#AskJon: Is brand journalism only for big brands?

The short answer to that question is no. Small brands and small organizations can be really good brand journalists, but you do have to ask yourself a couple of questions. Number one, do you have the time? Number two, do you have the content? And number three, do you have the manpower? It is a step beyond blogging or driving traffic to a website, or your website. It’s more creating an ongoing relationship with people and your potential customers to talk about brand and what you’re all about, as opposed to a product.

So, if you don’t have the time and effort to do it, you need to ask yourself “is it worth it?” According to a study by PR Daily, about nine in ten customers think that custom content is useful, and about 8 in 10 feel that companies that create custom content want to build an ongoing relationship with them.

If you’re already producing content, if you’re already blogging, if you’re already producing gated content, you probably have the ability to take it a step further and do something that is more brand focused, and also creates an ongoing lasting relationship with potential customers down the road. And that’s what brand journalism does.

Jon Newman

In 2002 Jon cofounded The Hodges Partnership and has helped to grow it into one of the country’s largest public relations firms (based on O’Dwyer’s annual rankings). Jon has taught communications as an adjunct professor at VCU, speaks regularly at conferences and meetings and blogs and tweets about public relations and marketing issues.

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