The 3 Angles to Every Corporate Story

Myk Pono -

Every company is now a media company and that's why almost every corporate function must participate in content creation. Your organization can produce three categories of content -- and will benefit greatly by doing so.

1. Industry Expertise: Content related to product or service expertise

Industry expertise includes all the content that relates to your company’s product or service and expertise. This content targets your customers, prospects, industry influencers, and thought leaders. When we talk about content marketing and content strategy, we mostly refer to industry-related content. Most content that a company creates falls under this category in the form of blog posts, articles, white papers, research, sales presentations, case studies, product manuals, knowledge base, and so on.

Sadly, the majority of companies fail even at producing high-quality industry-related content.

2. Corporate Branding: Content related to how an organization operates

This category of content has less to do with your industry expertise or offering and more with how your organization operates. Companies can build their brand by explaining how they operate, how they make decisions, and how they organize themselves. For example, in their Signal vs Noise publication, the Basecamp team shares articles on how they operate. The articles have little to do with their products and more about what they believe and why.

Good companies not only create great industry-related content, but also build their corporate brands by telling relatable stories about their organizations.

3. Personal Branding: Content related to personal branding and growth

Executives and employees can create content that enhances their personal brand. The CEO’s personal brand is a part of the public perception of their company. The best organizations hire executives and employees who create content. This content focuses on your employees’ expertise. For example, your VP of sales could produce weekly videos or articles providing tips on how to improve a cold calling strategy or the best way to follow up with prospects. Your engineers could share how they prioritize their time, what decisions they are facing, and technical challenges they overcame.

Most companies create only industry-related content. Good companies create industry content and corporate branding content. However, great companies understand that they operate in a media economy and create not only great industry and corporate branding content but encourage their employees to create content that enhances their personal brands.

The best companies understand that the personal brands of their executives and employees transfer to and enhance the corporate brand while improving the variety and quality of content associated with the company. When we connect with Jason Fried, we relate to Basecamp; when we follow Jason Miller, we connect with Linkedin; when we read Jill Rowley’s posts, we learn about Marketo; when we subscribe to David Cancel’s podcast Seeking Wisdom, we learn about his views and about Drift’s culture.

They understand that they can extend the reach of their brand through their employees. After all, a company’s employees have 10x more connections than the company has followers on average. Plus, we are more likely to trust information shared by employees over information published by a company.

Entice your employees to invest in their personal brand, make it part of their job description, and give them the tools to succeed. Your organization will benefit in the long run.

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