All brands should start to act like publishers.
— Every consultant
No doubt you’ll have heard that brands need to start to act like publishers. And I am as guilty as the next person/consultant of using this concept – but I do so advisedly. You see, many moons ago, I worked in publishing. And now I don’t. In fact, many people have started their careers in some form of publishing and have either been forcibly ejected from the industry through some form of disruptive change, or they exited strategically to reinvent themselves.
But the plain fact is that publishing is in decline.
However, knowledge of publishing has never been more necessary.
Good publishers have known forever that their best asset is their audience – and that strong writing, creative and content is what attracts that audience. Many businesses, from startups to enterprises, think that “content marketing” is simply a function of production – that you just need to feed the various channels so that you can cover all your needs. But this is 20th Century thinking. It’s broadcast masquerading as social media.
To be heard in a noisy, always-connected world, you need to be relevant. And that requires some rethinking around your content strategy.
Luckily, the folks from Velocity Partners have done the hard work of distilling this challenge into six key principles:
- Be the buyer (ie know your customer)
- Be authoritative (ie know what you are talking about)
- Be strategic (ie connect the dots for your customers)
- Be prolific (ie produce regular, reliable, quality content)
- Be passionate (ie have a point of view)
- Be tough on yourself (ie make an effort to produce good work)
In addition I would add a final point to this – buddy-up. Most of us are not geared towards producing enough content – let alone producing enough QUALITY content. This means partnering. It’s worth experimenting and collaborating to find a team that is right for you. After all, you’re building a great content brand, right, not just factory farming content?