Well, I wrote about PR and content marketing in my PSFK eNewsletter last week, but one of my readers went back and requested more. I decided to do a quick comparison between the two. The info was released in the eNewsletter, so you can read it there if you want. In this one I wanted to look at what similarities are shared by both disciplines.

There are some qualities of marketing and marketing practice that are universal. Some specific ones, and probably some that are in both categories.

First, a touch on context. Marketing is about relevance. PR is about transparency. The best marketers and PR folks understand that their actions impact multiple audiences and ways of thinking and acting. These people are dynamic thinkers. Their natural inclinations can shift swiftly. Just when a journalist might need an urgent quote, another news cycle could become available to make that quote relevant for that channel’s audience.

So marketing and PR are useful to understand for many reasons. Let’s look at some more specifics.

1. For the most part, when using content marketing, you are creating content that is instantly accessible to a group of people (of course that doesn’t guarantee its good content—journalists evaluate the quality of what they write on a weekly basis, no different than a blogger or author). But to your point, there is a certain public that sees the work of these types of organizations and has access to that information. What will be different in some cases are strategies around user-generated content and the like. It is not a distraction from the need to deliver content across the many platforms your organization serves.

2. Marketing is usually about people. It is also about people who believe in your brand. And what is so appealing about marketing is that people—along with experts and influencers—grow the organization’s brand and communicate with your organization. Over the years PR companies have brought a certain passion and skill to bring credibility to the part of an organization that is humble, and thus more effective. By comparison, a brand like Google relies on professionals because its brand-driven.

3. Marketers and PR people are both about connecting with people. It’s about understanding the audience. People trust what they hear about brands. They trust that stuff. And like many forms of content, content marketing is about the engagement of people. A simple example would be helping understand whether someone who reviews a movie or other experience would be open to a message or marketing from you. Or if someone who is currently a supporter would be open to a prompt. And how would you create that kind of targeted and personal activity to communicate more about your organization? It is an entirely different ecosystem from how PR has developed for years and tried to serve—which is still resonating with a lot of its clients.

Read more about our research on the interplay between content marketing and PR.

What is even more encouraging about this small glimpse into what makes this type of stuff work and why—consider the platforms and communications you are already using. Both are most valuable when they are used in combination.

When when I started this research, the field of content marketing was too new and narrow, and I felt it would only be applicable to small groups. I realized this was not true. There are so many platforms out there, including Facebook, YouTube, Facebook Pages, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, and others. PR and marketing people are already using the information and initiatives that they learn about on one platform and apply it to the others. Even more valuable, many of these other platforms have a key audience of customers or potential customers. In short, content marketers and PR folks should already be doing this, using the tools that they’ve already got and successfully collaborating on programs across their various relationships.

Hence, my summary point is that organizations that use a mix of content marketing and PR will do an even better job of sharing their experiences with their audience, which will lead to loyalists and influencers.

So to add something on another thought, a good journalist would then also be an expert on these kinds of topics. The business side of a PR firm already knows something about specific topics and needs. PR is a universal language. The lirese here is that everyone would benefit from a bit of marketing strategy and communications–and its practitioners should be aware that they don’t have to forgo content marketing to do that.

The magic really occurs when someone looks at the marketing message in context. That in itself may be controversial–as with most things–but that should be the “rule” (if not the law) to be followed.