The Internet runs on content. Or media, to use the old school term. It’s what we spend more than 8 hours a day consuming in various forms, whether it be through reading an article, watching a video, noticing a sign, or scanning through headlines. Modern people live and breathe content and storytelling on a near-constant basis, largely through their smartphones. Headlines, @mentions, #hashtags, comment threads, memes, and 10 second clips, are becoming a native language to Millennials, who are setting the tone for everyone else. So what does this mean for brands that want to communicate with potential consumers and get their message in front of these hungry eyeballs?
It means you have to see yourself as a media company.
In the old days of media, when the dominant formats were broadcast television or mass print, it was pretty costly to get a message or a story out to the masses. Industries sprung up to handle the massive overhead of publishing and broadcasting, and if a brand or business wanted to borrow some airtime or column space to pitch their service or communicate a value proposition, they had to pony up. (And it wasn’t cheap.)
The expense and the exhaustive process meant that only the largest corporate brands could use these mediums to communicate, and they often did so in an interruptive way, jamming their ad in your face in between moments of the story. But digital technology has changed the way we create, distribute, and consume media of all types. It’s easier than ever to tell your story to the world, infinitely cheaper, and everyone’s doing it. Whether you realize it or not, your company is a media company. So… how well are you doing it?
Be where the people are.
In order to be noticed and, more importantly, trusted by today’s consumer, you have to provide valuable content that gets distributed on important content platforms. This means indexing articles in search results, boosting native ads across Facebook feeds, and posting videos to your YouTube channel. Regardless of what you sell or offer, you are now also a media company because it’s your job to create and distribute informative content that tells people what you’re all about.
It’s how you control the story of your brand. If you don’t, then with the power of review platforms and online chatter, other people will do it for you– and then you’re at the mercy of the cruel masses.
Instead, take charge of your public perception and communicate with people using high quality content that’s entertaining and informative, painting you as the expert in your field. If you don’t, then your competitor will have a tremendous advantage over you in the online space by doing so.
But where do I find the time to broadcast media?
Like you didn’t already have enough to worry about while running your business, right? Now, on top of everything else, you have to write blogs, post to Facebook, reply to comments, and what the hell is a tweet again?
Don’t worry. We’ve got you.
Many companies have found tremendous value in hiring a digital marketing team (like us) to handle the media and content side for them. We’ve got a brilliant media team of writers, designers, photographers, video editors, and snarky comedians that revel in creating and boosting online content to the masses. Not only does our team learn your market’s native language, we learn your business well enough to paint you as the expert in your field amongst other online voices. If you’re going to be a media company, you better hire the best talent in the biz.
