Not since the legislative debate over spam back in the early part of the millennium has a digital marketing term been so riddled by obfuscation and misunderstanding as native advertising.

A quick search of the term on Google returns an impressive 219 million results, yet to date there’s been no real definition of what marketers, publishers, agencies, social media platforms, or any other players in the digital ecosystem mean when they bandy it about.

With so much discussion centered around native advertising, we felt it critical to define the term, assess the nascent landscape, and evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of this new-ish form of advertising. That is what we have done in research published today.

Based on over two dozen interviews with  publishers, social networks, brands, agencies, vendors and industry experts, Altimeter Group has arrived at the following definition of native advertising:

Native advertising is a form of converged media that combines paid and owned media into a form of commercial messaging that is fully integrated into, and often unique to, a specific delivery platform.

In other words, we believe native advertising lives at the intersection of paid and owned media, and is therefore a form of converged media. ‘Owned’ media is content that the brand or advertiser controls. Paid media is advertising: space or time that entails a media buy.

Does native advertising overlap with established forms of sponsored/branded/custom content? Advertorial? Indeed it does. Often differentiation can entail splitting hairs. Yet the evolution of so many unique platforms and technologies has made forms of advertising truly “native.” A sponsored tweet can be native only to Twitter, for example, just as a promoted Facebook post is native only to that one channel.

Native Advertising: The Pros and Cons

In addition to defining the term, our research looks at how native advertising can benefit the ecosystem players: technology vendors, agencies, social platforms, publishers, and of course, brands and advertisers. Overall, we see opportunities for all players, these being the chief advantages for each player:

For publishers: new forms of premium inventory.

For social platforms: new advertising products.

For brands: new opportunities for attention, engagement, and message syndication.

For agencies: benefits from creative and media opportunities.

For technology: new solutions facilitate and scale both the creative and delivery aspects of native advertising.

The disadvantages? Scale is an issue, and clearly there are (haven’t were been through this before) issues around disclosure and transparency.

As with all Altimeter Group reports, “Defining and Mapping the Native Advertising Landscape” is Open Research. Please feel free to read it, download it and share it.

Tell us what you think.

If you like it, we’ll create more.

Cross-posted from the Altimeter Group blog.

Digital content doesn’t just happen. Marketers require tools to get it done.

The range of software and tools serving content marketers has mushroomed in the past couple of years. As researchers and analysts at the Altimeter Group, we started looking at the space informally back in April, building a list of software vendors.

Currently, we’ve compiled a list of 75 vendors offering a range of content marketing software solutions. (It’s a list I plan to share officially in the fall, once it’s been through some winnowing.)

Content Software Landscape Research

In fact, we plan to go one better and conduct deep research into the content software marketplace, beginning next month.

Before we can begin that project in earnest, however, it’s critical to evaluate the actual content use cases marketers face in their day-to-day lives. There’s no realistic way we can evaluate the vendors in a very disparate landscape without knowing what marketers actually want and need out of content marketing solutions.

Let’s assume (and hope and pray!) the marketers in question are beginning with a content strategy. Let’s discount/disqualify related solutions such as social media management software, CMS, DAM and basic Web analytics packages.

The qualities we’re seeing across the content-specific software vendors that remain are (in no particular order) the following:

• Targeting/Audience Identification (Segmentation/Personas): Tools to help you identify who the target audience(s) is/are, where they are online, and the types of content that would attract them.
• Curation: Gathering, organizing and presenting existing content in a meaningful, attractive manner.
• Aggregation: Compiling and publishing syndicated Web content — generally more automated and less specific than curation (above).
• Workflow/Editorial Management: Tools that aid in processes associated with content strategy including creating governance documentation (style, editing and brand guidelines), content audits, production, review, approval and publishing processes, etc.
• Editorial Calendar: Sometimes included in workflow tools, sometimes a standalone feature.
• Discovery: Algorithmic suggestions for content readers might appreciate based on usage or social patterns.
• Syndication/Distribution: Tools that help content publishers find audiences via, for example, suggested headlines or stories across publisher sites or social networks.
• Recommendation: Services that use data such as usage patterns, social connections and browsing history to recommend content to users.
• Branded Content Creation: Generally offered by agencies and publishers, custom content for brands, products and/or services.
• Production: A wide range of increasingly complex services. As content moves into increasingly multimedia formats, as well as into new channels such as mobile, content production has moved far beyond “just blogging.”
• Content Generation: A small but growing set of tools are being developed to help marketers generate creative ideas for content by feeding them multimedia material that is on-brand and relevant to campaign goals.
• Collaboration Tools: Related to workflow and editorial management, these toolsets help disparate teams collaborate on different aspects of content creation, production and publishing, often from remote locations and with cloud-based assets.
• Tracking (Content Across Web): A handful of companies have developed tools that help marketers track both images and text across the Web no matter where they appear, and to dynamically update them.
• Analytics (Content-Specific): Independent of basic Web analytics packages, content tools often contain their own specific analytics and dashboards. These can be wide-ranging and are, of course, closely aligned with tool functionality.
• Real-Time Capabilities: An increasingly news and social media driven world drives demand for real- and near real-time information, a capabilities being built into an increasing number of tools in varying capacities.
• Push Notifications: You’ve got… content. Beyond email, some tools do enable alerts when new content is available.
• Talent Sourcing & Management: Writers, designers, photographers, videographers – tools exist to find them, have them submit their work and manage their billings.
• Templates/Layout/Design: From websites to infographics, design doesn’t just happen. There are, of course, plenty of standalone templates available. So, too, do content tool sets incorporate templates and design solutions.
• SEO: Written word content tools, in particular, sometimes incorporate search optimization features around keywords and phrases, metadata, headline optimization, etc.
• Predictive Analytics: Distinct from performance analytics, these tools predict how content will perform in specific channels or with certain audience segments. Currently aimed more at publishers than marketers, it will be interesting to see if this market shifts with broader adoption of content marketing.
• Influencer Identification: Brands such as Intel have proven owned content can achieve paid media reach when spread by the right influencers in a given field. Tools that identify influencers who can help spread messages in social channels are, therefore, growing in popularity with content marketers as well as with PR practitioners.

You can help get this first research project on the content software landscape off the ground by helping us to define what real use cases really exist. Are these accurate? What’s missing? What’s not necessary, redundant, or superfluous? What would your dream content solution do — or not do? Do you prefer working with a suite of à la carte solutions, or with a “stack” of seamlessly integrated software?

Please read the rest of this post on Marketingland, where it originally published.

The convergence of paid, owned, and earned media has been an important discussion

for some time now. It was a topic of this column  on more than one occasion. The nagging question since the coinage of the POE acronym has been “What about shared media?”

When Jeremiah Owyang and I published research  on the convergence of paid, owned, and earned media, we noted that our colleague Brian Solis advocated adding “shared” to the mix. Lately, I’ve been having similar discussions with Ketchum’s partner and global director, Nicholas Scibetta, (disclosure: Ketchum is a client of my employer) about that same topic.

Ketchum has adopted not a POE model, but rather PESO (paid, earned, shared, and owned media), for the work it does for its clients.

Where does shared media sit in the paid, owned, and earned equation? What is sharedmedia, anyway? If shared is a goal, how is it achieved? Is all shared media of equal value? To know, you would need a system for measuring it. What would that be?

None of these questions are easy to answer, but here are some top line musings.

What is shared media and where does it sit in the paid/owned/earned equation?

Shared media is a subset of earned media and a form of amplification. Earned media generally tends have a point of view or an editorial bend. Examples might be a blog post or an article around a topic, a video of a product unboxing, or commentary (“I just saw this new movie and it’s really great/totally sucks,” or “This is what the Travon Martin verdict means for race relations in America”). Shared media, on the other hand, tends to be overwhelmingly duplicative. It’s a forward, a retweet, a pin, or (on Facebook) a literal “share.” Perhaps a word or comment is injected, but essentially it’s a pass-along of an essentially unaltered element of content.

It’s worth noting that you can even share shared media, which in a sense, is earning shared. Is your head spinning yet? Mine is!

Please read the rest of this post on iMedia Connection, where it originally published.

Image credit: TheAbundantArtist.com

I’m trying hard to be cautiously optimistic, but the pessimist in me may be winning.

New York City’s bike share program launched on Memorial Day. It’s the talk of the town, and the largest such program in the world. It’s also a sterling example of the Collaborative Economy, the topic of new and important research by my colleague, Jeremiah Owyang. He defines the movement as customers sharing goods and services rather than buying them, which redefines the buyer seller relationships while simultaneously disrupting and disintermediating longstanding business models.

From banking to labor, hospitality to fashion, transportation and real estate, his research lists over 200 digital platforms that have recently emerged to get you a ride to where you’re going, a place to lay your head when you get there, and even toys for your kids to play with that will be gone before they’re outgrown.

The sector is growing rapidly, yet so are forces opposing it: regulation (e.g. AirBnB is illegal in New York City), trust issues between buyers and sellers, and other uncertainty factors. Jeremiah’s advice for businesses is, in a nutshell, you won’t be able to beat them, so join them. Neiman Marcus could, for example, launch its own version of Rent the Runway (revenue aside, such a move could be worth its weight in data collection).

Where I question the growth potential of the collaborative economy is from the perspective of a resident of midtown Manhattan. Collaboration is built on a foundation comprised of common values, community standards and trust.

I’m no sociologist, but I’ve lived and traveled abroad enough to understand that (love ’em or hate ’em), community values are radically stronger, not to mention vigorously reinforced, when the communities in question are distinct, defined and undiluted. Multi-culti certainly has its advantages – that’s why I elect to live in the middle of Manhattan – but commonly held values and community standards are not one of our defining characteristics. Anyone who’s been here knows it’s not tidy like Switzerland. We don’t wait for the light to turn red before crossing the street, like everyone does in Germany. And no way, no how could you get the entire population of the five boroughs to wear a yellow shirt every single Monday (it’s like a site gag for the first-time Bangkok visitor).

My personal experience with the collaborative economy has always been as an enthusiastic early adopter, only to see that enthusiasm quashed as something tribal grows to global proportions. I was word-of-mouth cheerleader when Zipcar launched (I was such an early member customer service later thought my membership number lacked digits, it was so low). Fast-forward five years: the service goes wide, there’s mass advertising (as opposed to a constant reinforcement of consideration-for-the-next-user oriented rules), and pretty soon I’m picking up cars with empty gas tanks, or worse,  trying to pick up cars previous renters haven’t bothered to return.

Nice that they always cheerfully refunded my money – but what about that wedding I missed when I didn’t have wheels to get there? The day Avis bought Zipcar, I cancelled my membership.

Pictured above is a shiny new Citi Bike a mere four days after the service launched in Manhattan. It’s in a station a couple of blocks from my loft, facing a fast food joint. Half the bikes at that particular station are already receptacles for discarded cups, food wrappers and napkins. Likely some have yet to take their maiden voyage.

Enterprises and large corporations will participate in the collaborative economy. Citigroup, Avis – they already are. As the movement grows, this will present new challenges internally as well as externally. How will collaboration scale in communities like New York City, LA, or Chicago that just aren’t that…communal? And how can enterprises keep alive a spirit of entrepreneurship and looking out for the other guy, not just yourself?

Consumers won’t accept “just” a refund when collaboration and community erode. Betrayal of trust and community standards run much deeper, and will require innovations in the customer service aspect of the collaborative economy.

The next couple of years will be interesting indeed.

Link to the full Collaborative Economy report.

[slideshare id=22256657&doc=collabecon-draft16-130531132802-phpapp02&type=d]

Native advertising.

Everyone’s talking about it, but what is it, exactly? It has something to do with ads that don’t look like ads, but rather provide a degree of value in terms of being content. In that sense, native advertising is certainly a form of converged media as it combines paid media (advertising) with owned media (content) – often with the goal of generating earned media (social interaction, UGC, etc.).

Yet brands have been paying publishers to run their own content since forever. Does that mean “native advertising” simply a neologism for what we used to call advertorial? Or branded content? Maybe it’s sponsored content?

If native advertising somehow differs from older models of advertorial, sponsored or branded content, where are the lines drawn? Does “native” necessitate some sort of technological framework to carry and/or distribute the content in question (à la products offered by The New York Times, or tech start-ups such as OneSpot or inPowered)? Does it mean a publisher’s in-house agency (think Buzzfeed, Gawker Media) was commissioned to come up with the creative?

Bottom line: The term “native advertising” raises more questions than it does answers.

The value proposition of native advertising is, however, clear in a digital environment of banner blindness and plunging clickthrough rates. Pre-roll ads are skipped or ignored, email subscriber rates are eroding. Given any kind of choice, consumers are saying a clear “no” to interruptive advertising.

Native advertising lies somewhere in bridging the divide between content marketing – a pull strategy – and plain, old fashioned advertising, which is interruptive. Somewhere in its definition is probably the fact of paying for space or time (the “advertising” part) is a fashion that’s “native,” i.e. organic, conducive to the user experience, non-salesy, and offers some sort of value in and of itself as an ad (entertainment, education, utility, for example).

Native advertising’s promise, therefore, is better performing ads – but only if metrics are defined that are “native” to “native.” DM goals likely don’t apply in this case. Highly customized ad solutions mean more revenue for publishers (and boy, can they use it now). Also, deeper creative engagements for agencies, and hopefully, a better user experience for consumers.

The fly in the ointment is that without a real definition of native advertising, it means anything you want it to mean. Or anything whoever’s trying to sell it to you wants it to mean. Confusion in the marketplace is not a good thing (though it can benefit certain constituents).

This is why, as a research analyst, my next project will be to define native advertising, as well as to map the landscape of products and technologies related to the practice. (I’m also part of an IAB taskforce that will work to define the term – it’s therefore important to note the research will be my own work, not that of a committee.)

As this project is just kicking off, I’d love to invite your input. What do you believe native advertising is? Isn’t? What are the important companies in the space? Please let me know, either via email or in the comments section.

I’ll report back soon. Watch this space!

A version of this post originally published on iMedia Connection

Image credit: www.bydewey.com

Why is content orchestration needed across the organization — all departments included, no exceptions? Here’s a recent example of a near-missed opportunity.

The client recently launched a content marketing initiative, one that’s rich in blog entries and videos around health and wellness. Six months into the program, which is governed by the social media marketing department, the metrics all look good: repeat visits, brand favorability, page views — so much so that the program will be expanded with a site redesign and new features.

One planned new feature is giving readers the ability to subscribe to email updates. The social team did some digging and learned the company is already working with a major email service provider, so the machinery is in place to add that ability.

This is where it bears mentioning that this particular organization is in a highly regulated industry. Marketing activities can only be conducted in certain states. Moreover, different brands of the parent enterprise come into play on a state-by-state basis. To say marketing for this organization is highly segmented is an understatement.

Clearly, because what’s at play here is content marketing, the sell is soft. In fact, it’s non-existent in terms of this particular content initiative. Yet it’s possible that could change, or that the company might elect to add a link, a call-to-action, or a promotional “brought to you by” message in the footer of the subscription emails.

All that’s possible, and more. Subscribers could be asked to indicate in which state they reside when signing up for the emails. Email append could be used on the list to segment subscribers on a state-by-state basis in order to insert the relevant brand name into the messages.

All these ideas are as possible as they are (for now) theoretical. Yet none were entertained by the social media department running the campaign. This would very likely be to the chagrin of the email division, or the direct marketing group, had they known of the plans afoot (which, of course, they do not).

This is only one recent, real-life example of why organizations must organize for content. Without cross-functional communication, coordination, expertise, and goal-sharing, companies are doomed to be mired in inefficiencies, missed opportunities, reduplicated efforts, and just plain not sharing the very high levels of expertise inherent in the broad array of digital practice areas.

How to organize is, of course, the question. Few enterprises have a formal content division or an executive expressly charged with overseeing content initiatives. Recently, research I conducted included asking 78 companies how they’re tackling the content issue. Only nine of them have, to date, made express content-related hires (i.e., people with titles containing “content” or “editor”).

Unsurprisingly, this leads to ad hoc content and content responsibilities that tend to be based more on factors like hand-raising than expertise or strategy. Case in point, here’s how one major brand has allocated content responsibilities:

Yes, models have emerged to address the need to synchronize, manage, coordinate, and optimize content strategy, creation, production, and distribution. Not all of these frameworks necessitate increasing headcount, a solution that at the majority of organizations is quickly filed under “easier said than done.”

Read the rest of this post on iMedia Connection, where it originally published.

More than a handful of brands publish more content now than a major media property such as Time Magazine did 25 years ago.

Despite the overwhelming and ever-increasing trend toward content marketing, and the need to continually feed an ever-increasing portfolio of content channels and formats, most organizations haven’t yet addressed content on either a strategic or tactical level.

It’s high time they did, and hopefully my new research report, Organizing for Content, will help. It provides both frameworks for coping with enterprise content marketing demands and a checklist of recommendations for organizational readiness.

Consider: The average organization is responsible for the continual content demands of an average 178 social media properties, to say nothing of a myriad of other owned media properties, from websites and blogs to live events.

Those few large enterprises not yet active in social media can easily serve five million email subscribers, as well as multiple millions of monthly unique visitors per month to their sites.

Yet the overwhelming majority of organizations don’t have content divisions in their org charts. Only nine of the brands we interviewed for this report (out of 78 stakeholders, also including content service providers and domain experts) have made explicit content hires, i.e. people with titles such as “editor” or those that contain the word “content.”

Who, or what, governs content internally? Responsibilities and oversight tend to be reactive, highly fragmented and distressingly ad hoc, as illustrated below. This highly typical diagram portrays how one major retail brand divides content responsibilities between divisions that are not necessarily interconnected or in regular communication with one another. This fragmented approach leads to inconsistent messaging, huge variations in voice, tone, and brand, and an uneven customer experience. Channel divisions themselves tend to be ad hoc, assigned more on the basis of hand-raising than any overarching strategic mandate.

 It’s high time that organizations got organized for content. It’s only going to become more demanding – and harder – in the future.

Native advertising, advertorial, paid influencer, and sponsored content are just a few examples of the paid/owned media hybrids brands are exploring. Content must also be created for an ever-expanding spectrum of media, screens, and devices, ranging from smartphones and tablets to emerging platforms, such as augmented reality, Google Glass, and quite possibly devices like smart watches.

These new channels and platforms, coupled with a trend that de-emphasizes the written word in favor of visual and audio-visual content,  create new skill demands. “Hire a journalist,” a tactic many organizations adopted with the rise of blogging, now is in no way sufficient to address more technical requirements involving deeper knowledge of technology, production, design, and user experience. Requiring overtaxed and untrained staff to “do content” in their spare time is obviously hardly a solution.

Our research identifies six organizational models companies are using to address complex, cross-departmental content needs, and also contains a recommendations checklist for content preparedness. Please download the report (at no cost, we just ask that you share it if you like it), and let me know your reactions in the comments.

I’ll also deliver my findings in a webinar on Wed., May 29 at 1:00 EST. Please register and join us! 

Read and/or download the report below:
[slideshare id=19795236&doc=orgcontentv4-130423141546-phpapp01&type=d]

By Altimeter Group’s Research Team

• Analysts: Susan Etlinger, Charlene Li, Rebecca Lieb, Jeremiah Owyang, Chris Silva, Brian Solis
• Consulting: Ed Terpening, Alan Webber
• Researchers: Jon Cifuentes, Jessica Groopman, Andrew Jones, Jaimy Szymanski, Christine Tran

Over 30 Technologies Have Emerged, at a Faster Pace than Companies Can Digest.

If you think social was disruptive, it was really just the beginning. Altimeter’s research team recently convened for our annual research offsite and found over 30 disruptions and 15 trends that have emerged (see below for the full list in our Disruption Database). These disruptions and trends will affect consumers, business, government, the global economy; with accelerating speed, frequency and impact.

Four Major Business Disruptions Emerge – Business Leaders Must Prepare.

Out of these disruptions and trends, Altimeter identified four major themes that will be disruptive to business. Below is a preview of Altimeter’s four business disruption themes, with a definition and short description of each. In the coming weeks, we’ll publish a short report explaining these themes in more detail.

Everything Digital: An increasingly digital landscape – including data, devices, platforms and experiences – that will envelop consumers and businesses.

Everything Digital is the increasingly digital environment that depends on an evolving ecosystem of interoperable data, devices, platforms – experienced by people and business. It’s larger than the scope of Internet of Things, as it’s pervasive or ambient – not defined only by networked sensors and objects, but including capabilities such as airborne power grids or wireless power everywhere. Everything Digital serves as the backdrop for our next three themes.

Me-cosystem: The ecosystem that revolves around “me,” our data, and technologies that will deliver more relevant, useful, and engaging experiences using our data.

Wearable devices, near-field communications, or gesture-based recognition are just a few of the technologies that will make up an organic user interface for our lives, not just a single digital touchpoint. Digital experiences will be multiplied by new screen types, and virtual or augmented reality. Individuals who participate will benefit from contextualized digital experiences, in exchange for giving up personal data.

Digital Economies: New economic models caused by the digital democratization of production, distribution, and consumption.

Supply chains become consumption chains in this new economy as consumers become direct participants in production and distribution. Open source, social, and mobile platforms allow consumers to connect with each other, usurping traditional roles and relationships between buyers, sellers, and marketplaces. Do-it-yourself technologies such as 3D printing and replicators will accelerate this shift, while even currency becomes distributed and peer-to-peer-based. In this new economy, value shifts towards digital reputation and influence, digital goods and services; even data itself. The downside? An increasing divide between digital “haves” and the digital “have-nots.”

Dynamic Organization: In today’s digital landscape, dynamic organizations must develop new business models and ways of working to remain relevant, and viable.

Business leaders grapple with an onslaught of new technologies that result in shifting customer and employee expectations. It’s not enough to keep pace with change. To succeed, dynamic organizations must cultivate a culture, mindset, and infrastructure that enables flexibility and adaptability; the most pioneering will act as adaptive, mutable “ad-hocracies.”

Altimeter’s Disruption Database

Below are the 30 digital disruptions and 15 digital trends, which were used as the starting ground of our analysis.

Open Research: Please Share Your Comments and Insights with Us.

There’s more to come – we’ll be sharing additional insights such as 1) top questions for businesses to ask, 2) who’s disrupted and who benefits, and 3) enabling technologies.

In the meantime, we’re soliciting your comments as part of our Open Research model. Please share our themes with others, and help us answer these questions:

• What other business disruptions or trends are you seeing? Please add to this Google form and we’ll provide proper attribution.
• Which of these four business disruption themes impact your business now?
• How is your business responding to these themes, or the related disruptions and trends?

Photos from Altimeter’s Research Offsite

Below are a couple illustrations that resulted from the discussions that took place at our research offsite:

Above Image:  Altimeter synthesized these disruptions and trends, which become broader themes. 

Above Image: A graphic illustration of our synthesis. Thank you to Paula Hansen who was instrumental in visually capturing our discussions in real-time.

Reposted from the Altimeter Group blog 

How should organizations organize for content? Are brands really publishers? Very few have hired people with “content” or “editor” in their titles. Fewer still (read: almost none) have content departments or divisions within the marketing or other organizations.

Yet, more and more companies are producing content like crazy. Also, multiple websites. Large corporations have tens of millions of visitors to their dot-coms each month, perhaps five to 10 million email subscribers. Then, there are blogs, YouTube channels and multiple social media channels on social networks.

Like journalists, brands are challenged to “feed the beast,” often on a daily basis, sometimes in real time. All this content isn’t just written word. It’s images, videos, charts, infographics… Put all of this together and the process, workload, and workflow demands become truly staggering.

Yet, most companies have adopted content strategies that amount to little more than asking employees already juggling the demands of full-time jobs to please produce content, too, in addition to their day-to-day duties. Not only does this approach not scale, but these employees aren’t trained in either content marketing or content strategy.

Something’s got to give, and I’m currently conducting research to try to learn how companies are making room for the demands content is placing on marketing, communications, IT, customer service and CRM.

We’re analyzing our finding now and will publish our report in April. In the meantime, the questions we asked dozens of interview subjects may perhaps help organizations to assess their own content needs as they relate to workflow, process, technology and partnerships.

If you’re producing content, start asking yourself these questions. And, please let me know if we left anything important out you’d like to see included in future research.

General

• What’s your role? Where do you sit in your company’s org chart? 

• Do you have a dedicated content department or division? (Since when? What spawned it? How were buy-in and budget secured? )

• If you don’t have one, do you need one? If yes, how will this move forward?

• Which team determines the main messages or story line for products and initiatives? Is it a function of product marketing, corporate marketing, and/or do you collaborate across departments?

• Where does/should content sit in your company’s marketing org chart?

• Do you have a dedicated content staff? How many? Titles? Level of seniority?

• What content are you/your group responsible for creating?

• What target audience(s) or product group(s) does your team’s content serve?

 

Please read the rest of this post on MarketingLand, where it originally published.

Does your organization have a content marketing department? If not, you’re hardly alone.

While commitment to and investment in content marketing is skyrocketing year over year, there are far from hard and fast rules, and only barely emerging best practices, regarding how content fits into existing marketing functions.

Content generally doesn’t exist as a department or even a job function; nonetheless, it’s everywhere. Content touches virtually every marketing function from corporate communications to social media to creative, advertising, community, customer service, product groups, and digital/Web services.

Organizations are increasingly seeing the need for someone to oversee content as well as execute on content creation and dissemination – but where to start? How do the pieces fit together?

Most often, in my experience, the “we need someone to do content” cry originates in the social media practice. Because this group constantly both creates and responds to content, they’re usually first to realize that the organizational need for content extends far beyond their purview.

Read the rest of this post on MarketingLand, where it originally published.