Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

Corporate blogging is not an either-or dilemma. There’s a way to have your cake and eat it too: you can write your own blog yet not have to spend hours or days on it...

 

... You’re a busy CEO wearing many hats and with not enough hours in the day. As the founder of a small business startup, you know that writing your own thought-leadership blog will bring fresh content, a leadership perspective, greater transparency and more customers to your door.

 

But, as with most decisions you make, you have to decide whether to write your own blog or to outsource it. Writing it yourself requires massive amounts of time – time that you can better spend working on your core talents to move the business forward. Outsourcing your blog to a ghost writer may result in loss of authenticity – how would your customers feel when they find out you don’t write your own blog?...

A brand story is made up of all that you are and all that you do. From the company’s history, mission, inspiration, goals, audience, and raison d’être, it’s why you exist. Your story is the people, places, and ideas that your company thrives on. It’s the foundation that keeps a brand going and growing. It’s a blend of those vital little core pieces of information about your business — how you came to be, why your products or services are special, what you’re passionate about, your company culture, how you make people’s lives better, and why you would do business with your company.

Brand stories can be told in many different forms, with an evolving story line and cast of characters, but content creators must be vigilant about continuity and consistency, avoiding any holes. Your brand’s story has to resonate with people at a level that goes way beyond what’s tangible — the functionality, features, and benefits of your products or services — to create a deep, emotional connection with your audience. You have to create something that they want to be a part of and show that you really “get” who they are and what they need.

Here are a few basic questions to answer to help you pull your story out of its box

Drinking From the Content Marketing Fire Hose

As we launched the site, the iQ team started to work with a team of journalists and editorial partners, conducted editorial meetings and worked closely with the Intel social media team to amplify and extend iQ content. Before we knew it, we were beginning to operate a newsroom, managing a robust content machine and starting to see our goals for iQ come to fruition.

 

By end of 2012, iQ was emerging as an essential asset to Intel’s marketing and social media strategy. Although satisfied with the early success of iQ, we knew there were many improvements to be made. In January 2013, iQ version 1 (the current site) was released. Several new changes and strategies were implemented from our learnings since the BETA launch. So what have I learned about content marketing in the last 11 months? I’ve distilled the 12 core lessons for brand publishers organized by the tenets of the iQ content marketing approach; production, process and promotion....