News changes daily. Always has, by definition.

But rarely – if ever – have the platforms, players and processes changed this much.

In the last decade, we’ve evolved from top-down monologues from NY, Washington and LA – to the ‘Wikinews’ of the internet, in which every blogger is a source with a global sounding board. We have tweeting, chirping and buzzing devices that keep us perpetually connected. Screens in elevators and above the urinals. Ubiquity is everywhere.

So – the newsroom of the future will have to reflect these radical developments. How? Three major characteristics:

(1) Pro-Am Team of Journalists. Newsrooms that ignore amateur and citizen journalists do so at their own risk. Stories break on Twitter, Youtube and Blogs every day. The challenge of the news organizations will be vetting and authenticating. It was the same issue a short time ago with TMZ. Journalists must recognize that tips and topics come from all corners. The most successful modern newsrooms will embrace the trend and find ways to include a variety of voices. In fact, it’s already happening with weather and sports video, and the op-ed page is full of citizen voices.  Bureaus run by student and retired journalists. Daddy bloggers. High School sports fans. They should all be able to contribute content. Smart newsrooms will become the ‘watering hole’ of media for the communities they serve.

(2) Mixed Media Storytelling. Each of us have unique and divergent appetites for media consumption. Journalists should understand and accommodate. Maybe I prefer to download a daily podcast and listen to the news during a morning walk. Maybe my daughter prefers to read a short article online. Maybe my mom still likes the 6pm news. Modern newsrooms will be able to narrate the latest news on multiple outlets, for multiple audiences. To some degree, this is already happening. In many cases, however, newsrooms only give lip service to the ‘supplemental’ channels and stay the course with the big, traditional platforms that have driven the revenue for decades. It’s time to recognize that the days of appointment TV and ink-on-paper are fading and the traditional business model will soon only be a small piece of the pie.

(3) Relevance. Make it matter. This is an OLD concept, but never more important. In an era of “shoot and show” journalism, it’s usually cheaper to shoot the crime scene, show it at 10pm, and worry about the impact later. But eventually the audience starts asking “what’s the point?”. The relevance piece has always been the hardest part of the puzzle. Does a raging fire 90 miles away from me really matter? Does the heinous murder three counties over really affect my life today? Does the weather in Haiti make a difference for me – now? Possibly. But only if the writers, reporters, editors and producers have the perspective and judgement to widen the scope and the skill to add real context.

Big Picture – what viewers & readers REALLY want is hyper-local news. What’s happening today in my ZIP code? In my kid’s school district? At my church or synagogue? Newsrooms of today will argue that they don’t have the resources to deliver this much targeted and geo-specific content. Newsrooms of the future will provide it.

Modern newsrooms – like the slick new look at KPBS in San Diego (photo) – will have to adopt all three characteristics. Not easy. But essential. Stay tuned.

Client Grand Homes CEO Stephen Brooks on the steps the company took to survive a down economy and difficult housing market. www.grandhomes.com

Masters of Aikido, Judo and TaiJiQuan all leverage the inertia, strength and mass of their opponent to win the match – and small business can do it, too.

How?

By hyper-focusing on the client to build a brand that actually competes with major national brands. As a small business owner, you can over-deliver the tailored, neighborhood-specific, home-town features of your product or service that the big boys across the street cannot offer. That kind of specialty stands out! That helps develop a powerful local brand.
National chains cannot hope to know your customer as well as you do! So leverage that ‘disadvantage’ against the powerhouse national company!

Sorta like Pace Picante Sauce advertising that the competition came from “New York City”!
Yikes!

Yes we all know that Pace is owned by the Campbell Soup Company, and they don’t exactly fit the “small business” label, but even leveraging even a perceived strategic advantage is powerful stuff.
…and of course Texans want to buy their salsa from people in Texas who ‘know salsa,’ right?

My point is, big national companies rarely get to know customers by name, sponsor local high school athletic teams, send store managers to speak at local Rotary clubs, or give their store managers the authority to speak to local media without approval from the “corporate headquarters”.

But you can.

We followed that approach with one of our clients. A small independent pharmacy with no real advertising budget or media footprint. And right across the street – fierce competition from one of the “big boys”!

It’s Texas Star Pharmacy in Plano, Texas.

The owners – Mike and Donna Barsky – wanted to build their brand and expand their client base despite the proximity of a major national chain pharmacy nearby. How did they do it?

By leveraging the opponent’s ponderous weight as a tool! Senior pharmacist Donna Barsky is a marvelous speaker and writer. So she wrote articles and gave educational talks to local civic groups.
With decades of pharmacy experience, she was able to explain complex medical topics to local newspaper and TV reporters, and offer media interviews on health issues at the ‘drop of a hat’ – with no big bureaucracy to navigate for approval.

During flu season, they offered low-cost vaccinations at a local church.

We taught them how to start blogging, podcasting and developing content for YouTube. (She was a natural!)

They offered home delivery, one-on-one counseling for drug compatibility, longer hours, competitive pricing – and every customer got a hug!
Yes, that’s right. Donna’s a hugger!

How could the pharmacy giant possibly compete?

Over the course of the last year, Donna Barsky has been covered by local or national media at least 60 TIMES! And business has grown about 30%! And now they’re opening a new location!
This stuff really works.

A hyper-local focus. Listening to the client and putting their needs first. Becoming a resource for local media. And developing content for yourself (articles, videos, podcasts).

So borrow a page from the Judo Master and make your ‘strategic disadvantage’ into a powerful weapon.

Rudyard Kipling did it in 1892 with a story about a British soldier in India who learns a powerful lesson in courage and sacrifice through the example of a humble water bearer named Gunga Din.
It’s a rhyming ballad that challenges bigotry, racism and highlights the strength of the human spirit.
Every human being deserves to be treated humanely.

RKO made a movie with Cary Grant in 1939.

The last stanza is the most-frequently-quoted:
“Tho’ I’ve belted you and flayed you, By the livin’ Gawd that made you, You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din!”

And it remains a powerful teaching tool – even today.

On this federal holiday, I could make many points about the importance of equal rights and non-violence – the twin pillars of Dr Martin Luther King Jr’s philosophy.
I could point to the changing demographics of Texas – as evidenced by the Census. We are becoming a more blended society.
Or I could summon biology and get specific about DNA. We know now – more than ever – that all people are engineered out of nearly identical chemistry.
Perhaps I could talk about federal government and describe the legacy of Barbara Jordan, who will be honored this year with a postage stamp.
She was the first African-American woman elected to the Texas legislature, the first African-American elected to the Texas Senate since Reconstruction and the first African-American woman elected to Congress from the South. Jordan served three terms in Congress and knew MLK personally.

But none of that would stick, most likely.

A story grabs us. Rivets our thinking and – sometimes – changes our behavior.

Here’s one that I will tell my seven-year-old son:

(Taken mostly from Wikipedia:)
The year was 1955.
One bus ride changed history. One simple ride toward heroism and humanity.

Rosa Parks worked as a seamstress in Montgomery, Alabama.
The south was segregated and tensions were high in those days. Separate seats in movie theaters, separate drinking fountains, separate schools, and black citizens were expected to sit in the rear of all public buses.
On Thursday, December 1, Mrs. Parks was sitting on a city bus.
When a white man boarded the bus, the bus driver told everyone in her row to move back.
Parks refused, and was arrested.

Four days later, she was found guilty and fined $10 plus a court cost of $4, but she appealed.
African-American leaders organized the Montgomery Improvement Association to start a city-wide bus boycott as a means of protest.
They elected a young preacher named Martin Luther King to lead the effort.
He asked for a fixed dividing line in the segregated sections of the buses. It only meant that if the white section of the bus was full, whites would have to stand; blacks would not be forced to give up their seats.

A White Citizens’ Council developed to oppose the change.
Martin Luther King’s house was firebombed, as were four black Baptist churches. Boycotters were often physically attacked.

King served two weeks behind bars. The move brought national attention to the protest.
King later said: “I was proud of my crime. It was the crime of joining my people in a nonviolent protest against injustice.”

Pressure increased across the country and on June 4, 1956, the federal district court ruled that Alabama’s racial segregation laws for buses were unconstitutional.
On November 13, 1956, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the district court’s ruling. This victory led to a city ordinance that allowed black bus passengers to sit virtually anywhere they wanted, and the boycott officially ended in December. The boycott of the buses had lasted for 381 days.

The Montgomery Bus Boycott reverberated throughout the United States and stimulated the national Civil Rights Movement.

It gave Martin Luther King, Jr. the national attention that made him one of the prime leaders of the cause.

It made Rosa Parks one of the pioneers of the civil rights movement.

Her bus ride changed history.

Her courageous bus ride.

Every human being deserves to be treated humanely.

See? Stories are better.

Here’s a little-known fact: in 1981, I won the Texas UIL Statewide Championship in Poetry Interpretation.
Yep. I did it by reciting a poem written in 1892. Gunga Din, by Rudyard Kipling.

Answer: Of course! It’s a tool. Just like any other technology. If it’s a legitimate way to reach out and contact another human being, then why not?

Yes, you will offend some journalists who don’t consider their personal Facebook page or Twitter account to be an acceptable avenue for business. Too bad.
Most working journalists are desperate for good story ideas, regardless of the source.

And journalists have been using Twitter and many other SM platforms for years now. There are plenty of resources to help journalists “crowd-source” stories and to help everyone else find Tweeting journalists.
Here’s a great article in Mashable: “The Journalist’s Guide to Twitter”

The best resource referenced in the above article is Muck Rack, which offers a real-time feed of journalists’ Tweets. I just checked, Jake Tapper, ABC’s Senior White House correspondent, is tweeting about the TSA.
Pretty cool.

We need to stop treating social media as some weird new animal and recognize that it is simply a new family of channels. Some of us use them, some do not.
In the same way, a hundred years ago the telephone was a bizarre new contraption that seemed odd and inappropriate in a professional setting. Out of place. A waste of time. A distraction.

But over time, we grew to like the convenience of Mr. Bell’s invention and the tremendous advantages it delivered.
Twitter is the same. Certainly NOT for everybody. But for some, a really helpful tool and an amazing new platform by which to connect people instantly.

So if you find a reporter Tweeting, Tweet back! But follow appropriate Twitter etiquette, please:

(First, make sure that this reporter would be interested in covering your story. Is it something he or she has covered before? If so, proceed.)

6. …but add that you want to make sure HE has it FIRST!

Then just wait for the response.
If nothing shows up, no real harm done, and you’re on to the next Twittering reporter:

1. Compliment her first on the AMAZING work that she does…

Social Media is a powerful tool. Use it.

50 pieces of “art” either made of, or inspired by, Red Bull energy drink cans. The Art of the Can
C’mon. Red Bull cans as Art? Welcome to the Golden Age of Content Marketing. And Red Bull is just the tip of the iceberg.

Proctor and Gamble has re-launched Rouge magazine and now delivers it to 11 million US households.

Kraft publishes Comida Y Familia – the largest hispanic womens magazine in the US – and has now entered the short-film business with a series of 2-3 Minute Info-tainment Segments profiling the Oscar Meyer and Ritz brands. They’ve been playing during the previews on more than 15,000 US screens this year.

Mountain Dew launched a record label – Green Label Sound – and is now sponsoring a “Green Label Tour” this summer with the Kool Kids.

Quiksilver was ahead of the curve six years ago when the apparel company co-produced a surfing movie – remember Riding Giants? More recently, they’ve scored with the ‘Dynamite Surfing’ YouTube series. Amazing stuff. Now they sponsor surfboarders, skaters and recording artists.

And of course, those of us in North Texas remember the infamous attempt by Chesapeake Energy to launch Shale TV with my friend and fellow former newscaster Tracy Rowlett. The experiment in branded TV content never got off the ground. But the vision was grand, if perhaps a little premature.

Regardless, it’s not “brand” new (pardon me), but it’s not a temporary trend either, and in fact, the whole content-as-marketing concept is now reaching a maturity that portends a shift of the tectonic plates for all advertisers, for all time. No more interruption. No more distraction and circus-barker shouting about sales and prices and product features. Branded Content is here to stay. At our agency, we call it “Organic Media” – that is, content that originates internally and not in a distant newsroom or an agency’s creative think-tank. Time to be useful and pertinent and honest and smart and resourceful and solve some pressing problems or vanish in the cluttered jungle of by-gone media. Solve your customers’ problems, answer questions, provide service and solutions, or become irrelevant.

Well, that’s fine if you are Mountain Dew or Quiksilver and you have an eight-figure ad and marketing budget. But if not?
How does content marketing work for the rest of us? Great question. The answer = sorry, it’s the same path. Publish content or exit stage right. And as modern marketing guru David Meerman Scott preaches in his books and articles, everyone can and should be a publisher these days. And it doesn’t have to involve your own recording label or national art exhibit.

How?

You need to be smart, first of all. You need to KNOW THE CUSTOMER. Listen. Watch. Pay attention. Ask the right questions. Know what keeps her up at night, tossing in bed or tapping at Google. What problem is she trying to solve? And how can you help her with a quick, affordable solution? Be the fix. Also, find out what media platforms she is most likely to use. Does she Facebook? Does she read the local paper? This is a crucial first step.

Second, you need to BE STRATEGIC. Don’t start tweeting willy-nilly or blasting out pretty marketing e-mails without a strong, identifiable plan and a purpose. Who do you want to be?
What’s your strategic position? What’s the powerful tag line? Does it work? And is it WORTHY OF CONTENT MARKETING? Is it WORTHY OF PR? (Journalists may be struggling these days, but they still won’t do your marketing for you. However, if you have something useful and unique, they might want to quote you!)
Find someone who can ask the really tough questions. Do the difficult work of deciding what strategic position you want to occupy among your competitors. If you’re competing on price alone, I wouldn’t waste the time and mental effort to develop a serious campaign.
Generic platitudes along the lines of “We’re Just Better” or “Quality and Value” or “We Stand the Test of Time” really don’t trigger the kind of emotional response on which strong brands are built.
Neither do they help solicit news media coverage. Instead, ask ‘What is the one thing we do better than anybody else?’ or ‘What is the single most powerful advantage we have?’

Third, BE CREATIVE. If you’re not a writer, but you’ve discovered that your typical customer reads blogs and a company blog fits into your budget (what’s it cost, again?) – then HIRE A WRITER! Find someone who can tap into your corporate braintrust and interpret the know-how for the layman. Find someone who’s writing you enjoy and who’s written about your industry. Give away (some of) your secret sauce. Where? Well, online first. Realize that as soon as you launch a website, you’re basically in the content marketing business. Meerman Scott preaches (and I’m para-phrasing) ‘great content is what BRANDS A RELEVANT ORGANIZATION and DRIVES ACTION’. If your website is fun and engaging and pertinent, then your company is viewed the same. If your website is stale and flat, then…. well, you get it.
(Be sure to include some call to action online. How will a visitor to your website be asked to take an action that initiates the sales cycle? How can you add them to a mailing list or capture the e-mail address?)

These days, some of us just are NOT readers. Fine, then how about video? (Yes, as a former TV news guy, it’s my preferred format…) Why not post a quick interview with the CEO or a few satisfied customers?
How about a virtual tour of your factory or warehouse? Why not let web browsers see how proud you are of the people you employ? And if you don’t own a little Kodak Zi8 or High-Def Flip Camera – then HIRE A VIDEOGRAPHER! It’s really not terribly expensive. Again, find someone who’s previous work you appreciate. Ask about the day-rate for shooting and (additionally) for editing. Ask about the format, and remember to ask your web-master about an appropriate video format. The finished product has to be compatible with your website. Still, it’s not a big deal.

Fourth, THINK LIKE A JOURNALIST! What kind of interesting, useful content would you like to read about your industry, product or cause? Can you sponsor an on-line poll? (Check our Survey Monkey or Constant Contact.) Can you interview an industry or association leader and write up a summary? Can you offer a ‘behind-the-scenes’ snapshot of one of your major projects – and how you tackled a particularly tough job?
Can you offer advice on going ‘green’? What are some pertinent thoughts on customer service? Or warranties? Or a recent trade show you attended? Keep it short. Most of us don’t want to be bogged down reading multiple pages. Highlight the key points. Summarize. Offer references. Valuable websites. Tips. Hints. Insider stuff.

Fifth, ENGAGE. Frightening as it seems, the branding equation is no longer a one-way street. If you’re not involved in a dialogue with your client or customer, rest assured that someone else is. Probably one of your competitors. Allow public commentary of your blog and photos and YouTube Channel (don’t have a YouTube Channel yet? Then STOP reading this blog post and GET ONE NOW! Anything with your corporate name, if it’s still available.) Try to elicit a response on your website or any social media platform. If you just ‘don’t have the time’ for the Facebook fan page, then find someone in your organization who does, or simply make it part of his or her job description. Yes, it’s that important now. Think of it as you might consider a community garden. Yes, it takes some time to weed and fertilize and water. But imagine the beans and carrots and peppers you’ll grow! And who knows? You might just meet a neighbor. The internet magnifies the networking possibilities almost infinitely.

Another opportunity to engage is to think like Red Bull and sponsor something. How about a local lecture series? (Post the video!) Or a live concert? (Post the video!) Or a community service project? (Sure, post the video!) Maybe you can’t publish a glossy news-style magazine, but what sort of stylish e-mail newsletter can you send out? If you’re not a graphic designer, fine. HIRE A GRAPHIC DESIGNER to organize your ramblings once a month and then blast out the product to your mailing list.

Or maybe you hire the freelance videographer to come in once a month and videotape something interesting and worthwhile for your website. Or you hire a freelance still photographer to shoot your service project, or maybe to capture a ‘day in the life’ of one of your best employees. Or maybe you sponsor a kid’s contest to write speeches on a topic that pertains to your industry. And then videotape the winner giving her speech and – again – post the video on your website.

I know, it’s often a Time v. Money question for the small business-owner or entrepreneur. Publishing new content on the website or sponsoring a concert are often the LAST item on the to-do list.
But old advertising is stepping aside.

And the Age of Red Bull Art is on the rise.

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*DON’T BE EVERYTHING TO EVERYBODY
*DON’T USE INDUSTRY JARGON
*DON’T JUST SELL, EDUCATE