Company generated contents

Content marketing to "gain" visibility

Companies can’t hope to reach consumers just keeping on buying advertising spaces from on/off line publishers. It’s time that mostly all organizations enter into the “pitch” and take part to the "attention war", starting to produce and optimize good contents.

Every day I meet people working in different companies. Listening for them with attention and curiosity I often learn new and funny information. On the contrary, when I turn my head to see how those companies communicate I don’t find the same passion, competence, and stories that sounded so interesting to me. It sounds like we couldn’t tell to everybody about our holidays or the last movie watched at the cinema: it wouldn’t be funny, don’t you?

In this article I will try to explain why companies should begin to produce contents in a structural way, together with both the traditional media and the user generated contents: it’s time for company generated contents.

Advertising will remain one of the main communication channels from companies of course, but more than the visibility that can be purchased, there are several possibilities to gain it: first of all producing high quality goods and services taking advantage of the word-of-mouth; but it is not enough. The real “war” is the individuals’ attention, self-absorbed from several contents and channels available, located on different devices, developed by media professionals but also by millions of users without a specific business model beside them.

It’s time that mostly all organizations enter into the “pitch” and take part to this game, counting on Internet above all to directly reach their stakeholders. Companies can’t hope to reach consumers just keeping on buying advertising spaces from on/off line publishers; at the same time it makes no sense to flatter oneself that contents generated from people can be easily related with companies business, or worse, manipulated in any case.

The wish for companies is not to differentiate themselves and starting to be publishers or editors. But if you look into the office’s drawers, there are thousands of arguments that deserve to be mentioned or exposed. Even if developing quality contents for a company that produces any other thing could seem binding or impossible, if you seek with attention there are good material everywhere: it is enough to be able to individuate it and to bring out and spread out. The important aspect is that they should be coherent with the communication project’s goals.

A good beginning could be the company news (including the traditional press releases) that very often hide contents that can be developed in an informative way so to produce useful and interesting contents. So, unveil all the researches, the white papers, the articles and other valuable material: they not only show company’s professional competences and generate awareness but they have a great importance for search marketing giving new doors to access to the web site.

Another approach is to let company’s workers entering in communication mainstream through their personal stories, their passions, their ability of explaining products and services in a spontaneous way and, usually, with more credibility than promotional communication.

In fact, it is a trend already in process, where managers and their collaborators use their “face” and give the “start” for a relationship process among people and not only between company and consumers. A particular mention deserve the events where the company takes part (meetings, workshops, congress etc), that could practically extend their life if appropriately developed on the Internet, supplying useful contents in some case already set and ready to develop further online visibility.

Among the different ways able to produce new editorial contents, the blog can add several possibilities: not only by renewing the contents’ style but also to open a new bidirectional channel of communication open to readers’ contributions.

Contents produced by companies will be critical in their communication strategies and to develop awareness and online visibility. Web site will be the central element, adding to his institutional function and destination of advertising initiatives role, the mission of sorting of all other periodical contents produced by company, even with search engine optimization in mind together with “web 2.0” sharing and distribution functions.

A specific blog section of the site will extend the conversation with external world and it will represent the membrane from internal and external people.