official Honoree of the Webby Awards, and a Magnum Opus Gold Award. In November, Sun Life Financial and High Road Communications will be on hand to receive another award from the Canadian Marketing Association.

About the presenters:

Darin Diehl, Assistant Vice President, Digital Communications at Sun Life Financial Canada

Darin Diehl leads the team at Sun Life that produced BrighterLife.ca - a social media-powered, consumer-focused portal. His accountabilities include content marketing, social media, digital publishing and social business tools. Prior to joining Sun Life in 2010, Diehl was Publisher and Executive Editor at the investor social networking site, Stockhouse.com. He spent five years at Rogers Publishing, where he was Executive Editor and Associate Publisher of Advisor's Edge and Advisor.ca. During the 1990’s he was part of a team at Global Strategy mutual funds that created an innovative practice management and news service for Canadian financial advisors. He started his career as a broadcast journalist at Standard Broadcast News where he rose to National News Director.

Katherine Fletcher, Senior Vice President and Senior Partner Digital, High Road Communications

Katherine Fletcher is founder of the Digital practice at High Road Communications - an integrated communications agency with offices in Ottawa, Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. High Road’s approach to all communications is about creating conversations, building relationships and sustaining engagement - expertly and ethically reaching the right audience, at the right time, through the right channels, with the right message. In 2007, Katherine was appointed as a global chair for Fleishman Hillard’s international digital practice group, working with a small, global team of digital leaders to drive innovative and best practice digital communications work with specialists worldwide. For more on High Road Communications, please visit highroad.com.

About SMBOttawa

For those of us interested in social media, it's about finding a community of peers, making connections, learning from and supporting each other. Since 2008, SMBOttawa (Social Media Breakfast Ottawa) has endeavoured to do this by bringing you interesting, entertaining and timely speakers along with real networking time over our (mostly) monthly Breakfasts.

Breakfast events are 90 minutes in length, providing an opportunity for attendees to meet each other. To spark conversation, we feature guest speakers to lead the discussion with a presentation.

Agenda

7:30 AM Arrival, coffee and muffins*, networking

8:00 AM Introductions, presentation

8:40 AM Questions/answers, thank yous, announcements, more networking

9:00 AM We're done! On with your day!

*Muffin-powered networking

A characteristic of the Breakfasts is that we don't actually serve a sit-down one. Instead, we provide a stand-up pairing of coffee and muffins (by SMBOttawa's baker-in-residence, Cara Rowlands) to make it easy for attendees to mingle in the Fritzi Gallery atrium at our GCTC venue.

Registration

Registration is presently limited to the Eventbrite online ticketing system and its methods of payment only. We welcome last minute registrations however SMBOttawa organizers cannot accept cash payment at the door.