My friend Gini Dietrich (who we featured in our latest digital marketing blogs list) recently published a post sharing 10 content ideas.  But that’s not actually what I want to talk about today.

I caught this post via her Tweet on the subject, in which she said the post was “for all of you who write content.”

To which I responded: so, everyone then. Gini replied and noted that there are lots of people reading that run businesses, are in real estate, or other industries that “aren’t content related.”

Maybe it doesn’t appear that these people or companies are content related at face value. But in a world where every company is a media company, every business is content related. And that makes every passionate professional, marketer or otherwise, a content creator.

A lot of people pushed back on this concept which we touched on in a previous post titled: if your team hates blogging, you need a new team. Like it or not, that’s the world we live in. Besides, how can anyone hate to create content in a category they are involved in and have commitment to?

Adopting the publisher mindset provides a distinct advantage in the form of content, a currency that builds inbound traffic, helps establish authority, influence and trust as well as positions your company as a premium brand. Not to mention attracting talent, PR value, social shares, alleviating customer service requests, nurturing qualified leads, etc. The list goes on.

Of course, you don’t have to embrace a content-centric approach to the world. But others are going to: whether by known competitors or those you didn’t even consider competition seeking to dominate a category on the web.

Some additional thoughts about being content-centric from my own experiences getting brands to embrace this approach:

Your subject matter experts can speak from an insider perspective

I’ve not only helped countless brands create digital strategies over the years, I’ve worked hands-on with team members (including those outside the marketing areas of an organization) on developing a voice and creating content as part of their jobs. And time and time again, we see subject matter experts providing the highest quality ideas that organically resonate with insiders. Your marketing team members certainly can make this content web-friendlier, but don’t ignore the power of insiders to create content (and, ideally making content a part of their daily process). The right subject matter expert can be as valuable as an entire PR firm.

Don’t just think in terms of blog posts: content could be video, forum discussions, you name it – create, then optimize / re-purpose

Match the appropriate medium to the individual. For example, I previously worked with a CMO who we were never able to get to write a single word of a blog post. We tried video which he was equally reticent against creating with frequency. Then we tried podcasting, which he loved. We couldn’t get him to stop. But we didn’t stop there, we had the audio transcribed, optimized, paired with an image and turned into blog posts. This also accomplished our text-based goals for thought leadership. Get creative with this and extend the life / reach across platforms with what you do get created.

Those with the most passion for what they do participate in industry discussions

Many of my peers (digital natives) who grew up to be business leaders live at the top of  Jacob Nielsen’s participation inequality pyramid. The ones who really cared about what they’re doing were meta-cognitive about their category and created content surrounding it. It was just a natural extension of our lives, so it wasn’t something we thought we “had to do,” we simply did it. It was a joy, not a chore. Find and tap those with passion and content starts to be seen as something they “get to do” vs. “have to do.”

If you’re embracing the notion that every company is a media company, all your team members are media producers (aka content creators)

Limiting content creation to marketing or PR is shortsighted. Sure, one department can own it, but it should also be shared throughout the organization. There is a huge competitive advantage for everyone from customer service, to engineering departments, to the leadership teams creating content. Brands who socialize content creation internally and make it a part of everyone’s job description, whether that job traditionally involved creating content or not, are far better positioned to win their niche.

Educate your clients / company: the captive audience is dead, in a fragmented media world quality content isn’t a “nice to have” …it’s a requirement

No one has a monopoly on attention anymore. And in a world where the captive audience is dead, content is advertising (and advertising is content) as Mike Masnick likes to say. Embrace this notion and flip your communications so quality, valuable content is produced consistently (by marketing and beyond) and you’ll be far better positioned to build an opt-in audience who wants to hear your messages.

If you don’t think you can become content-centric, you’re probably right. You have to want to. But for those who want to it’s entirely possible. Here are some ideas if you think you’re too busy (you’re likely not, you only think it).

I actually think Gini and I are on the same page about this stuff, but I get it, priorities, priorities – perhaps content isn’t at the top of your list. With that said, my personal opinion is this stuff isn’t optional: this is the new world we live in and it’s (past) time to adapt.

image credit: Shutterstock

Get Content-Centric, Or Be Disrupted In Search And Social is from The Future Buzz, a Blog Covering Digital Marketing

The web (and marketers in particular) continue to obsess over real-time. It is put on a pedestal by many who fall victim to the trap that they have to see everything new, now or that is only way web communities work.

Of course, this isn’t accurate. Smart professionals across industries I speak with frequently timeshift the real-time web, as they understand the high cost of now.

In many cases real-time is important. Conversations, breaking news and information which provides a significant enough advantage to get sooner is worth playing at the edge to get. It’s even fun.

But in just focusing on what’s new, now, many have forgotten (or in some cases never understood at all) the value of archival, authoritative, and useful content. Or “pillar content” as some call it.

With that said, today I was thinking how some may need a few reminders about the importance of high value archival content:

Some of the most popular sites on the web thrive on archives

Sites like Wikipedia, eHow, Quroa, even YouTube thrive on their archives. It’s not just that this content is found via users seeking something specific in a search engine. That’s extremely important on its own. But beyond that, when discovered, this content is frequently re-shared back into user’s streams as if it’s new, or to provide context into a conversation happening now. The point is this content has a lot of value. But if you’re not vesting the effort to publish and optimize, you can’t tap into it.

High trafficked pages = organic community funnels

If you have high trafficked, archived pages which receive 5,000, 10,000 or even 50,000 organic visitors per month (all possible) a certain percentage will opt in to receive your next updates if (the pages are) optimized for that outcome. Due to the nature of this type of content, it will naturally grow an opt-in community. Now the next time you have something new to share you have expectations will replicate in the petri dish of real-time, you’ll have more activated, interested users taking action. Developing high trafficked pages on your own site is one of the smartest yet ignored tactics on the web today. More social platforms only amplify what should already be a bread and butter tactic in the toolbox of every marketer.

Modern media companies build on their narratives through archives

An extremely frustrating thing for me as a user (and blogger) is when a media company removes a page I’ve linked to without any explanation. It happens again and again, but it’s almost always done by traditional media companies such as newspapers or magazines. They’re not digital first. It makes no sense as these brands are losing link equity and also frustrating me as a user. I have a hard time justifying linking to them again as I think they may take it down. Modern media companies don’t do this, they see their archives as high value from an inbound traffic standpoint. They also understand the opportunity to build on those narratives by updating the page with links to new stories on the subject, highlighting them in future round-ups or otherwise re-imagining that content.

Archival content might not be “sexy” to some, but generates incremental results

Many marketing and PR people like “sexy” ideas. I use the term in quotes as at one point many thought websites with long flash intros were cool (no one else actually thought this except the person creating them). Building up a useful and threaded archives helps your brand build incremental results across search and social (if executed properly). It allows you to bridge the past with the future and provide context for real-time, helping establish trust and leadership. Of course, this is hard work which is why many don’t see this type of content as “sexy.” Maybe it’s not. But it creates a platform where you can generate buzz for creative ideas while also owning your category bit by bit.

Again, I am not denigrating the advantage of being first with information or attempting to win the day’s attention by living at the edge of the stream. There is a ton of opportunity there as smart communications pros like David Meerman Scott point out. But in tandem, work to build assets which have archival value and are a reference point for the rest of the web long term.

image credit: Shutterstock

The Forgotten Value Of Archival Content is from The Future Buzz, a Blog Covering Digital Marketing

The following is a guest post by Jonathan Rick. If you’d like to contribute thinking here, please read the guidelines.

Chris Abraham recently published a case study on the “art of writing the perfect blogger pitch.” There’s a lot to like here. For one, the time and thought Chris and his team devote to this esoterica are rare. For another, spilling your trade secrets takes guts.

And yet, for a purportedly “perfect” pitch, the Abraham Harrison technique and approach leave much to be desired. Here’s why in web-friendly fashion, via a list with headings:

1.  Spam. In a classic act of burying the lead, Chris notes, “We reach out cold to upwards of 5,000 bloggers at a time.” This is perhaps the most disappointing aspect of Chris’s technique. After all, anyone can subscribe to a database such as Vocus or Cision, select key audiences and areas, compile a media list, and blast out a pitch. Industry insiders call this the “spray and pray” technique. Others know it as a form letter. The bottom line: it’s spam.

By contrast, another technique is to craft individual messages to specific bloggers. Take it away, Lisa Barone: “You know you’re sending the same e-mail to 20 people. I know you’re sending the same e-mail to 20 people. But sometimes you gotta fake it to make me feel special and pretty … Woo me … Talk about how you grew up in the same hometown (only if you really did). Comment on a post I wrote that gave you a bad case of the giggles, or how you think my Twitter feed should come with an NC-17 rating … I’ll be a lot more receptive once you’ve” connected with me personally.

2. WITFM. The best PR makes it appear as if you’re doing a favor for the person you’re pitching, letting him in on something important and intriguing. By contrast, Chris makes it clear that he’s the one requesting a favor: “If you are able to post about this issue in any form, it would really help spread the message of homelessness in its many diverse forms and maybe suggest ways to help improve many lives.”

Leave the guilt trips for Willy Loman. Instead, demonstrate the WITFM—“what’s in it for me?” To wit, don’t tell me why homelessness matters; tell me why my readers will care about it.

3. Subject line. Everyone agrees that your subject line is critical, so it’s surprising that Chris’s—“November Is National Homelessness Month”—is so boring. (As a colleague puts it, “It’s about as ‘perfect’ as an event notice whose headline reads, ‘Mark Your Calendars.’”)

To be sure, Chris seems to think this is a virtue; he explains, “We want [our subject lines] to be as neutral and as informational as possible. Teasing or tricking a blogger into opening [the e-mail] by being cute, mysterious, or clever … has almost always blown up in our faces.”

This is myopic: you need not sacrifice cleverness to be straightforward. While “Help Feed Homeless Children!” may be exploitative, a line like “What Are You Doing for National Homelessness Month?” is catchy without being too cute.

4. Intro. Chris refers to his opening paragraph as “poetry,” labored over by a team of three. But again, his copy is a snooze-fest:

“November is National Homelessness Month and I’m reaching out to you to discuss the issue of homelessness in America. I’m also hoping that you’ll discuss this issue with the readers of <<Blog Name>>. I am a volunteer at a small kitchen for the homeless in DC and while working there it occurred to me that this issue affects every town, village, and city in America.

This is the best a powerhouse like Abraham Harrison can do? Sure, it’s clear, but it’s nothing special, and it’s hardly inspiring. Indeed, not only does it lack cadence and cohesion; it also lacks commas.

5. Astroturfing. For each campaign, Chris creates a new e-mail address with its own domain. In this case, he’s using cjabraham@MiriamsKitchenNews.org, which is separate from the “real” Miriam’s Kitchen domain,MiriamsKitchen.org. This is problematic for various reasons.

a. Let’s give Chris the benefit of the doubt and assume that “bloggers don’t trust PR firms.” This is why his signature says “on behalf of Miriam’s Kitchen,” rather than Abraham Harrison. Yet there’s no getting around the fact that masking your employer is deceptive.

By contrast, consider the total-transparency approach taken by New Media Strategies: when its employees do something as simple as retweet something from a client, they’re required to use the hash tag “#client.” Ultimately, shying away from full disclosure only gives the PR industry a bad rep.

b. Given a limited budget and limited time, creating and managing a new e-mail address domain is a poor allocation of resources.

c. In this case, Abraham Harrison created an entire microsite at http://MiriamsKitchenNews.org (microsites, by the way, are a mistake). But, again, most campaigns can’t afford this expenditure, so what happens then? Do you leaveMiriamsKitchenNews.org empty? Do you redirect it to your own firm’s site? Do you throw up a simple landing page that repurposes your pitch e-mail?

d. What happens if, six months from now, someone you contacted replies? (We’ve all received one of these e-mails.) If you’re not still checking cjabraham@miriamskitchennews.org, does the sender get a bounce-back or an auto-reply? Or nothing? If you are still checking cjabraham@miriamskitchennews.org, given that you’re creating a new address for each campaign, I envy your endurance in monitoring what must be dozens of addresses. And to complicate matters further, what do you do with these addresses when your contract with the given client expires?

6. URLs. Chris deliberately omits the “http://” prefix in links; he says that e-mail clients will auto-activate incomplete URLs. While Gmail is sophisticated enough to do this, many other e-mail clients are not. This inability is especially damaging when a message arrives in plain text, which is the only form Chris sends.

Not many people will gladly share 3,000 words on the subject of e-mail communications. For that, Chris deserves gratitude and respect.

He also offers important insights, especially the one that a good pitch will spark a conversation. In that spirit, he’s agreed to respond to my critique.

So, Chris, over to you (and to The Future Buzz community). How can two pros who’ve been working with bloggers for so long reach such divergent conclusion?

Jonathan Rick is the CEO of the Jonathan Rick Group, a digital communications agency in Arlington, Va. He tweets @jrick.

image credit: Aspen Photo / Shutterstock.com

With PR Pros Like This, Who Needs Amateurs? is from The Future Buzz, a Blog Covering Digital Marketing

Surprisingly, a decent portion of this site’s community is made up of those new to the marketing and PR industry. I say surprisingly, as we tend to cover subjects from an insider perspective and with a lot of opinion.

We’re not like HubSpot or Social Media Examiner who cater to marketing newbies with lots of 101-type content.

With that said, we get a lot of pings from students and those just starting in the marketing industry seeking advice. I’ve done so in the past, but as the question is recurring I wanted to add some fresh perspective from others to help all our readers.

After all, it has never been a more exciting time to be a communications professional but at the same time increasingly competitive.

So I asked some friends to answer the question: if you could offer 1 piece of advice for new marketing professionals entering the industry in 2012, what would it be?

Their responses follow:

Rand Fishkin, CEO & co-founder of SEOmoz

Enter the world of digital marketing with an entrepreneurial focus. Marketers in the web world need to be CEOs of their job, creative in their pursuits and their execution and charismatic in their abilities to persuade others in their organization (or their clients’ orgs) to enable success. Barriers of ignorance, resistance to change and constant shifts in the landscape and best practices will throw up daunting walls. An entrepreneurial focus is your only hope to defeat these challenges.

Stay hungry. Remember that “no” simply means “find another way.” And maintain a passion for progress.

Peter Kim, Chief Strategy Officer at Dachis Group

Be prolific in participation. More people are creating more content in more channels that change more rapidly than ever before, so it takes a lot of writing, responding, and engaging to succeed in today’s environment.

Joe Chernov, VP of Content Marketing for Eloqua

Prove to me you have sound judgement. Anyone can learn tools and processes, but judgement can’t be taught. As blogs and social networks turn every employee into a company spokesperson, official or otherwise, I want to know that you are in control not only of the medium, but the message as well.

Mitch Joel, President of Twist Image

Box in your weight class – understand both your limitations and your capabilities. It’s easy to present compelling content and add values without chest beating. Take the time to learn and grow but always remember that experience comes not from ideas and creativity but from the years of hard work putting programs into market that gain traction.

Daniel Scocco, web entrepreneur and blogger

Always create win-win-win situations. Suppose you were hired to promote the latest model of an auto maker. The traditional PR approach would be to create a press release and to email it to all the owners of sites and blogs related to cars. However, the buzz such a campaign would generate was likely to be small, because only two parts would have something to win out of it: you and your client. The site and blog owners were left out of the equation. What if instead your launched an online contest where the 10 most creative reviews about the car would get featured on the website of the auto maker? This would create a win-win-win situation, and the result would be a much more effective and broad marketing campaign.

John Boitnott, VP of Business Development at Hasai

OK so here’s what might happen to you in 2012 (It might have happened to you already).

You see a news post telling you that “‘Fill in the blank’ social network is now among the Top 10 drivers of referral traffic.” Then you realize you haven’t heard of the network in question.

Advice: Don’t be hard on yourself when this happens. Check out the site, learn what it’s about, and think about how to increase your presence there or even use it to drive traffic to your site. Pinterest and Tumblr, among many others, come to mind here. [The online landscape is moving so fast now that it's a full-time job just keeping up with what's happening each day.]

TL:DR – Don’t be afraid or ashamed to pivot, pivot and pivot again. Stick to your guns as much as possible but be ready to move on or add new platforms to your marketing efforts.

Gini Dietrich, CEO at Arment Dietrich

If the companies you want to work for are on social media, connect with them there and get to know them. Because we’re in the communication business, we won’t even entertain your resume if you haven’t first networked with us online.

Ian Lurie, CEO at Portent Interactive

Learn to manage your time! You’re going to be deluged with requests, ideas, tools, demos and who-knows-what-else. You need to be able to stay focused. If you can’t you’re going to spend a lot of time doing very little. That’s the single biggest cause of burnout in our industry.

Valeria Maltoni, Principal, Conversation Agent LLC

1. Focus on writing copy that is specific, fresh, and uses clear language to convey messages in many kinds of media and is appropriate to the audience and circumstance it addresses.
2. Learn to listen actively and aggressively and from the point of view of the many (more) audiences you need to serve.
3. Understand how to analyze data to spot trends, find opportunities for your clients, and ask better questions.

Steve Farnsworth, Chief Digital Marketing Officer at Jolt Social Media

“Marketing automation is the way of the future, and it’s here now. It will have a deep and lasting impact on all marketing professionals over the next five years. Understanding what it is, and how the metrics of what you do affect the marketing and sales alignment is imperative to finding and keeping a growth job in this new reality. “

Corbet Barr, blogger and web entrepreneur

Consider your ultimate goals and make decisions that support your long-term strategy. Are you trying to drive clicks and make more sales, or are you trying to connect with humans, impact lives and create a better world? Pursuing one of these sets of goals will make the other easier to accomplish, but the reverse isn’t necessarily true. Choose wisely.

Tamar Weinberg, digital and social media strategist

Dedicate someone to your marketing initiatives, especially if you are just joining and want to put a lot of emphasis on social media. In 2007, when social media was in its infancy, it was easy to get enmeshed in the culture and become well-respected. In 2012, you’re competing with millions of others who saw gold and came chasing after it. You need to be truly dedicated to online marketing in order to see success, and you need to give of yourself because trust is just so hard to achieve if you don’t truly invest yourself and give it your all.

The comments are yours: what piece of advice would you add for new marketers entering the industry this year?

image credit: Shutterstock

*Disclosure: I have provided consulting for Eloqua, mentioned in this post.

12 Industry Leaders Share Advice For Marketers Starting Out In 2012 is from The Future Buzz, a Blog Covering Digital Marketing

For many marketers, shiny object syndrome is a way of life. They just can’t help it, as they don’t have the focus to adopt and use technologies long term as part of a process. Instead, they flirt from trend to trend hoping the next will be their savior.

Of course while shiny object syndrome is not likely to achieve any real results,  experimenting within the framework of a strategy does make sense. But there is a difference between a skunkworks project that aligns with a strategy and executing a tactic merely because it’s trendy. I think for brands, application development for specific platforms falls into the latter.

Maybe we will get to a day when every brand, regardless of what products or services they offer, needs an app for each platform. Maybe the day will come consumers will be willing and excited to install an application from every company because companies actually create apps that are useful, interesting, and necessary. But that day isn’t here yet.

Following are some thoughts for brands who are not native technology companies and considering developing an  app for a specific platform:

Mobile is huge, but it’s the icing on the cake of a solid digital strategy

Convergence devices have been here for years, but they’ve finally been adopted outside of geeks and tech savvy professionals by a more general consumer audience. This is great news but it doesn’t immediately mean to drop everything and develop an app because you can. You need a solid digital strategy in place first and your app needs to play into it. An app is very tactical for brands where the app itself is not core to your business, it needs to fit within a larger framework.

It’s flash websites all over again: no “so what” factor

Brands developing apps to me feels a lot like the adoption of useless and obnoxious Flash websites years ago. In the same way you used to go to a brand’s flash website once, play around and be done (if you ever went at all) it’s the same thing with an app. In both cases there was no utility — all style and no substance.

Don’t be fooled: developing a good app isn’t cheap or easy

A lot of brands seem to think having an application is somehow enough. That no matter what it is, “if you built it, they will come.” Of course this is ridiculous, there already exists a long tail of applications to solve many issues. So brands, do your research and see what already exists: you’re in no position to compete if there is an entire company focused on developing and iterating an app in your category, and you’re just building one for marketing purposes. You’ll never win.

A mobile-optimized version of your site / distribution of content may  be enough

An app might not even be necessary for you: perhaps simply a solid mobile version of your site / blog, as well as content distribution and promotion through mobile-friendly platforms is sufficient. Even if you can get people to install your app, you may be diluting yourself to thinking users are going to open it every day (whereas they may open Twitter, Reddit or other apps daily). Especially for brands who don’t produce software. Just because so many have app frenzy doesn’t mean you need to fall into it – think through the use case carefully. Building an app just to build an app is silly.

(Most) Facebook / social apps: hilariously bad, potentially hurting your brand

So many brands have created utterly useless Facebook applications. In many cases, they’ve paid a development firm to create something, launched it, and thought it some magical solution to their social strategy. In reality most branded Facebook apps (as one example of social apps) are a joke and nearly total waste of resources. Many of the brands doing this don’t even properly nurture a community in Facebook using their native business pages which are already powerful. It’s easier for them to throw money at someone to build an app and think they’re done (instead of actually getting social with their customers).

So many are crazed over apps, but most brands and marketers need a reality check and to think critically about what they’re doing here. When there is so much companies already get wrong with digital marketing, building an app is actually the last thing many marketers should be thinking about.

image credit: Shutterstock

The App Fallacy is from The Future Buzz, a Blog Covering Digital Marketing