THE REASON YOUR PR WILL DIE

There’s a quote from Mark Sisson, CMO of Urban Outfitters, in which he stated: “Content is dead.” Because of the likelihood that more and more technology companies, in the digital era, are increasingly selling ads, newspapers are closing, a liberal press is going bankrupt, and politicians are trying to prevent access to the press (Vladimir Putin on American media: “If you want to know what’s going on, look in the New York Times or in CNN”), and because, of course, tech companies are creating their own content. (Alex Jones: “It’s so funny to see all these media corporations—they’re all saying ‘oh the net is bad—we’ve got our own content.’ It’s actually the opposite. They’re not really even better at producing content. They’re just using, because their advertisers trust them more, they’re leveraging the reputations of their outlets, and they are earning more revenue.”)

So what is content anyway?

Basically content is “things you are (or are not) producing to get attention,” according to content marketing expert Scott Yaeger. “It’s a creative manifestation of what we call a product,” he said. It’s “based on a concept, but the whole purpose of it is to convey a message.”

In other words, stories and ideas are good content.

The relationship between content and PR is this: content creators make it because they want to convey value to consumers and/or they are trying to get business from those consumers. PR firms are there to protect and help content creators and products get out there.

So what to do?

Content creators look to PR for advice. One idea: hooking your audience with the love, passion, and pleasure you have for what you’re producing and then looking to tell the world about it.

Two: embrace the power of content marketing. “It’s still tough for small businesses to come to grips with their value proposition, and content marketing,” says expert Jeff Pulver. “Social media is serving up the best offers to the consumer [because of the rich social graph] and content marketing is front and center in the connection between [a] content producer and customer. Content marketing matters. You may not be able to sell what you’re selling, but you’re damned sure going to be seen in millions of markets.”

If you need some tips, start with my how-to article on how to get your business to integrate content marketing.

>>Chas Freeman is the Director of the School of Journalism and Media Studies at Western Kentucky University.