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Content Marketing is becoming more common and used as companies and brands get increasing comfortable with digital and social media platforms.

This how Wikipedia defines Content Marketing – dry but accurate “Content marketing is an umbrella term encompassing all marketing formats that involve the creation and sharing of content in order to engage current and potential consumer bases. Content marketing subscribes to the notion that delivering high-quality, relevant and valuable information to prospects and customers drives profitable consumer action. Content marketing has benefits in terms of retaining reader attention and improving brand loyalty.^[1]”

Here is a useful presentation from Salesforce and Radian6.

Salesforce of course in the powerful online Constituent Relationship Management (CRM) platform. Radian 6 is the online social media monitoring engine that was purchased by Salesforce for $276 million in 2011.

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Now that brands have to ability to customize their Facebook Cover Photo, TV News outlets are starting to leverage this prominent piece of real estate to push their news brands – and so far most of the attempts are, well, lame.

Kim Wilson of the Social News Desk, has a post on Mashable  that survey’s the TV Newsroom Facebook Photo Cover Landscape.  The article points out that TV Newsrooms showcase either the News Team (group photo), the Main Anchors (at the news desk photo), the location (scenic photo), or technology (a photo of the news helicopter). This image from CTV Toronto is par for the course for Facebook News Cover Photos.

Ms. Wilson’s critique of the branded photos was gentle. She writes “It’s a great way to highlight the great lengths (or heights) news organizations go to for news coverage. But beware; these images lack a certain personal touch that fans desire.”

Let me be more blunt the branded photos being displayed are awful . Having worked in the local TV News space the shameless recycling of conventional tropes (such as the smiling anchor, the ready for action chopper) would be disheartening were it not for those same tropes being a source for Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert who blast those conventions with mocking delight.

The images in the article are awful for a simple reason they are examples of “shameless hucksterism.”  Rather than leverage the Facebook Photo Cover as an opportunity to engage with their audiences these photos really are bad wallpaper.

Here are 2 things a TV News Departments could do:

1) Celebrate  your Audience- Rather than push your brand to an audience, pull in your audience – Create a cross-channel photo contest where user submitted photos occupy the cover photo on a News stations Facebook page for a designated amount of time.

2) Humanize Your Talent – It is vital for Local TV News anchors and reporters to be seen as part their community. Leverage community orientated imagery – Have anchors and reporters take pictures of their pets or some of their favorite spots in city- anything besides the highly contrived images that litter the TV News marketing landscape.

Facebook Guideline For Branded Photos

“All covers are public. This means that anyone who visits your Page will be able to see your cover. Covers can’t be deceptive, misleading, or infringe on anyone else’s copyright. You may not encourage people to upload your cover to their personal timelines.

Related articles

• 5 Ways TV Newsrooms Use the Facebook Cover Photo (mashable.com)
• Create an Instagram-filled Facebook profile cover with InstaCover (thenextweb.com)
• 7 Awesome Facebook Timeline Cover Photo Examples (mikejeffs.co.uk)
• Do not fear the newsroom: Tips for journalism interns (journomel.com)

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Here are some great statistics on the rapidly rising social media site Pinterest.

The users are mainly women and there is a strong affinity with Facebook. Thanks to the folks at 6S Marketing for putting this together

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Image by Getty Images via @daylife

So TechVibes is reporting that the Vancouver based iPad personal news application, Zite, is being bought by CNN for a reported $20-25 million.
At the time of this post there was no official confirmation on the Zite blog, but if true, it is great news for a Canadian start-up that was first germinated at the University of British Columbia.
According to TechVibes “Once official this acquisition story will be a huge feather in Vancouver’s and Canada’s startup cap. Zite evolved from technology developed at UBC and the company has been a poster boy for government programs with grants from Canada’s National Research Council and PRECARN.”

So the question is how does an American media company scoop in and pick up a promising Canadian startup?

The answer: Canadian media companies are asleep at the switch.

In fact, where are all the Canadian media companies? Where is Shaw? Where is Rogers? Where is Bell? Where is Telus?

Oh right there too busy lobbying the CRTC to protect antiquated market share, rather than throwing there hat in the ring and adding next generation news value to their properties.

Meanwhile, for those who don’t know Bell Globe Media owns a number of news outlets including CTV and the Globe and Mail. Shaw Media owns Global News. Rogers owns City TV and host of other news outlets and publications.

The point is not to single out Shaw or Bell  or Rogers but rather to highlight how risk averse all Canadian Media companies are – coddled by governments and regulators, propped up by taxpayers our media landscape is one of stay the course.

Simply put, there is a lot of innovation the start-up media landscape in Canada, the media companies in this country don’t really seem to carry.

The consequence: something that was nurtured and developed here in Canada is ignored by the very companies who may well need it for there future survival.

Related articles

• CNN snaps up Vancouver’s Zite (business.financialpost.com)

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As you may know Twitter asks users to distill what they want to say to 140 characters.

Well, here is a  guide for governments and pulbic institution types for using twitter – it clocks in at a heft 20 pages.

Hmmm, some usefull stuff in here, done by a strategist with UK Government, but  20 pages? In the age A.D.D. and CPA (continuous partial attention) that qualifies as a book.
Template Twitter Strategy for Government Departments

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