Who is creating content?

As the Internet offers more and more opportunities to self publish - who will create the content?

Many B-2-B companies are now facing the challenge of producing an increasing flow of interesting and quality content to populate online news pages, social media and forum groups. Take a step back to the time when press releases were the only news format. It was typically the case that many  marketing managers of smaller b-2-b companies thought they didn't have any news and stories had to be teased out of them at a monthly meeting with the PR agency. In fact by running through a series of categories to prompt the client  usually a few possible newsworthy stories would emerge. It is worth listing some of the more popular subjects as ideas for the new media too.

New products or services will always attract attention. New research or technology is even better as developments and advances help position the company as a leader in the industry. Business news such as expansion, new facilities or equipment can also be of interest  as can new staff appointments if used to show recruitment of expertise for example. Contract wins and placement of important orders serve to associate the business with success. Third party endorsements by satisfied customers and related case studies are valuable in building confidence amongst prospective customers. Another approach is for a senior company spokesman to comment on industry developments, to be available as an expert in the market or give presentations at conferences. Contributions of articles for special features in relevant publications can act as guides, provide useful advice and  help establish credibility. The PR agency would generally be writing in a style that would catch the editorial eye as being of interest to the publication's readers and the PR specialist would channel stories to the appropriate publications, or repurpose into case studies, white papers or even user guides.

But for social media publication the content is for individuals and not for editors with an experienced eye for a good story. It is more of an opportunity to engage in conversation. Take blogs for example which could be considered the online equivalent of the former company magazine, with the comments feedback similar to the letters page, and these need to be monitored. Blogs offer a good destination page for tweets which are effectively news headlines. YouTube is an entirely different medium but useful for demonstrating how products work, customer endorsements and coverage of events. Pinterest meanwhile offers a vehicle for interesting themed images. Then at the chatty level there is Facebook and LinkedIn and plenty more.

Maintaining interesting news is certainly going to be a challenge and many companies will need help to set up and implement a a news grid.