If you insert the word “marketer” above, where we have “publisher” you get something like this:

Today’s marketing skills are defined broadly as skills across several categories:  content creation, content distribution, customer relations, lead management and marketing analytics.  The competent marketer needs to know a bit about each,  he needs to be a jack of all trades —- but most important, he needs an understanding how these areas can be effectively woven together to create a successful marketing program.  The beauty and power of this effort is determining the correct time and resource investment to make in each critical area…..to advance a business objective.

At the core of a publishing effort, or a marketing effort………..useful and engaging content must make its way into the hands of someone who needs it.  When that happens for a publisher he monetizes it by selling access to that someone.  When it happens for a marketer, they have moved a prospect closer to becoming a customer.  Same skills, same model.

A little plain talk.  Having smart editors create compelling content is still a good idea.  Monetizing that content by selling ads against it?  An old idea not working so well anymore.  Using that content to draw an audience to a marketers product or service?  An idea that is exploding across the marketing world in a complex and dizzying array of options.  In Kinsman’s article, he addresses a number of related issues…my comments in parentheses.

-  figuring out how to let knowledgeable editors provide content of direct use to clients (no one should be complaining about this anymore)
-  considering the direct acquisition of a marketing services agency that can collaborate with your teams (do this now if you can afford it)
-  going into competition with agencies, web development firms, content strategy consultant (yes, you are)

Many ways, many paths, no clean easy solution.  Is your management, your sales team, and your operation really comfortable with offering clients help with whatever they need from a marketing perspective?  Better yet….tell them what they need, then deliver it.

In a recent Wine Zag post called Social Media Wine Content Earns it’s Stripes in Traditional Media Format Adam uncorks a delicious irony that traditional media (magazines and radio in this case), have re-purposed  content created and published elsewhere (online) and added it to their offering.  Apparently in the wine space, and perhaps in other markets, there is some debate on the relative credibility of bloggers versus traditional media?  I thought we were beyond that….but maybe not.   Adam’s observation:

…..If social media content is regularly curated across the web, why aren’t more traditional media operators moving that content into other media formats………The answer lies at the center of an editor’s admirable bias for creating original and unpublished content, a now dated strategy that has dictated media pros’ operating mindsets for a very long time.

Wow, is the sacred cow of originally published content being unceremoniously slaughtered?  Actually Adam’s pragmatic point is that if the content is of high quality, if it is sourced properly, and if much of the traditional media audience is unlikely to have seen it………why not use it?   Especially if an editor determines it is of high value to the reader.  Do you know of publishers or traditional media companies who fall firmly on one side or the other of this debate?

For many companies, the benefits of content marketing are clear, but they struggle for content.  Ironically it is often right there.

Did your techs or engineers present at a conference?  That’s content you can use.

Do you receive industry newsletters or RSS feeds with interesting facts and figures?  That’s content you can use.

Did your CEO issue a memo to investors or staff?  Excerpts are content you can use.

Are there upcoming events on your calendar?  Summaries and dates are content you can use.

Can you refresh a cool newsletter article from last year?  That’s content you can use.

Can you interview a customer at a tradeshow?  Content you can use.

Recent comments on your blog of Facebook page?  Comments you can use.

As your archive of content increases, your online footprint increases and your findability online increases.  Should you create original content from scratch….sure maybe some.  Do you have pre-existing content swirling around your organization?  Most definitely.  And you should use it.

Companies that make the deep strategic, organizational, and operational shifts required to become effective digital marketers can become more agile, more productive, and accelerate revenue growth.

And then went on to outline several of the necessary shifts including:

…..Recognition of  the need to think like a large-scale multimedia publisher as they manage a staggering increase in the content they create to support products, segments, channels, and promotions…….

In the above referenced article from BtoB online, the following statistics were noted to illustrate how this trend is manifested by marketers.

• branded content accounted for 32% of overall marketing, advertising and communications budgets last year (Custom Content Council)
• traditional marketers, which in general have not yet embraced online custom content, typically spend about 60% of their budgets on paid media and about 20% on content creation (McKinsey & Co. report)
• At the same time, marketers that are embracing custom content….are shifting.   Active digital marketers tend to devote about 30% of their marketing budgets to paid media and 50% to content,” according to the McKinsey report.

If you’re marketer becoming a publisher, it’s “do I have the skills, processes and systems in place to do content marketing?”.  If you’re a publisher becoming a marketer, it’s “do I have the skills, processes and systems to provide these service to marketers?”.

Social media is free………To create a Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn presence is free today. What is not free is your investment in terms of time to understand what is going on in the social world, how best to interact with prospects, create content that users engage with and recognize and reward user engagement. None of this is free or very easy.

Consider the amount of electrons (thank God it’s not paper), tied up in Blogs, Facebook pages, Twitter accounts, LinkedIn profiles and dozens of other FREE social media platforms that are sadly left unattended or “home alone”.  Launched with the best intentions, then left to languish.  Yes, it is free to get on board, but how do you get somewhere?  It’s like getting a “free” car in New York that you want to take to Miami.  Unfortunately, the car is too complicated to drive, has no instructions, there’s no gas in it, no GPS or road maps, it’s nighttime and there are no lights.  Hmmm.

The fuel and navigation for “riding” social media is the knowledge and skill to use content to engage and interact.  I’ll borrow another line from Matt’s blog post (hopefully he won’t mind).

last year everybody wanted to talk about and try social media but were largely terrified by their own lack of knowledge and control. This year everybody wants to talk about social media because they realize it’s here to stay ……..We are close to dropping the “social” from social media as all media—Web-based, mobile and location-based—becomes naturally social.

IDG helps filter out the noise of the social Web and provides actionable insights with IDG Social Scout(tm )powered by Networked Insights. Using proprietary analytics, IDG Social Scout tracks conversations around topics and brands to measure sentiment and engagement over time. With insights from ongoing analytics reports, IDG Strategic Marketing Services can help marketers develop strategies and programs to respond to the dynamic trends and issues identified on the Web.

This is a classic example of a marketing service companies are going to need as their brands are discussed broadly on the web.  The only question is:  are they going to try to ‘listen’ on their own?  Or, more likely, what kind of agency or media company will they partner with to explore this new marketing phenomenon.

1. TIME....Time hog number one is setting up your blog and linking it to your other social identities (Facebook, Twitter, etc.). This is not exceedingly difficult, but does require a focussed effort and for someone to learn basics and best practices around blogging and other platforms. There is absolutely a learning curve. If you outsource you are letting someone execute these basics who has done it many many times.  (Corollary Time Hog is staying current with technical changes in social media tools.   Brand new features are constantly added to FB, Twitter, WordPress, YouTube and the other key social media platforms…..someone needs to stay current, and that takes time.)

2. TIME....Time hog number two is creating consistent and unique content. The single most important key to success in blogging and social media marketing is the regular, ongoing delivery of fresh and relevant content. Without it, there is no engagement, no “Google findability” and little benefit. There are countless examples of companies starting with the best intentions, getting setup, and then failing over time to continue to create posts and content. It takes time.

3. TIME….Time hog number three is making sure that tagging and optimization tasks are being managed effectively. Whomever is creating content should be consciously working to make that content as findable as possible by Google and all the major search engines.

4. TIME….Time hog number four is tracking metrics. Traffic, visits, and comments should be measured. Part of an outsourcing program should be measurement and analysis to gauge program effectiveness and make adjustments.

Note: this post was adapted from a similar post at Digital Sherpa, a company that provides outsourced social media marketing programs (including blogging).

The NCI work in this area (full disclosure, NCI is a consulting client I have worked with extensively on this project) is fascinating and notable for a number of different reasons:

1. NCI’s CEO Dan McCarthy has led an extraordinary cultural transformation at the company as virtually the entire staff from senior management to rank and file have become conversant, and in many cases highly skilled at the new tools of social media and networking.
2. Over 1,000 subscription-based, turnkey social media marketing programs have been sold, primarily via the sales force for NCI’s home design, real estate and apartment community publications.
3. These vertical “Sherpa” solutions including Community Sherpa, Design Sherpa, Broker Sherpa and Digital Sherpa, are helping NCI customers leap effectively into social media marketing at a low cost (many programs are sub $500 per month)
4. This new subscription revenue stream is recurring revenue that is not advertising or sponsorship.  It is in effect content development and delivery.  It is a new form of marketing services and a major innovation for a traditional publisher.

To read more about NCI’s Sherpa efforts as well as the evolution of social media marketing inside this company, take a peek at related posts inside Dan McCarthy’s blog called ViralHousingFix.

According to Michael Hurley, VP of Corporate Sales at Hanley Wood, and the chair of the Entrepreneurial committee at ABM (American Business Media),  “….There is an ANA/ABM/Booz study to be released on August 17th that examines how marketers view and define marketing services and where they are likely to acquire those services, and The Entrepreneurial Committee is looking to produce a study that essentially audits the types of business models used by traditional media companies to go to market offering marketing services. I expect that project to be finished in January”.  I am looking forward to both of these studies — as should any publisher peeking at this potentially lucrative new line of business.