The other day, thought leader David Meerman Scott wrote a blog post on Brand Journalism. To David, Brand Journalism is:
“the creation of Web content—videos, blog posts, photos, charts, graphs, essays, ebooks, white papers—that deliver value to your marketplace and serve to position your organization as one worthy of doing business with.”
David’s use of the term Brand Journalism is an interesting one. He doesn’t say “Corporate Marketing” or “Marketing Communications”. Why? Because journalists have a way of telling stories that people want to read – and if you’ve seen websites run by the traditional marketing department, you know exactly how boring they are.
Why Your Business Needs to Be in the Journalism Business
Look at the average corporate website. The content is created by the marketing communications department and is written with a thesaurus.
10 years ago, my marketing firms website would have read “we create a communications platform that enables your company to engage your users through faster technology, excellent service, and 25 man-years of internet marketing experience.”
That’s how the mission statement in most businesses read. Let me ask you this: When was the last time you went to a networking event, approached a fellow attendee and recited your mission statement? If your mission statement sounds like the one above – probably never. Why? Because it’s boring and doesn’t really mean a lot.
And that’s the secret: “Brand Journalism” FORCES companies to speak in a manner that is interesting to your prospective customers. Try blogging for a year using only corporate clichés and speaking only about your products and services. One of two things are going to happen.
- You will eventually run out of things to say.
- You will not have any readers except for your employees
Just like a journalist, you constantly need to find refreshing stories and points of view that your consumers want to read or watch or listen to.
We feel an emotional connection to certain journalists, be it Charlie Gibson, Dianne Sawyer, etc… because they constantly give us interesting stories to consume and think about. How many times do we hear the term “We allow them into our living rooms.” Be a journalist and have your customers invite you into their lives too.
{ 1 trackback }
{ 0 comments… add one now }