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“PR is about pitching the brand to the media.  You help shape the story, but you don’t craft the story.  Brand journalism is about creating the actual content, finding the best ways to share it, and telling the stories of your people, customers, and brand.” You’re skipping the middleman, essentially. You’re no longer hoping for a third party to tell your brand’s story, you’re doing it yourself.

“Brand journalism is the use of a journalistic approach to storytelling on behalf of a brand.  It is the mindset of assembling and delivering a compelling story, but it is not impartial.  It presents the brand’s messages and perspectives.”

A brand that is creating and sharing terrific stories and entertaining content, however, will get noticed and those sales leads will come as you establish yourself as not only a source of information regarding your particular industry but a place to regularly stop by for good reading material in general.

These days, developing a successful online presence requires approaching traditional digital efforts like link-building, web traffic, lead generation, and sales from a decidedly more editorial, content-rich approach: a hybrid marketing and storytelling strategy that drives customer actions by creating, documenting, distributing, and optimizing content. Some companies have created their own internal content development departments or are working with agencies to create everything from infographics to documentaries that highlight where the values, interests, and personality of brand and customer overlap. Coca Cola believes so strongly in the power of content that they are relying on this approach to help them double the size of their business by 2020.

While your office probably looks a lot different than a newsroom, approaching content strategy by thinking like a magazine publisher or a television producer is an effective way to approach content development and promotion. Utilizing influential voices to develop and promote content can help ensure that you meet the first requirement of securing readership and viewers--be interesting.

The people who already create for you: We often hear “write about what you know” because it comes easiest. Identify the talented storytellers within your own walls. Those with an intimate knowledge of company activities are primed to create impactful content, even on a tight deadline. Identify employees who are weekend filmmakers, amateur photographers, poets, and guitar players and invite them to bring these talents to the table.

the automaker is depriving Facebook of only $10 million in direct advertising buys; it will continue to spend about $30 million annually on Facebook content, agencies that manage that content and daily maintenance of its Facebook pages, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Facebook’s power lies in engagement with brands, not generating sales through display advertising,

Facebook advertisers need to look at the platform as helping to build long-term brand loyalty.