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Public relations pros who don’t embrace content marketing risk going the way of the typewriter.
PR has traditionally specialized in development of stories for pitching to journalists. The deterioration of traditional print publications and reduction in the number of journalists makes traditional media placements more difficult – and problematic. Fewer publications and fewer journalists mean fewer story placements with fewer consumers and business decision-makers reading the stories. That may reduce the value of PR’s media relations activities, but it certainly doesn’t herald the demise of public relations.
Enter content marketing – the function of developing and placing stories about corporations, brands, and products directly into online content aggregation services without a journalist serving as interlocutor and editor. First developed as a method to improve search engine optimization (SEO), content marketing has evolved into a primary business communications technique to educate consumers, deliver corporate or brand messages, develop leads, and accomplish any number of other business goals.
Content Marketing: Natural Extension of PR
Content marketing has become a fully-accepted way to publicize companies, brands and issues. It’s a natural extension of the traditional public relations function. Content marketing is PR evolved into digital media with greater emphasis on visuals and multimedia communications.
Thousands of websites now accept guest posts and publish articles written by individuals associated with businesses or other organizations. Some sites, like Huffington Post, Business2Community and LinkedIn Pulse, have gained enormous influence because of their large readership. Videos developed by businesses often attract massive viewership on YouTube and other video sharing sites. Many social media networks, including Facebook and Twitter, provide tools to promote content placed on other websites. With high traffic on content sites and the ability to promote that online content, content marketing has achieved many successes.
That success may be content marketing’s disadvantage. Everybody’s doing it. The Content Marketing Institute reports that 86% of B2B marketers and 77% of B2C marketers pursue content marketing as a strategy. Much of that content is still penned by SEO specialists to improve search engine results for the client’s keywords. Content developed for SEO purposes often suffers from lack of substance and lower quality of writing. Content marketing produced by marketing communications specialists is often overly promotional.
PR Role in Content Marketing
PR pros have the necessary perspective and skills to develop effective content marketing strategies and to create substantive content that meets the needs of consumers and drives greater success in content marketing. The challenge for PR pros is to acquire a few specialized skills of content marketing.
Optimize for search engines. Websites and blogs obtain the bulk of their visitors through search engines, mostly Google. Every content marketing article should feature a small set of keywords that consumers or business decision-makers use to search for information on the topic. Content marketers start the process by identifying the top keywords or phrases through a tool like Google’s keyword planner and including those keywords in the article headline, first paragraph, and body copy. The selected key words or phrases should also be used in the hidden metatags such as the article description that search engines use to classify content.
Market the content. Simply creating content in a build-it-they-will-come belief is not enough. Successful content marketing calls for following through by marketing the content. The proliferation of online content makes that job more challenging and time consuming that ever. It may require employing all available means of content promotion, including repurposing content through different channels such blog posts, video, social media and newsletters. It also requires content promotion activities on social media networks including LinkedIn (for business products and services), Facebook, Twitter, and the visually-oriented social networks such as Pinterest and Instagram.
Build distribution networks. Rather than appealing to reporters, PR can now build their own distribution networks, effectively becoming their own publishers. Viewers can be earned through organic search results, website referral links and social media shares. Successful earned media placements require thinking like a publisher. In other words, publish consistently, offer quality content, and listen to reader feedback (now usually in the comments section at the end of the article).
Create value, not sales material. Content marketing is not promotion disguised as editorial content. In other words, content that’s perceived as marketing and sales hype will perform badly. Content that instructs and otherwise helps consumers and creates value is ultimately the more successful approach in gaining readership and building customer relationships.
When Content Marketing Doesn’t Improve SEO
One motivation for content marketing — but no longer the sole purpose — is improving your website’s ranking in search engine results. What do you do when content marketing fails to improve SEO? Derek Edmond, managing partner for KoMarketing Associates, provides some advice.
Re-evaluate your strategy. Specifically, look at the types of content being produced, posting frequency, social media activity and engagement, and competitive brand mentions, announcements. Take into account changes in search engine results. For instance, Google Shopping or Local results take up more space on search engine results.
Consider the competition. Changes in competitors’ content marketing and SEO, such as growth of their social media reach, may impact your search engine results. Check if competitors have acquired new marketing partnerships that can impact SEO. Tools are available to help analyze the competition. Twitter Counter tracks growth of competitors’ presence on Twitter. BuzzSumo’s free version provides an initial listing of competitors’ social media popularity. SEMrush can compare your social media engagement and other metrics to those of competitors.
Re-check competitive backlinks. Competitors may have launched a new link-building strategy, in addition to content marketing efforts, that has hurt your SEO. The Moz Open Site Explorer’s Just Discovered link report can reveal information on competitor’ new links and link-building strategies.
Bottom Line: PR has the proper perspective and skills to develop and implement a content marketing strategy. However, PR must master specialized content marketing techniques to be successful. That means learning about marketing content, implementing SEO tactics, and building owned media traffic.
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William J. Comcowich founded and served as CEO of CyberAlert LLC, the predecessor of Glean.info. He is currently serving as Interim CEO and member of the Board of Directors. Glean.info provides customized media monitoring, media measurement and analytics solutions across all types of traditional and social media.
No doubt, content marketing is best way to promote any website, business or brand online. But, mostly people are unable to writing a creative content but your tips are so useful for such people. I am also inspired from your suggestions and I think, your tips are practical and effective for us.