Is Journalism Dying? Not exactly.

Marketing departments are changing. Brands are realizing that pushing their marketing message out to their target audience is becoming less effective. As a result, companies are turning to creating high-quality online content to build trust and community among their target audience. This approach to marketing is what is now popularly referred to as content marketing.

Today, many brands understand the need to adopt content marketing. But they know less about how to build a team that can consistently create the high-quality content that can earn you the shares, “likes,” links, and Tweets needed reach their target audience.

At Software Advice, we think that journalists and PR people can be a vital component to a content marketing team. In this article, we’ll explain how the skills of journalists and PR people can be incorporated into your content marketing team–and how to prepare yourself for content marketing success.

 Journalists Can Help Tell Your Brand’s Story

We’ve known for a while that the traditional model of journalism is fading. But the growth of content marketing is creating great opportunities for journalists. Why? Because companies need people who can create compelling content that tells the brand’s story. And journalists are great at quickly becoming resource experts and making a topic accessible and compelling to the masses.

Beyond that, journalists are used to creating and maintaining an editorial calendar that’s needed to maintain a consistent flow of content. Their thoughtful messaging can help create content that drives sales but still adheres to strong reporting styles and standards, which can increase the authority of your content.

PR People Can Help Get Your Brand in Front of the Right People

The role of PR people has always been raising awareness. But the methods of raising awareness are changing. Increasingly, effective outreach and marketing is more about SEO and social media distribution that pure press coverage. So instead of drafting up a press release to tell everyone about how great your brand is, you need someone know how’s how to get the attention of influencers online and in social channels to promote your brand for you.

PR people are already great at managing outreach for things like event planning. Content marketing teams can take this skill set and apply it to things like managing social media communities and handling email outreach. This allows for a more organic way of getting your brand in front of customers.

Tips on Putting it all Together

In order to use content marketing effectively, you have to plan ahead and lay the foundation to execute on creating great content. Here are four tips to help you succeed:

  • Hire people with online skills. When hiring PR people, it’s important to hire someone that already knows the ins and outs of social media so you don’t have to teach the basics. At the same time, you should look for journalists that have already written great well-researched content for online publications. This will ensure your hires are immediately effective.
  • Use the relationships you build. As you’re out there creating great content you’re going to buil some relationships. Make sure that you incorporate using these relationships into your overall marketing strategy.
  • Pick a story and stick to it. Great content is successful because it has a very targeted message. Your message should reflect your company’s mission statement and core values. If you want to position yourself as a thought leader, hire someone with the same philosophy and cultural bent.
  • Create a content marketing department. To succeed at content marketing, your brand must have a department that can perform the functions of an editorial staff, while promoting the content it creates like an advertising agency or PR firm.


Do you have any tips for building an effective content marketing strategy and team? Leave your thoughts below.

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