Monthly Archives: April 2010

Is B2B Ready for Corporate Journalism?

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Over the weekend, one of my blog posts from several months ago provoked a comment that was simply too good to let pass unnoticed. It spelled out the feelings of many journalists when faced with the prospect of going over to the dark side, as David Meerman Scott has put it, by writing directly for a sponsor. The commenter’s position was that by doing so, you are inevitably compromising the journalistic goal of telling the truth.

What adds heft to this view is its basis in experience. The commenter, Marylyn Donahue, is a former journalist who now makes a living writing for businesses. As Donahue sees it, there is a clear dichotomy between journalism and sponsored content. In journalism at its best, she asserts, the deliverable is truth. In sponsored content, the deliverable is the promotion of the sponsor’s point of view. Anything that might throw that point of view in doubt has to be left out, “even if it is true and even if it might help the reader understand something better.”

Though content marketing may try to mimic the balance of journalism, it’s an appearance, she says, not a reality:

“The real (ethical, if you will) problem with content-solution, custom publishing writing is that it is deeply dishonest to the reader. The reader is left not knowing what they don’t know. And the writer is complicit in making that happen. Why then does the writer do it? Because he or she is quite simply getting paid to tell it the way the client wants it to be told—no matter how “unbiased” it may come off sounding. (Good content solution writers are adept at balanced-sounding, but in fact one-sided pieces).”

It’s hard to argue against a position based on experience. But even if Donahue’s experience represents that of most or all crossover journalists, I wonder if it has to be that way. Does content marketing inherently compromise journalistic ideals ? Or does the problem lie with clients like Donahue’s, who don’t understand the point of brand journalism?

It’s clear, I think, that content marketing proponents would argue that this is a problem of implementation.  Take, for instance, Ike Pigott’s open letter to journalists on his blog earlier this month. He argues that journalists can in fact find “comfort in the belly of the beast” as what he calls “embedded” corporate journalists. Their purpose is emphatically not PR, he says: “People can smell marketing and propaganda coming around the corner, and they know when the pitches and puff pieces are missing that edge of neutrality.”

Helping to keep content marketing honest, says Pigott, will be the remaining independent journalists serving as editors and curators. “They will be the line of defense that says ‘This story from ACME stinks to high heaven, and I will blast them for their inaccuracy.’”

One embedded journalist, ex-IDG writer David Churbuck, agrees that corporate journalism is both possible and desirable. In a blog post several years ago, he described a corporate imperative to honor journalism’s passion for truth: “Organizations need to report upon themselves with the objective eye of a journalist, holding any statement or action up to the same skeptical, unconflicted scrutiny that an outsider would hold.”

This makes sense. But in practice, are businesses ready to adopt the practice of journalism so rigorously?

Rob Leavitt’s answer is a firm “maybe.” Reflecting on Pigott’s blog post, he thinks some companies will make the effort. But he’s not sure they’ll succeed:

“For now, B2B companies are mostly still struggling with how much to allow their own employees to go beyond strictures of message control and engage freely in social media and networks. If they can’t even do this, it’s hard to believe they’ll turn trained professional journalists loose in an even more ambitious effort to provide “accurate and fair” reporting with all the risks this may entail to their own reputation.”

Leavitt’s analysis speaks directly to Donahue’s objection that she must tell her story “the way the client wants it to be told.” The reality is, companies that want to control the message simply cannot produce authentic journalism.

I would like to think that as more companies get on the Cluetrain and realize that the new-media world is no longer about control, they’ll have a genuine interest in sponsoring legitimate journalism. But my optimism is theoretical. For now, at least, I will defer to Donahue’s dolorous voice of experience.

5 Keys to Effective B2B Content

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Photo by Brenda Starr

For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been working on a project that involves reading a bunch of feature articles from a wide range of B2B publishers. It’s been, surprisingly, an inspiring experience.

Why the surprise? I guess because there’s so much gloom and doom surrounding the future of B2B publishing. The grim outlook makes it easy to forget just how much superb work is still being done by B2B journalists.

If content marketers hope to pick up the mantle of the writers and editors behind these endangered magazines, they will need to study the best and brightest of them (or better yet, hire them). Though there are probably more to be mined, I’ve found five key principles behind the best of the articles I read. By applying them to their own writing, content marketers can keep the B2B publishing flame burning brightly.

1. Prefer expert writers over experts who write. In the articles I reviewed, the authors were either professional writers (staff or freelance) or experts from industry. The best articles came from the professional writers, not the industry experts. Note that I am not arguing against using industry experts as writers. There are certain topics and contexts that demand it. But when you can, use expert writers instead.

2. If you write about your own product, it will sound like an ad. In a few cases, articles I read were written by people with a commercial interest in their topic. Their expertise was clear, but so was their bias.

No matter how objective you are, when you talk about your own product or service you will reveal your bias. That’s not a problem in itself. Passion is good (see point 5). If you believe in your product, you should show it, whether in your PR or your traditional marketing. But such bias runs counter to the spirit of B2B publishing that the best content marketing aspires to.

3. Give opposing points of view fair consideration. To be effective, a story needs to have some kind of conflict or tension. You can’t generate that with a straw man. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to lead your reader to prefer your point of view to the alternative, but you can’t do that if you don’t give the alternative its due. While the outstanding stories I read generally had a clear point of view, they made the most of the conflict they covered. You should do the same.

4. Share your purpose and be true to it. The best articles make it clear up front what they are aiming to tell you and why, and they stick fiercely to their aim throughout the whole story. The headlines, graphics, pull quotes, and other story elements all support that aim. Weaker articles don’t know what they’re about, or worse, try to hide it from the reader.

5. Show your passion. What really distinguishes the best B2B writers is their love of the topic. It’s not that the subject matter is central to their lives. It usually isn’t. Rather, it’s that they have an ability to dive into their assigned subject and adopt it with enthusiasm. True experts may have an enduring passion for their topic, but they often don’t know how to build off that passion and share it with the reader. And if you can’t share it with your readers, you won’t make a real impact on them.

As my reading reminded me, there are plenty of B2B publications that could learn a few things from the best of their breed. Those that don’t may not survive much longer. Worse yet, even the best B2B publishers may find that their excellence is not enough to save them. But if the benchmarks they set can inspire content marketers to achieve similar heights of content, they will not have excelled in vain.

What B2B Publishers Don’t Get: You Can’t Own the Conversation

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Although there may be a few exceptions, Stephen Saunders got it right this week  when he wrote on Folio:‘s web site that most B2B publishers are miserable failures at social networking.  He argues that you can’t build and maintain an online business community unless you produce lots of your own content to support it.

There’s some truth to that, as I’ll suggest. But he omits the bigger point. B2B networks usually fail because publishers expect to control them. Publishers have a product focus, and to them, a social network is just another product. They don’t realize that social networking is instead a conversation. And you can’t own a conversation.

Saunders draws a distinction between consumer and business networking. Consumer networks on any subject can pretty much take off by themselves, he argues, because there will be a “large potential audience of enthusiasts who will be interested in plopping themselves on your site and talking.”

By contrast, business networks, which generally focus on narrow topics of interest, will likely appeal to only a comparatively small group of people:

“But things are rather different if your site is about VOIP-based integrated multimedia applications designed to run over DSL last mile networks. First, there are only 300 people in the U.S. who know about said topic. Second, they are probably not interested in talking to other people about this subject on a public Web site.”

Though he doesn’t say this explicitly, his argument is that in smaller networks you need some kind of catalyst to get the conversation going. In the consumer network, there will be enough motivated people to provide content that others can respond to. But in the B2B network, the publisher has to provide that content, and lots of it:

“What is the answer? It’s quite simple. And it’s the same answer to pretty much all questions in business publishing. (No, not alcohol.) It’s content. In order to convince important people to talk about important things you need to lure them to your social network, and keep them pinned there, with large amounts of proprietary information. Produced by, like, editors and stuff.”

But, Saunders says, publishers don’t want to pay for the editors they need: “In our industry, money talks, and copy walks.”

I won’t argue with him on this point. You can’t be part of the conversation if you don’t contribute to it, and that means producing content.

But the bigger problem lies with the attitude of most publishers toward the social networks they want to build. It’s an attitude reflected in Saunders’s argument that you need to “lure” people to your community and “keep them pinned there.” This is the language of control, and that doesn’t build communities, it kills them.

As Jeff Jarvis has argued for years, you can’t own communities, and you can’t build them; you can only enable them. Being a responsive and generous participant in the conversation (i.e., producing lots of copy) is an important part of enabling a community. But if you expect to be in charge of that community, it ain’t gonna happen.

Is Your Content Putting You at Risk?

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For B2B companies embracing their new role as publishers, the content marketing community has produced a huge archive of valuable advice. There is at least one topic, however, that is rarely discussed: the legal risks and responsibilities of publishing.

The silence is understandable. Most of the time, the kind of publishing that content marketers do isn’t very risky. But that doesn’t mean there’s no risk, and the more publishing you do, the more likely you are to encounter that one-in-a-hundred legal issue. So you may want to think about this sooner rather than later.

My purpose here is not to offer legal advice, but to suggest a framework for reviewing these issues, along with some resources for further research. The following three questions, based on your relationship to your content, your audience, and to the people and companies you cover, should get you started.

Who owns your content?

If the people that create your content are employees of your company, it’s pretty simple. Your company owns the content. But what happens when you use freelancers or other nonemployee contributors? Unless you specify otherwise in writing, you most likely don’t own that content. That may not be a problem, but if you plan to reuse the content in any way (let alone five ways), it could be.

Even if you create your own content, you should ask yourself how much of it you borrow. If you quote extensively or borrow images from other blogs, do you have the right to do so? Is what you’re doing copyright infringement or fair use? Are you giving appropriate credit to the creator of what you borrow? A basic understanding of copyright law will help.

How open is your relationship with your audience?

Though ethics is not a frequent topic of discussion among content marketing thought leaders, a key principle that is widely accepted is the importance of transparency. Likewise, openness and disclosure will serve you well in legal areas, whether in observing FTC guidelines or in deciding whether you need to include a privacy policy and terms of service on your Web site. (Did you know, by the way, that if you use Google Analytics, you are expected to have and post a privacy policy?)

How much do you write about other people or companies?

In 25 years of publishing, I’ve had to deal with claims of defamation five or six times. None of the instances went much beyond the accusation stage, and all were quickly resolved. Even though my employer in each case was on solid ground, the experience was pretty ugly, and wasted a lot of time.

The risk of committing libel in a content marketing context is pretty low compared with a general news operation. But if you talk about people or companies other than yours, the risk is not zero. No matter how benign your intent, people will be sensitive to their reputations. You owe it to yourself to minimize your risk—without crimping your freedom of expression—by understanding the basics of libel law.

Resources: Where Can You Go for Help?

Unless you face an immediate threat, you probably don’t need a lawyer. But if you do consult one, make sure he or she specializes in publishing law.

When you can, use experienced journalists to create or edit your content. Although it’s true that they may tend to push things in the interest of getting the story, they usually are finely tuned to legal risks.

Two valuable reference works I’ve used for years are the Associated Press Stylebook, which includes a 40-page “Briefing on Media Law,” and The Copyright Permission and Libel Handbook: A Step-by-Step Guide for Writers, Editors, and Publishers by Lloyd Jassin and Steve Schecter.

An excellent online resource is the Citizen Media Law Project’s Legal Guide. Although its focus is on citizen journalists, it is useful to anyone new to online publishing.

If this discussion has sensitized you to legal issues, great. But beware of going overboard. It’s easy to worry so much about your risks that you don’t publish anything interesting. Aim for a middle ground: understand the legal issues but don’t obsess about them.