I believe very strongly in an approach to campaigns that my agency, Weber Shandwick, calls Content Fusion. It basically says instead of starting with, “Hey, we need a news release about X,” we should start with the story and THEN determine the all the ways in which we can tell that story effectively. It works like this:
- Every company (or brand) has stories to tell.
- Every story can be told in a variety of formats – video, text, images, audio.
- Every formatted story can be carried in a variety of content vehicles – news releases, blog posts, ads, bylined stories, etc.
- Every story ultimately finds a home in a variety of destinations – including “owned” spaces like your website, “shared” spaces like your Facebook page, and “earned” spaces like a news site or third party blog.
- Social sharing and compelling content should lead to conversation that refreshes the story and continues to spread it through the online ecosystem.
I get asked, however, whether this works for B2B or just for Coca-Cola? And if it does work for B2B then does it only work in theory or can you actually get the organization to embrace this approach?
First answer: Yes, it works brilliantly for B2B. Look at the pick-up of this video about 3D printing. Only it’s not really about 3D printing is it? It’s about people. Content Fusion is only as good as the story.
Second answer: To do this well, the organization’s marketing and communications leaders need to empower people to think outside their “lanes.” If a client comes to me needing a media relations solution, which I still hear all the time, then we’re already in trouble. There’s nothing wrong with media relations at all – it’s critically important for most organizations. But now we’re already in a box. We’re already cutting ourselves off from two-thirds of the possible destinations for our story. We’re also probably not being given the budget to create compelling content because you wouldn’t go to all that work and investment just for media relations. It only makes sense when you have the whole online ecosystem to work with.
I get excited when a client says something like this: “We have a problem. We need to launch into a new market space, and we’re not known for that, and the influencers and potential customers might view our intentions with some skepticism. What should we do?”
Or this: “We really need to build our reputation for understanding how the consumerization of information technology is disrupting businesses and how to harness that disruption for good.”
Give us a communications or a marketing or corporate reputation challenge and give us the freedom to literally architect a solution and see what we come back with. Hopefully we’ll come up with an amazing story, package it in multimedia fashion, publish it from Sharepoint to YouTube (or whatever is appropriate), and support it with paid search or social ads plus some good media relations work to ensure it’s seen, then finally we’ll listen to our audiences to discern how they’re engaging with our story and be prepared to respond or adjust fast. That’s how it works.
