The Future of Journalism: Content Marketing

A few weeks ago, a dear friend of mine sent me an email telling me that she had shared my coordinates with a journalist friend of hers who had been recently laid off.

She asked me if I would mind helping her friend explore career opportunities in corporate America. He was a Pulitzer finalist - so he can really write a report.

At the same time as layoffs are more and more frequent in newsrooms, corporate America is hurting for people who can write valuable content.

Many organizations may be holding off hiring at the moment, but this need is only going to increase for those companies that understand the value of content marketing to their bottom line.

News organizations and companies have the same kind of challenge, from a different point of view. They both hurt for people who are skilled at researching, writing and editing knock-your-socks-off, this-is-what-I-was-looking-for content.

While the news business is struggling to find a new revenue model, corporate America is seeing the increasingly diminishing returns of push marketing campaigns. Both news organizations and companies cannot afford not to employ people who are skilled at connecting with readers and customers.

There are a number of places where a great content creator can assist:

• Your company Web site - even if you forget SEO for a moment, which I'm sure you don't, ever. Web writing needs to be tight and to the point.

In fact, it needs to have the same structure of news articles. Start with the lead, tell me why I care. Then explain the lead a bit more by giving me something else that alone could complete the story. The first paragraph has all the data it needs to have to substantiate your claim. Then you close with the call to action. 

• Your news or press area of the site - as David Meerman Scott points out in this open letter to journalists, there are a number of companies that have or are in the process of creating a veritable newsroom on their site. Something very similar to what you'd find in the online property of a publication.

I have also been impressed by the News@Cisco area of the company's site. Cisco was also used by Todd Defren as an example of a company that got the structure of the social media release.

• Your content for internal and external communications - writing copy that can deliver information effectively and efficiently is no easy task. In this age where employees and customers are immersed in the social Web, it's also important not to write in gobbledygook. Instead, you want to use language that evokes authenticity and honesty.

Both qualities that engender credibility and trust. When you inform and educate, you energize and engage. Well-researched material can and does help you in the pre- and post-purchase situation to initiate and continue a dialogue with your customers.

Not all communications are created equal. Learning the mechanics of writing and communications is very important to get your message across. It takes a little and a lot more to influence people's behavior and attitude, to move customers to action.

Part objective presentation and exposition of facts, part point of view, the future of journalism may well be content marketing. Add to critical thinking a healthy dose of responsiveness to the needs of your customers and you have the starting point of a powerful recipe for success.

If the future of journalism is indeed content marketing, do journalists have all the skills they need to apply? What else would you recommend they learn and experiment with to succeed in a new career for companies? Do you have a friend who transitioned to copy writing? Maybe you have? How are you liking your new role?

[illustration by Robert Armstrong, companion to an article in the Sacramento NewsReview.com post titled Can we Afford the News? and dated April 2008]

Comments

[Bruce Christensen]

If some of these talented people would create a list of their knowledge specialties and then all join together in a directory, I bet they would have a lot of work come their way.

A network like Linkedin could provide the source directory for companies to browse for help in creating content.

[Jeff Hurt]

Yes, this sounds like a great direction for journalists. There are many small business owners who could use content creators and communicators to help them tell their stories, share their services and broadcast the right messages.

I have a communication/journalist friend who has been looking for a job for several months and I encouraged him to start a blog. He has such great writing and communication skills that I thought he should showcase those skills. He's gone one step further and started creating a group of writers who share similar interests and histories. He's still job hunting but people are beginning to see him as a leader.

Interesting how these times have created new tribes, new leaders, new strategies and new visions. Journalists unite!

[Mark Joyella]

Insightful post. The hurdle, in my experience, for a journo like myself to bring my writing and storytelling skills to marketing or anyplace outside a newsroom is that many "creative" companies are locked in rigid fill-in-the-blank thinking. PR companies hire PR people, not good writers. Marketing companies want to see your work as a marketing exec, not your brilliantly written story on a deep, difficult topic. They seem highly resistant to taking the (in my opinion) short leap from what they always do, to bringing in a trained analyst and writer whose very job has always been to figure out something new and explain it well to mass audiences.

I've had some frustrating interviews. In the meantime, like Bruce's journo friend, I blog.

Mark

[Karen Hegmann]

Valeria

Great post and I find Jeff's and Mark's comments to be interesting as well.

I'm in the opposite situation as Mark experience-wise in that I was trained as a marketer/communicator, but thrive as a business writer. A lot of communications positions state that they want someone with a journalism degree, but I don't always listen to what's advertised. If the duties are interesting and similar to what I've done before, I apply anyway.
I do agree that most companies are stuck with rigid thinking and tend to see things with "tunnel vision." It's unfortunate as the demands on people in today's workplace require a different kind of thinking. I believe that a good journalist could thrive in any environment as they have the skills needed to dig deep to find out what's relevent to a story. Unfortunately, many business owners don't see things from this point of view and they're missing out on hiring some really great people.

[Sloane Kelley]

I would also add audio and video skills to the content mix. Multimedia is super important these days. Coming out of broadcast journalism school, I was fortunate enough to fall into the world of content creation, where I still am today. Journalists, whether from a print or broadcast background, can bring a lot to the corporate table: in-depth research skills, an understanding of how to talk with people in a non-PR speak way, and a diverse mix of experiences and knowledge.

[Valeria Maltoni]

@Bruce - that is a terrific idea. I already mentioned it in conversations with a couple of journalists today.

@Jeff - imagine a bureau where you can hire journalists to help you with your content. When you get a chance, do pass along the information about your friend. I talk to a lot of people in a week...

@Mark - you're mostly right. But there are some leaders who actually do appreciate and support thinkers and writers. Sometimes it's hard to get to them through the "normal" or expected channels as they are surrounded by people whose job is to screen you out. Or at least they think it is. My suggestion is not to give up. Don't accept what others think your reality is. Create one for yourself. It may and will require you to go above and beyond, but that's why those who do the work succeed. They actually do it.

@Karen - cannot help companies that are stuck in a rut, they need to help themselves. Meanwhile, we can make the others thrive. It's my experience that we can never change anyone aside ourselves. And even that is pretty hard. The other disappointing discovery of corporate America is that there really is no appreciation for people with skills that differ from the manager's style. That's probably why a lot of work looks and feels cookie cutter.

@Sloane - excellent thought, thank you. Writing content for this blog over the (almost) part three years and curating a community, I can tell I learned a lot from the experience. I'm not quite organized to do videos and podcasts, yet, but it's a matter of time.

[Rob Leavitt]

Hi Valeria,

I agree that content marketing might be the future for a great many former and would-be journalists -- and smart companies should absolutely be looking aggressively these days to hire them.

But woe is us if this is literally the future of "journalism." I'm a big believer in news blogging, citizen journalism, and the like, but we desperately need to find ways to sustain serious, non-corporate-driven journalism that informs and educates us all on matters great and small -- and, not incidentally, "comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable," as the old saying goes. Content marketing won't do that, and we don't have to look far around the world to see the negative consequences of countries lacking a robust independent press.

[atul chatterjee]

I have friends who keep their job as writers in journalism (not editors) and provide content.
The main difference they find is that they have to be much sharper in their writing. They can't really give a story a good build up.
On the other hand most are quite happy with this situation since they say they do not have to add fluff.

[Valeria Maltoni]

@Rob - I wasn't being literal, no. It would indeed be a shame if the news business killed journalism. I think the most powerful form of information is reporting of what is happening and the facts surround it with the ability to present context so that informed citizens and democracies can form an opinion and act on the news. Should journalists take the matter into their own hands to discover and support that kind of journalism? Would we respond positively if we could see through the veils of interest that the business part of news is using as filter between us and the news? At this time we probably have many more questions than we have answers... good points all.

@Atul - I'm a bit lost in your comment. They need to be sharper in the writing of content for which purpose? News reporting?