An Ode to Art: Why the Human Spirit is Essential to Creative Expression
From prehistoric cave paintings to digitally-enhanced images, mankind has come a long way in art production. Creative expression, an exceptionally human trait, is one that makes us stand out among all living things. Yet, in our modern era of increasingly AI-generated content, it’s easy for artists to start feeling a bit disheartened. Because is AI […]
How Creators Create: A Q&A with Figurative Artist Delpha Hudson
If there is such thing as the law of attraction in art, that is how I became interested in Delpha’s timeless tapestry-like paintings. A pale, ghostly female peering out from the darkness is what initially drew me in. And then the contrasting patterned curtain the floating figure held onto. The painting was titled Consider the […]
Not Your Average Advent Calendar: 24 Days of Advice to Cheer Up Your Content Strategy
Advent, the period beginning four Sundays before Christmas, has come to a close. But the season of giving and transformation is far from over. In true holiday spirit, this December we’ve put together a fun advent calendar using CBA Content advice and expertise to inspire you and future content creation. Middle English borrowed the word […]
How Creators Create: A Q&A With Contemporary Landscape Painter Gareth Edwards RWA
The wood burner was ablaze and fresh paint glistened from canvases on the wall. Gareth leaned in to check a drying drip of colour, seeing if he should flip the canvas around. Satisfied with gravity’s work, he left everything to rest while we settled into our conversation. Originally from London, Gareth Edwards moved to Cornwall […]
Content Quiz: CBA Content’s Ultimate Tool for Refocusing Your Digital Strategy
With countless marketing channels at our fingertips — many of them free or inexpensive to use — it can be difficult to keep your content strategy focused and effective. Blogs, email marketing, social media: how do we cut down on digital noise and create meaningful content that connects with like-minded people? That’s where our Content […]
Out With The Old, In With The New: Autumn-Inspired Business Guide
As the color palette changes outside, as the mornings get brisk and the nights draw in earlier, we begin to feel her presence in the air — Mother Nature’s wise and graceful daughter is on her way. Autumn nudges us to button up our cardigans and relish the cozy bookworms’ season. She comes bearing gifts: […]
How Creators Create: A Q&A With Ceramicist and Digital Business Owner Anne McCrossan
Walking up to Anne McCrossan’s pottery studio at Gaolyard Studios, I am greeted by the excited tail-wagging Tufty, Anne’s adorable and affectionate companion. After settling in, Anne confirmed my suspicions about her studio: we were sitting in what once was a prison cell (“gaol” is the old English spelling of “jail”). Despite the eerie history […]
Witchcraft and Wizardry: Value-Based Marketing Lessons from Hogwarts
Do you believe in the magic of marketing? Whether you’re a Witch, Wizard, or a Muggle, with your acceptance letter or without, welcome aboard the Hogwarts Express! In this blog post, we’re visiting the most famous school of magic to teach you how to create enchanting content, put a spell on your audience, and charm […]
How Creators Create: A Q&A With Cornish Artist Jason Lilley
To talk with Jason Lilley about his art and passion for observing and recording the world around him is to understand that there is much more to painting than meets the eye. Beginning with his mother’s artistic ability and encouragement, Jason’s creative path, like his paintings, has been anything but linear or one-dimensional. His story […]
E-volve: 3 Content-Driven Ways Your Museum Can Grow Online
We’ll play Captain Obvious for a second and say what’s on many museum workers’ minds: there is no stopping the rapid evolution of the digital world and our marketing strategies need to keep up. We know it can be overwhelming and discouraging at times so today we’re stripping what we know down to three essential […]
Swing Into Marketing: Creative Campaigns, Original Strategies, and All That Jazz
It don’t mean a thing, if it ain’t got that swing! Today we are drawing upon the wisdom of JAZZ. Considered the first American art form, jazz originated in New Orleans, Louisiana, among African-American communities in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It then gave the roar to the roaring 20s and birthed R’n’B […]
How Creators Create: A Q&A With Abstract Artist Shelley Thornton
Attracted by the vibrant light and beauty of St Ives, Shelley Thornton moved down to the Cornish coast to raise her children and pursue her passion for painting. Today she is known for her abstract and geometric style along with the use of bold colours and textured paste. Recently, we had the privilege to sit […]
By the Book: 4 Ways Libraries Can Improve Your Social Media Strategy
A library, which can be a museum or an art gallery in itself, is a goldmine for inspiration and storytelling ideas. As an owner or a manager of a cultural space, in a library, you may find reflections of your own artifacts and artists, and connect the dots between your creative organization and its history, […]
Fear Your Content Nevermore: Edgar Allan Poe on the Unity of Effect in Brand Storytelling
Artists and marketers unite! Unite in the unity of effect. Sounds mysterious? It’s because today’s wisdom comes from the one and only Edgar Allan Poe – the architect of the gothic tale, the father of the horror genre, the progenitor of early science fiction and detective story, and the master of the macabre. With his […]
Halloween Marketing Guide: Grave Mistakes and Spooky Good Advice
Imagine you’re a witch brewing a potion. It’s perking and bubbling in your cauldron, you keep adding bat wings and spider legs, whatever deemed worthy lands in the mixture. Since losing your grimoire some 90 years ago you’ve been pretty much winging your recipes. Sure, the potions’ potency has diminished and they lack in taste […]
The Art of Social Media Marketing: 5 Successful Museum Campaigns To Help You Create a Sensation Online
Social media moves faster than you can blink – so it can be hard to keep up with what you should, or should not, be posting. Heightened by the pandemic, social media as a channel of engagement has become more important than ever for creating and maintaining an invested audience. However, it can feel like […]
CBA Content is Looking for a Freelance Content Creator to Join the Team
Are you a writer and creative thinker with a passion for telling stories and making meaningful connections? Do you love museums and exploring the diverse cultural heritage all around us? If this sounds like you or someone you know, then read on for an exciting opportunity to join me, Celeste, the director at CBA Content! […]
5 Hashtags Creating a Buzz in the Museum and Heritage Community (and How To Start Your Own)
Hashtags are like puzzle pieces – they represent a small part of a bigger picture, idea or conversation. Each hashtag has its own shape and fits together to create a coherent message. Used across social media – on Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest – hashtags are an effective way to bring like-minded people together. They lead discussions, […]
How to Attract Visitors to Your Website – and Keep Them Coming Back (An Illustrated Guide)
As an art gallery, museum or heritage centre, creating a website and online experience that attracts visitors – and keeps them coming back – is the ultimate goal. Though getting to that point doesn’t come without its challenges. All of your cultural centre’s objects, stories and resources might be racing through your mind right now […]
3 Ways to Put the Spotlight on Your Audience
Mardi Gras looks a lot different this year. Typically a weeks-long carnival celebrated in New Orleans from Twelfth Night to Fat Tuesday, Mardi Gras has effectively been cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic. If it weren’t for the city’s unwavering spirit and creative residents, the celebrations might have been completely thrown out the window. But […]
Christmas at Jane Austen’s House: A Most Wonderful Delight
Jane Austen’s historic home and museum in Chawton, Hampshire, became the centre of a tragic tale this year. Like many museums all over the world, the museum was forced to close in March due to the coronavirus pandemic. This meant the house where Jane Austen lived and wrote Pride and Prejudice, Emma, Sense and Sensibility […]
How to Make Giving a Core Part of Your Mission
Thanksgiving has a beautiful way of slowing us down and helping us see all that we have to be thankful for. This year in particular, when it feels like so much has been taken away, it’s important to focus on what you do have and what you can still give to others. Giving not just […]
Behind the Scenes at CBA Content: Autumn 2020
A lot has been going on here at CBA Content. We might not be able to meet in the office or go on cultural days out as we had planned, but we’ve certainly been hard at work creating some awesome content from home. Since it’s been a while since our last update, we thought it […]
Experiencing Art and Culture in Lockdown: What’s Changed and How Will We Adapt?
Before lockdown, we might have filled our Saturday afternoons with a trip to a museum after brunch with friends, ending the day in a South Kensington pub to discuss the exhibition we’d seen. Now the galleries, museums, cafes, pubs, and other weekend hangout spots are closed due to COVID-19, we’ve had to make our own […]
Get Creative and Stay Connected During Lockdown
As we find new ways to connect with our community and adjust to this ‘new normal’, it’s difficult to know how we should be offering to help. Like always, we want to provide solutions and make it easier for people to reach their goals. Only today these problems and goals look a lot different. Now, […]
3 Simple Ways to Check In With Yourself and Your Community During the Coronavirus Crisis
As the world continues to fight the coronavirus outbreak, we find ourselves adapting to new ways of life and work. Our routines look vastly different, the economy has plunged and uncertainty looms overhead. It’s certainly not business as usual, so how do we carry on? With this new space between us and our friends, coworkers […]
New Year, New Directions: CBA Content in 2020
A new year means unmarked pages waiting to be filled with exploring, learning, growing and creating. It also represents a fresh and refocused start – a time to reflect, set goals and channel positive energy into the next phase of the business. At the end of 2019, we kickstarted our reflections and ran a series […]
A Summer of Content Adventures and Sunny Outlooks
It’s the last Friday of August and the start of Labor Day weekend in the US – the perfect time to look back on summer and ahead to the fall. These past three months have been full of travel and content adventures. Both uncovered new territory and CBA Content, in particular, benefitted from new collaborations […]
4 Illuminating Steps to Listening to Your Audience (and Learning to Speak Their Language)
Have you ever traveled to a foreign city without planning anything except your plane ticket? If you have, I bet you felt lost and a bit overwhelmed by all the decisions you had to make on the spot – directions, accommodation, activities, meals. Most likely though you did some research and planning ahead of time […]
The Magic of Matilda: How to Use Content to Help Others
“By the time she was two, Matilda had learned what most people learn in their early 30s: how to take care of herself.” Matilda (1996) I’ve always thought being able to take care of yourself is an achievement in its own right. So doing it while you’re learning to talk? That’s a superpower. Rewatching the […]
March of the Penguins: 3 Rituals to Enrich Your Client Relationships
Emperor penguins are extraordinary animals. For starters, they return to the same stretch of frozen water every winter to mate and give life to the next generation of penguins. In between finding a mate and nudging their chick onto the ice for the first time, they endure brutal weather elements (up to -60°C / -76°F), […]
A Bed & Breakfast Guide to Attracting New Visitors to Your Site
The sun was setting as we walked up to our bed and breakfast in Broadway, a charming village in the Cotswolds. Andy opened the door with a warm handshake and a smile, welcoming us inside so we could drop our bags before he gave us a tour of the house. Starting in the entranceway, he gave […]
The Crystal Ball of CBA Content: 5 Bright Visions
It’s only natural, or supernatural rather, to look at the year ahead each January. In the past, I kept my goals largely to myself, but now that I’m fully responsible for the direction and success of my work life, I’ve decided to spend some time reflecting on the past year and set goals for this […]
Why French Cuisine is Good for Content Marketing
“[T]hey know what to do with every scrap of hoof, snout, entrail, and skin … Because they grew up with that all-important dictum. Use everything! (And use it well.)” This is how Anthony Bourdain describes the French style of cooking in his book, A Cook’s Tour. I picked up his collection of food and travel tales before […]
How Creators Create: A Plastic Surgeon’s Love of Pottery
He credits his early creative drive to spending three years in kindergarten — the advantage of being grouped together with his older brother — and his later breakthroughs in breast reconstruction, he believes were due in part to specializing in a more creative field of medicine: plastic surgery. Given his background, pottery seems to be […]
12 Summertime Workspaces Bound to Give You Digital Nomad Envy
The air is warm, the breeze is welcome and the backdrop, spectacular — a scene fit for a seasoned digital nomad. Even though I can’t say I’m one of them (well, not near the extent of the remote workers below), I have always believed that a change in scenery has the power to inspire and […]
3 Ways Mary Poppins Can Magically Boost Your Business
“If you want this choice position Have a cheery disposition Rosy cheeks, no warts! Play games, all sort” Does that bring back any childhood memories? Luckily for Jane and Michael Banks, the qualifications set out in their Perfect Nanny advertisement brought Mary Poppins down from her cloud and into their playroom. A little magic could’ve had […]
How to Grow Your Content Strategy Like Lavender
Walking through lavender fields in south London last weekend, I was filled with happiness. The beauty, the sight, the smell was all a delight. This new experience wandering through rows of lavender got me thinking — is it possible to give your audience a similarly positive experience through content? Turns out, yes it is. Lavender […]
For the Love of London: What This Content Creation Venture Has Taught Me So Far
Keep laundry and other chores on Sundays. Set alarm clock (and get up) on weekdays. Grab a newspaper from the tube station every day. This sounds more like personal to-dos than work ones, doesn’t it? That’s because ever since I decided to go it alone and start my own content creation business, I’ve had to […]
The Royal Wedding’s Guide to Bonding With Your Readers
“She looked back at us!” “We totally made eye contact!” That’s pretty much how it went (times 100) after Meghan Markle and Prince Harry rode past my friend and me during their wedding procession around Windsor. We felt a real connection with Meghan, especially after seeing the personal and modern touches she put on the […]
The Simple Art of Differentiating Yourself (and Attracting an Audience)
One of the first things you see when you exit the train station in Bath, Somerset, is an iconic British telephone booth filled with flowers. I’ve seen lots of red telephone booths, some lined with books inside, others vandalized and reeking of urine, but never filled with purple primroses and intertwining ivy. I took a […]
3 Meaningful Ways to Connect with Your Online Community
We had 30 minutes to kill before the next bus to Chatsworth, so we started making our way to a coffee shop around the corner. Before going in, I noticed a man in a big green coat and checkered Sherlock Holmes hat talking to my boyfriend. He had just arrived from Baslow, a town over, […]