The strategic convergence of content marketing and online journalism
Scott M. Fulton III
Content marketer, content strategy architect, technical and technology content editor and producer, bylined author and journalist. Enabling businesses to say things that get noticed and engage audiences.
The Managing Editor magazine newsletter brought to my attention a question from a reader who is going through a career shift:? “How do I position myself as a good fit for content marketing positions as a soon-to-be former journalist?”
In response, editor Ernest Chaney cites a 2021 article in his newsletter authored by Tom Anderson, which reads in part:
As a journalist, your job is to tell a compelling story. As a content marketer or brand journalist, your role is more complex. You have to tell a great story that sells, that fits the brand and can demonstrate value beyond its editorial merits to many stakeholders who may have less than literary taste. You have to bring more to the table than journalism.
Journalists should step back and look at the bigger picture of content marketing, not just their potential role in production. Sure, you should excel at writing white papers, editing blog posts or creating videos and podcasts. But what organizations?really?need (and generally lack) are people with the vision to bring it all together.
My alarm bells went off upon reading this, because it’s at the heart of the issue I’ve faced throughout my career.? How does my experience in online editorial translate to content marketing?? And the converse:? How does my experience in content marketing translate to editorial?
Here’s where I agree with Anderson:? You do have to bring more to the content marketing table than just the journalism skill.? And organizations do need someone who sees the big picture.
But Anderson makes a distinction between the two realms that conflicts with the reality I’ve lived for over a quarter-century.? He perceives the role of content marketer as more complex than the role of journalist.
Not so, especially online.? A writer can tell a compelling story.? And an online publication can hire a pool of writers, among whom it can reliably find compelling stories.? But a professional online journalist who has managed to maintain an income for longer than a year will have considered the critical question of how her content contributes to her publications’ content strategy.? You cannot be an online journalist professionally without having defended your work as part of a healthy strategy, whether you’re freelance or a member of staff.
And you cannot be an editor of a online journalistic publication without being a content strategy practitioner.? Organic search is the principal means by which any domain is discovered.? Social media plays a supplemental role here, but only when influencers have discovered domains themselves through organic search.? The only way your domain gets seen online is if it publishes compelling, engaging content at a regular clip.? Landing pages don’t land in the Top 10 of Google Search results unless other pages in their same domain are linked to those landing pages, and are compelling and engaging in themselves.
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You can’t tell a compelling story without being, in its most basic sense, a journalist.? A journalist not only disseminates the truth.? She finds a way to make the truth compelling, interesting, and engaging.
Engagement is the state of mind which any domain must attain in the reader's mind, to be viable.? This is true for a vendor site as well as a news site.? In recent years, especially in the technology space, vendors have done a much better job at engaging audiences than at any time before.? In some cases, they’re doing a far better job of it than the B2B tech hubs that used to serve as these vendors’ means of discovery.? It’s the reason folks who have considered themselves journalists up to now, are considering careers in content marketing in the first place.
Journalism may not be the sole requirement for content marketing.? Yet it is a requirement.? Indeed, the absence of journalistic skill is what leads to corporate blogs subsisting in a self-imposed stealth mode, like pamphlets advertising restaurants or candidates for office, left in unsorted piles in the waiting room lounge.
The surviving tech hubs have all executed successful B2B content strategies; those that are dormant did not.? Indeed, it’s the “tech hubs” that originated B2B strategy.? Domains whose business is to endeavor to attract tens of thousands, or even millions, plan, conceive, revise, and execute intensive content strategies every single day.
I would turn Tom Anderson’s whole argument on its head.? I would challenge content marketing professionals for vendor and service provider domains to prove that they do so much as one-fifth the actual content marketing work, as any online journalism hub domain.? Have they ascertained their audience personae?? Have they deduced the narratives that appeal to their various personae?? Have they adopted metadata-based, variable taxonomies that enable them to promote new and emerging categories as they come into being, without having to re-categorize their entire Web maps?? Do their content audits reveal which topics are descending in importance among their audiences?
Do they know which keywords embedded in their outbound links carry the most weight?? Have they ascertained whether their inbound links come from authoritative sites, rather than just X and LinkedIn?? Have they separated branded inbound traffic from non-branded inbound traffic?? Can they estimate the shelf life of a newly published blog post?? Have they balanced their focused explainers with their wide-angle introductory articles, so they’re not always repeating the same theme over and over?? Can they characterize their site’s underlying narrative in 12 words or less?
The best and brightest news hubs in existence do all these things.? And the best and most engaging vendor domains today maybe do them better.? But in the sampling I’ve done, those successful domains are a painfully small minority. Think about the corporate blogs you’ve run across whose site managers clearly just poke “Publish” on opinion pieces, whenever they get around to receiving them.? Where is the content marketing strategy there?? Tell me the people managing those domains would last a day working on a news hub, or any domain where content strategy is reliant upon data and analytics.
If you’re looking to hire an individual who comprehends online content marketing strategy, you would do well not to exclude candidates whose backgrounds include online editorial and online journalism.? Like you, their careers are devoted to engaging audiences, motivating them, and provoking action.? They’ve fought the same wars you’re fighting — maybe with different weapons, but with much the same objective.
The original idea for content marketing stems from a 2007 book called The New Rules of Marketing and PR by David Meerman Scott (a friend of mine and former colleague at EContent Magazine). He saw a world on the web where articles published in blogs acted as a better top of funnel than marketing copy. He also suggested companies hire professional journalists to write this content because they were trained to tell stories.
Scott M. Fulton III, you make a compelling point about the overlap between journalism and content marketing skills. I've found that storytelling and audience engagement are core to both. But I'm curious, how do you see the adaptability of these skills playing out in the nuances of B2B vs. news hubs?