New Media Journalism and Communication - Reflection: RISE Self-Evaluation

How is Brand Journalism Effecting Traditional Journalism and Content Marketers?

What is brand journalism?

Today we’re going to talk about brand journalism. Let’s start with what brand journalism is. It’s the story about the brand, not just a single advertisement about it. It’s compelling articles modeled to educate consumers about it. It’s a transparent and engaging strategy to enhance the consumers perception of the brand and inform them to gain their loyalty. It’s a mixture of journalism, marketing, PR, and research. Now that we know what brand journalism is, let’s discuss how it affects journalists and marketers.

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For some journalists the topic of brand journalism can cause wrinkles in the nose with the bitterness of it being mentioned. For others, they’ve embraced the concept and taken advantage of it. Some journalists believe that good journalism is good journalism, regardless of if its focus on a brands story. For them, brand journalism causes awareness and provokes conversations and sharing. They believe that people gain more from brand journalism than they would with a traditional marketing campaign. Some even believe it’s creating more jobs for journalists. But just as some see brand journalism as great others, like Mark Glaser, editor of PBS Mediashift, have different views. He states that brand journalism can’t be totally objective: 

“Imagine this scenario: A technology company releases a new smartphone and begins a massive marketing campaign, claiming the phone does amazing things, is faster than any other phone, and has the best network. But consumers are much better served by turning to journalists – real journalists – for reviews of the phone.”

Even with the concept give by Glaser, we can see that brand journalism is here, weather it’s embraced or not. People have information readily available to them at all times and as a consumer, it’s an amazing thing to have all the information you could ever want on a company or product, available at your disposal. Part of this is due to brand journalism but also partly traditional journalism. As states previously by Glaser, it’s true people would hear and see bias advertisements, marketing campaigns, and brand journalism for a product, but it’s also true that consumers would likely review that information and then turn to and outside journalists review to gain perspective from all sides. Some believe this type of situation leaves consumers in the dark, trying to pick and choose what to believe. Having a cooperation put out content about their products can potentially be bias but it exists to start conversation. David Sasson of Outbrain reiterates this point in an article written on businessweek.com, 

“Indeed, brand journalism exists to provide audiences with value beyond just an advertisement, aiming to provoke dialogue or prompt sharing with others.”

At the end of the day though, the consumer who’s reading the information makes the deciding choice weather or not to believe what they’re reading. Sasson writes, 

“Readers are the authority: Give readers some credit—they’re the final arbiters who will determine which content is interesting and useful and which is self-serving propaganda. In today’s digital age, their collective judgment is instantly measurable.” 

People are able to gather any information they need weather its reputable or not, it’s up to the consumer to do their research to lock down a solid opinion. In today’s day an age anyone can publish news, review, and comments. Part of this is thanks to social media.

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How has social media effected journalism?

Social media has really changed the game for journalism because communication has become far more vast, expansive, and easily accessible. Everyone has a means to write their opinion and share their opinions and view points on any number of topics. Facebook provides other ways of accessing articles and information in the way of the article receiving “Likes”, comments and shares. The more likes, shares, and comments an articles receives the article is pushed onto the consumers’ news feed more frequently. This is also similar with Twitter. Both sites have the ability for the consumer to view trending topics within their websites. This can work to a media sources advantage or disadvantage. Andy Bull of brand-journalism.co.uk produced a website breaking down brand journalism. He writes, 

“It’s taken media groups, and many individuals working for them, a long time to get to grips with this. They’ve struggled to adapt from the old ‘here is the news’ approach to the idea that communication is now truly two way.” 

But they have quickly adapted to this change.

Brands in general were quick to understand how social media was benefiting them. Especially in the sense of consumer relations. Companies like T-Mobile have a social media team that takes special care to respond to their consumers’ questions that they post on social media. Barnes and Noble is similar in this sense that they take and evaluate any inquires. This shows brands in a massively positive light to the public. Even with this positive note, social media can cause companies distress, so it’s important for media journalists to think everything through before publishing. For example, McDonald’s decided to create a social media campaign on Twitter where they bought the hashtags #MeettheFarmers and #McDStories. This campaign was intended to shine a positive light on McDonalds, featuring stories about their brand and their employees. When the hashtag #McDStories came to light, the public pounced at the chance to take a stance on McDonalds, providing personal negative stories and opinions. We can see the power that comes from the public and how easily brands can be taken aback, Andy Bull continues, 

“messages from brands can easily be subverted. It only takes a few individuals to do it, if those individuals have a point.”

Journalists should remember that their writing should reflect that of information, which reveals any corruption and their writing, makes this information public. It could be argues that all journalists work under a brand. If you’re writing for a magazine, a newspaper, a TV network, the writer, publisher, and editor are going to be reflecting the company brand and their viewpoints. This is also true for content marketers.

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What about content marketing?

Content marketers create and share media content to retain and gain more consumers. It sounds very similar to brand journalism right? Let me give you examples, brand marketers create: infographics, podcasts, books, videos, apps, public speaking, blogs, and webpages. Content marketing focuses on providing facts to increase the demand in product while brand journalism tells compelling stories to give consumers a feel for the brand personality. In the article What’s the Difference Between Content Marketing and Brand Journalism, Victoria Harres explains, 

“Content marketing is about sharing information that has real value to your target audience and educates your potential customers; not about your products, but topics that strongly support what you sell.”

Content marketing is meant to capture interest and build a brand credibility. But with brand journalism, the goal is to create content that’s engaging to their audience. It wants to build awareness and direct messaging to the consumer. It creates stories that are meant to solidify a bond between consumers and evoke emotion to engage the consumer with the brand. Corey Seamster wrote, Controversy and Conflict Surrounding Brand Journalism,

“people that are hired as brand journalists gather facts about brand products and consumers behavior and weave them into a story. This is often developed as unique and engaging media content that’s designed to help consumers make better product buying decisions according to the brands they favor.”

When broken down, content marketing and brand journalism can seem very similar but it’s important to note the differences and how they can conflict and help the other.

A harsh reality is that brand journalism is here to stay weather you’re for it or against it. Andy Bull of brand-journalism.co.uk wrote,

“Brands, organizations, charities, campaigns and causes have the money to employ journalists, and to use journalistic techniques, to engage with the public. Increasingly, they are choosing to do so, while traditional media companies are downsizing.”

We can see the many pros of brand journalism as far as providing consumers a way to gain information about a company, or product, directly from the source. We can also see that brand journalists can potentially be bias because they are writing for a specific platform and that writing needs to reflect the brand and companies ideas. We see how brand journalism can affect traditional journalism as some journalists see brand journalism giving journalists a bad name with bias information. It’s ultimately up to journalists to keep writing and uncovering any false information to provide consumers with the truth. Journalists should ask themselves how they could leverage brand journalist to create pure literature. As with traditional journalists, content marketers should learn from brand journalism and how they can use their strategies and content to create better content for their consumers as well. Lastly, it’s up to the consumer to do research and understand what they are reading to make a valuable well rounded opinion. Not everything you see and read is factual unbiased information. Finding content written by a brand journalist, traditional journalist, or content marketer can easily be backed up or classified as untrue, it’s all about fact checking and making your own conclusion.