Brand journalism is a new trend used by companies to complement the commercial and corporate information they send to newspapers and web portals with platforms that seek to reach the public and their customers directly with reports, analysis, blogs and multimedia content. With the rise of digital marketing, trends are constantly changing in order to achieve the highest engagement.
Within the Inbound Marketing strategy, we try to make a company known from the same perspective as the customer. There is no superiority - on the contrary, it is necessary to get closer to the audience. Through strategies that tell stories, information or, in general, content of interest and value, the objective is to position oneself with authority and as a reference for the leads.
Brand journalism, also known as brand journalism, aims to create media within a non-informational company, providing information about events and data that are not necessarily directly related to the brand.
With the creation of this type of content, the aim is to cross the border of press releases and corporate information. In this new era, special importance is being given to content. Clear, relevant and attractive content is what drives potential customers to make a purchase. Companies are aware of the importance of content, so they begin to create quality content, which is useful for users who demand information with value and authority. Brand journalism is focused on increasing customer trust and loyalty.
BENEFITS OF BRAND JOURNALISM
- As it is journalism, it is subject to the journalists' code of ethics, meets the standards of authenticity, transparency and relevant content.
- It enhances the brand's presence, making it a reference and an authoritative voice within its trade. It achieves greater brand promotion and reputation.
- The journalistic format attracts and engages consumers. There are multiple options to choose from: report, documentary, report, news... choose the one that best suits your prospect.
- Brand journalism generates debate and conversations, which implies an interaction between the company and consumers.
This activity is exercised by journalists - who work by researching the brand and revealing interesting information to the public, from its history to the product development process or employees behind the company. This alliance between marketing and journalism is leading to a new future of communication models. It is about creating a communication channel that does not directly sell the product, but builds trust for customers.
We have already mentioned how essential content is for the survival of the company. What is not communicated, does not exist. Internet presence is fundamental to create a marketing strategy that has a high response rate with customers. As it seeks to generate trust and value, it moves away from the more purely corporate journalism.
what are the most recurring formats in brand journalism?
- Blogs: a digital tool used in brand journalism to connect, share information or resolve queries. It is a very important communication channel with great reach.
- Landing pages: known as web pages that are used to convert visitors into leads. Whether your landing page or landing page is attractive and well engaged, it is very important that users are willing to leave messages, fill out forms or even buy and become customers of your brand.
- Video: easy option, it doesn't take much effort from the listener to get the information. They don't have to put a lot of effort to read the information. Everything is more direct and dynamic.
- Whitepappers: it is a not very long document, from 5 to 15 pages, it focuses on a topic and tries to go deeper into it. For this, it is important to obtain reliable data based on some surveys. The tone is usually formal and the vocabulary is technical about the topic, that is why it is related to brand journalism - since it has a deep research behind it.
- Webinars: an online meeting organised by a company. In marketing, especially inbound marketing, these are presentations given by members of an organisation to impart knowledge about a specific marketing concept or area.
This strategy gives the company the opportunity to position itself as a benchmark in the industry. It replaces advertising with the technique of storytelling. Storytelling is a technique that seeks to convey ideas through stories. Storytelling can be simply defined as the art of storytelling.
In short, it is a communication technique based on applying narrative strategies to capture the attention of audiences, convince them and promote, in most cases, a desired reaction on their part, or more simply, to create stories based on real events that contain attractive information for our audiences and that allow us to create a brand.
A technique that allows you to tell stories to connect with your audience. This type of activity also helps you to learn more about the typical audience of each brand each time. The idea comes from the contrasting view that self-promotion is of no interest to the audience. The new proven value of communication is based on a good story that connects with the target audience. They allow you to add value to different products and services. In this way, the respective brand becomes known and grows with reputation.
Stories are a tool that generates empathy. We already know how fundamental it is to awaken empathy in an Inbound Marketing strategy. Transferring ideas through stories generates attention frames. When someone starts telling us a story, they establish a tacit contract with the users based on the rule of storytelling, make it matter. One of the virtues of journalism is the ability to tell stories.
People are the most important element, they are the story they tell. The story is linked to emotions - which resonate directly with readers, who are susceptible to the company's messages. Good stories enter platforms, seeking to integrate experiences across a broad spectrum of media platforms and technology applications. This is where brand journalism comes in, aiming to recapture the stories that delight people.
