THE LYONS SERIES Dan Lyons VOLUME 1

Little books on big ideas.

THE CMO’S GUIDE TO

BRAND JOURNALISM

A PUBLICATION of HUBSPOT
 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

1
Media and marketing are
converging, as more brands launch
publishing operations.

Storytelling is a powerful way to

connect with customers.

3
The key to gaining the trust of your
audience is to publish material that
is credible and honest.
 Consider the semiconductor industry. There was
a time, not so long ago, when technology trade
INTRODUCTION journals and mainstream newspapers alike
regularly wrote about the chip business. But
Dan Lyons today that’s no longer the case.

Publications make money by selling ads, and

Call it what you will: brand journalism,
corporate journalism, corporate media. More way to generate page views is to write about
and more companies are creating “journalistic” Apple rumors, or the hot new social
content. Some are hiring actual journalists. networking startup with a 22-year-old
Others are building studios, hiring camera crews
and launching dedicated news sites to cover Stories about 28-nanometer wafer fabs just
themselves and their industries.

If you’re a CEO or CMO of a mid-sized or large It’s no surprise, then, that chipmakers like Intel,
brand, you may have started thinking about IBM, Qualcomm and nVidia have been leaders in
building an in-house news operation. Our goal is creating media operations.

obstacles you should expect to encounter and void that has been created by the decline of
how to get over them. traditional media outlets. In 1980, the ratio of
PR professionals to journalists in the United
These days pretty much every company has States was 1.2 to 1. By 2010, three decades later,
some kind of corporate blog. At the most basic there were four PR professionals for every
level, the idea is to use the blog in lieu of press journalist in the U.S.
releases. But some companies want to do more.
The media is overwhelmed and simply can’t
Some create content in order to generate leads. keep up. The best way to be part of the story is
For them, news is just another form of content simply to become a journalist yourself.
that can be used to attract an audience of
readers who might be converted into paying This book explores reasons for building a media
customers. operation inside your company, and provides
case studies of companies that are pioneers in
Others produce news as a kind of service to their
customers. There’s no expectation of a direct corporate journalists at GE, Intel, IBM,
return on investment. The goal might be brand Microsoft, and HubSpot.
awareness, using storytelling to create a new
image of the company. I’m also drawing on three decades of my own
experience in the mainstream media business,
Blogging can also be a form of public relations. including 10 years as a tech reporter at Forbes
Mainstream media outlets might see a story on a and four years as technology editor of
corporate blog and then write their own version Newsweek. Like some of my reporter friends,
of it. I’ve recently made the transition to the world of
to cover the news about their industry simply corporate journalism. In 2013 I joined HubSpot
because the mainstream media does a poor job to help out with its media team. I hope that the
(or no job at all) of covering them. lessons I’ve learned can be useful to others.
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

We’re All In the Media Business Now

1 Media and marketing are merging, and creating
new hybrids.

Four Models
2
IBM, Intel, Adobe, HubSpot.

Newsroom Structure
Traditional newsrooms are hierarchical,
3 command-and-control organizations. How to map a
corporate media team to that model.

What Should I Write?

4 Think of your constituencies: investors; customers;
employees; the world at large.

Best Practices
5 Being transparent. Finding guest contributors.
The virtues of promiscuity.

Media for Small Companies

6 The unique challenge of creating media in a small or
medium-size business.

7 Finding journalists who can make the transition to

brand journalism. Establishing credibility.

Code of Ethics
These are the guidelines created by Contently, a New
8 York company that matches freelance journalists with
corporate writing gigs.
 WE’RE ALL IN THE
MEDIA BUSINESS NOW
1

There was a time when the only job a journalist could do inside a big
corporation was to work in public relations. But in the past few years
journalists have started leaping into corporations with titles like “managing
editor,” and a role that involves running a corporate newsroom.

Cisco, Intel, Microsoft and Oracle all operate newsrooms. Maersk, the shipping
company, has a news operation. So does Nissan, the Japanese automaker.

Silicon Valley, Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz and Battery Ventures,

Forbes, respectively.

It’s not just big companies, either. Kapost, a small startup in Boulder, Colo.,
hired Jesse Noyes, a former Boston Herald reporter, to run its content
marketing operation. I’m another example. I’m the former technology editor at
Newsweek, and now I’m a blogger at HubSpot, a 650-person marketing
software company in Cambridge, Mass.

Not only are a lot of companies getting into the media business, some are
creating legitimate journalism. As I wrote recently after seeing the amazing
work that Microsoft is doing on its Stories website, “It’s Happening: Corporate
Media Is Getting Better than Mainstream Media.”

At the same time, media companies are increasingly running content created

Post and Business Insider, as well as august brands like Forbes, The Atlantic,

operate studios to create that sponsored content. Basically, they’re building

in-house advertising agencies.

Brands are moving into the space once occupied by media companies, while
media companies are moving into digital marketing.

These two worlds -- the world of media and the world of marketing -- are
smashing into each other, and producing all sorts of weird new hybrids.

It’s not so surprising, when you consider that in fact these two worlds have
always had a symbiotic relationship.

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 FOUR MODELS 2

going to look at four models that are in use today. They are:

You’re publishing stories because you want

people to know about your company. You’re not trying to generate
sales directly from those articles. Examples: GE and IBM.

You write about your own company and your

industry, creating coverage that supplements the work of
mainstream media. Examples: Intel and Microsoft.

You want to establish your company as a

thought leader, so you create an independent site. Example: Adobe’s
CMO.com.

You use content as a way to generate leads

that can be converted into customers. Example: HubSpot.

BRAND AWARENESS: GE REPORTS

Tomas Kellner spent eight years as a business reporter at Forbes, and now is
managing editor of GE Reports, an online publication that GE created to tell
stories about its people and its innovations. Kellner publishes six or seven
articles a week. He writes most of the articles himself, but also gets some from
an outside agency.

Kellner also has created a role that involves traveling to GE locations and

businesses in the U.S. as well as Istanbul, Buenos Aires, Beijing and elsewhere
around the world. The idea is that GE communicators ultimately will pitch and
write stories and serve as GE Reports correspondents, instead of producing
press releases that few people read and care about,” Kellner says.

Kellner’s performance isn’t measured in terms of lead generation. GE isn’t

expecting to create content that will sell jet engines. Rather, Kellner is trying to

Scientist, Fast Company and other traditional media outlets. All of that counts.”

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 One of Kellner’s recent articles was “Going to technology to make progress, and engaging in a
Extremes,” about a Czech aircraft manufacturer, conversation.
Aircraft Industries, that uses GE aircraft engines.
Aircraft Industries had won a deal to provide
small planes to an airline in Nepal. Kellner wrote Steve Hamm wrote more than 30 cover stories
the article, which was accompanied by video about technology and made a name for himself
shot by GE staffers wearing GoPro cameras.
Another recent story that Kellner loved writing journalists in tech. In 2009 he made the jump to
was “A Flight of Fancy,” corporate life, joining IBM as a communications
strategist, writer and videographer. He reports
incredible exact replica of a Boeing 777 jetliner to the head of corporate external relations.
out of paper.
A big part of his focus involves IBM’s vaunted
Kellner reports to the director of research division, and he’s especially passionate
communications, and he’s part of the PR about IBM’s cognitive computing initiatives,
operation. GE Reports is part of a larger effort including its Jeopardy-playing supercomputer,
around storytelling at GE which was initiated by
John E. Kelly III, director of iBM Research,
is writing for multiple constituencies, including
customers, potential customers, employees of Cognitive Computing.”
GE, business partners, investors and technology
enthusiasts. “This job gives me a perspective on

years. I want to learn something new every day,” intelligence, and other related areas, that is all
Kellner says.
see, to be there when it happens.”

PROJECTING THOUGHT LEADERSHIP: Hamm writes for IBM’s Smarter Planet blog,
STEVE HAMM, IBM which logged more than 850,000 unique visitors
last year. He writes strategic white papers, and
helps company executives develop byliners and
IBM’s primary blogs, A Smarter Planet, IBM op-eds. He also contributes sponsored content
Research, and CitizenIBM tell stories and to mainstream publications like Forbes,
present points of view on societal, industry and
business transformation, including IBM’s (ASP); with which IBM has advertising relationships.

corporate involvement in social progress Hamm doesn’t reach the kind of huge audience
(Citizen IBM). The main goal in these websites is
to present IBM’s ideas about how to make the but some of the videos he’s made have been
world work better. In addition to publishing
posts by IBM writers and executives, the sites
also publish posts by leaders of other people – including IBM clients, business partners,
organizations, academics, government bodies, journalists, bloggers and industry analysts.
etc. who have worthwhile points of view on
these themes. Bottom line: IBM is telling its own

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 “I sometimes think the real audience is an “In some respects, we’re a seed generator. Also,
audience of one,” Hamm says. “If I publish we’re providing free content for websites and
something about an IBM researcher that
makes that person feel good, and makes her journalist to do the same story, or if they use our
feel motivated and want to stay at IBM, then stuff directly, that’s the best validation.”
that’s a valuable service I have performed for
the company. So sometimes I just think about Some sites will pick up an Intel Free Press story
that one person.” and run the whole thing verbatim. Others will
link to an Intel Free Press story. Others will read
Hamm has also been able to pursue his passion the Intel Free Press story and get excited enough
for writing about tech in India and Africa. to send a reporter and do their own version of
Reporting on stories for IBM he has traveled to the story. From Intel’s perspective, those are all
Africa, China, Europe, Latin America. He’s wins.
working with smart people, and telling stories
about brilliant scientists whose work will Some Free Press stories don’t have anything to
change the world. “I feel like a very fortunate do with Intel. One compelling piece was an
human being,” he says. interview with a research scientist who is also
an explorer for the National Geographic Society.

INDUSTRY NEWS: INTEL FREE PRESS The site publishes three or four articles a week.
Most of the writing is done by a few people from
the Intel PR team who have Free Press as part of
Bill Calder is founding editor of the Intel Free their job duties. The Free Press site shoots a lot
Press, a news operation inside Intel that was of original photos and keeps all of them on a
launched in 2010. It’s a three-person operation Flickr stream where anyone can download and
housed inside Intel’s PR department, with use them. The primary goal is to get others
Calder, a former journalist and longtime PR guy, talking (and writing) about Intel.
in charge, and Benjamin Tomkins, a journalist
who previously was the managing editor of
we generate or how many page views we get,”
contribute to the blog sometimes. Calder says. “The purpose here is to really
provide some behind-the-scenes context, and
cover stuff that we feel is relevant even if may
what the number is every month and isn’t not even be directly related to our core
business.”
month to month. Nor is he trying to generate
sales leads. Intel sees the Free Press as a way to
cover stories that aren’t being covered “So much of this is about establishing credibility.
elsewhere, and possibly to persuade A win is when one of our stories gets picked up
mainstream outlets to pick up those stories not because it comes from Intel, but because it’s
themselves. just a solid news story.”

journalists who may be looking for interesting

angles or related stories and ideas,” Calder says.

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 INDUSTRY NEWS: MICROSOFT article and asked Microsoft to come help them
smarten up their buildings. The Stories site
wasn’t created to generate revenue, but the fact
that it could do so was especially gratifying, and a
operations that I’ve seen, a site called Stories testament to the power of storytelling, Clayton says.
that publishes long-form articles with beautiful
photographs and high-quality videos arranged
in a full-page magazine-style layout. In terms of CREATE AND SPONSOR: ADOBE AND
presentation, Stories is better than almost CMO.COM
anything being done by mainstream media
companies.
Adobe Systems is best known for its suite of
The Stories team is led by Steve Clayton, whose publishing and multimedia products, like
title is “Chief Storyteller.” Clayton is a former Photoshop and InDesign. But in recent years
Microsoft sales engineer in London whose Adobe has expanded into making software for
personal blog caught the attention of Frank marketing departments, selling a suite of
Shaw, MIcrosoft’s head of PR. Shaw offered programs called the Adobe Marketing Cloud.
Clayton the chance to move to Microsoft
To establish thought leadership in the marketing
full-time blogger, writing about anything he space, in 2009 Adobe launched CMO.com, which
is solely sponsored by Adobe but exists on its
own web address, separate from Adobe’s
corporate site. Adobe says it created the site as
about generating leads. To some extent Clayton’s “a demonstration of Adobe’s commitment to
team is simply telling stories that mainstream helping CMOs lead their companies in a digital
media can’t or won’t tell on their own. One great world.”
example is a story called “88 Acres: How
Microsoft Quietly Built the City of the Future.” The site’s editor-in-chief is Tim Moran, who
previously spent 20 years as a technology
The story came about after Clayton met the journalist. CMO.com does a lot of news
executive who runs MIcrosoft’s facilities. Turns aggregation, gathering up articles from around
out Microsoft had done some amazing things in the web that are relevant to chief marketing
the area of building automation. But when
Microsoft PR pitched the story to mainstream
publications, they passed. Advertising Age, and more than 150
marketing-related sites. “Editors review this
So Clayton’s team did the story themselves. The content every day, picking only the best and
package they produced was far better than most pertinent for inclusion on the site.
anything that a newspaper or magazine would CMO.com also produces its own `exclusive
have done. content,’ which is either assigned to and written
by some of the best business journalists around,
The story drew half a million views, but better or obtained from industry, such as brands,
yet, it actually generated sales. That’s because agencies, consultants, and researchers,” Moran says.
facilities managers from other companies saw the

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 The idea is to provide a single source where The blog is modeled after a newspaper, with four
CMOs can keep up to date with all the “channels” or sections -- Marketing, Sales,
information in their world, via the site or two Insiders, Opinion -- each led by an editor, aka a
weekly newsletters. CMO.com tries to “directly responsible individual,” or DRI, in
differentiate itself from other marketing sites by HubSpot parlance. The main Marketing blog is
aiming at higher level marketing executives and structured like a newsroom, with a managing
decision makers rather than “manager-level editor, a writer, and a copy editor.
practitioners” who are well served by other
marketing sites. Posts come from executives inside HubSpot, as
well as outside contributors, including reseller

LEAD GENERATION: HUBSPOT Kawasaki. Each channel creates content aimed

at HubSpot’s various customer personas:
marketing practitioners, salespeople, resellers,
Content has been central to HubSpot’s business and CMOs.
since the company’s founding in 2006. The basic
idea of inbound marketing is that companies can
use content to draw potential customers toward
them. HubSpot pioneered the concept of
inbound marketing and uses itself as proof that
content-based marketing is more effective and

techniques.

For the content team at HubSpot, content is

created with lead generation in mind. Typical
blog posts contain a call-to-action for an offer
that is put behind a registration gate. The offers
generate leads, which are passed to sales.

HubSpot is a data-driven company, and the blog

is no exception. The content team has a full-time

creates a monthly report.

The content team reports to marketing.

Marketing has a “service level agreement,” or
SLA, with the sales department, under which
marketing promises to deliver a certain number
of leads each month.

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 NEWSROOM MODEL 3

Traditional newsrooms are hierarchical, command-and-control organizations.

They have to be, because otherwise there’s no way to put out an entire
newspaper every 24 hours, or a new version of Time magazine every week.
There’s not as much collaboration as in other companies, and not as much
emphasis on developing consensus. Journalists simply don’t have the luxury of
getting together and trying to build consensus. In a newsroom, what the boss
says goes.

creating an in-house media operation it makes sense to emulate this model

while adding a few tweaks.

At the top of the newsroom there are two people -- the publisher and the
editor-in-chief. The publisher runs the business side of thing, selling ads. The
editor-in-chief oversees all editorial.

Below the editor-in-chief is a managing editor. Below the managing editor are
section editors -- sports, lifestyle, features, news, local, and so on. Below the
section editors are the writers, who also get ranked according to seniority.

Off to the side are copy editors, the great unsung heroes of every newsroom.
Copy editors never get a byline, and rarely get any praise, yet they are the last
line of defense against errors (or libelous statements) slipping into print.

MAPPING THIS TO CORPORATE BLOGGING

Corporate newsrooms are more complicated than traditional newsrooms and

have different goals. Reporters at a newspaper just write stories that seem
interesting, and that they hope will attract readers. A corporate newsroom is
representing a brand and ultimately has the goal of improving the company’s
business.

Another big difference: newspapers thrive on controversy, and welcome it.

Your company probably doesn’t.

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 In a corporate setting, stories must pass muster One person must be in
not only with an editor, but also with the CMO; charge and decide which stories will run and
the head of content, if there is one; the head of which ones won’t. The title doesn’t matter:
public relations; and the people who manage managing editor, editor-in-chief, executive
partnerships and relationships with other
companies. In the corporate world, the editorial person. The editor of your blog holds your brand
team functions as a service bureau, serving in his or her hands. The editor’s role is not only
those stakeholders. to edit stories that have been written but to
review pitches for stories and help writers
Here are the roles involved: shape their ideas. She is the voice of the site, and
sets the tone and direction.
The CMO’s role is akin
to the role of the publisher at a newspaper. Her If you’re a small operation, your blog
role is to view the blog in the larger context of might be a one-person operation, with an editor
the company’s overall business and to steer the who is also the writer. But as you grow, you may
blog in the direction that best serves the want to add writers. You might have employees
company’s needs. In media companies the who want to write for the blog in their spare
publisher and editor-in-chief sometimes are time. You should not set up a system where you
equivalent in terms of rank, and both report up impose quotas on departments to deliver blog
to someone else. In a corporate media operation posts, only because the content you get will be
half-hearted and not very good. You’re better off
blog. to make one employee a full-time blogger, or
hire someone for this role.
Sometimes the blog will
report up into public relations. The head of PR If you’re a small operation, then
may review every post before it is published. your editor-in-chief will also do the copy editing.
The blog editor should know which topics will But if you start producing content in volume,
be sensitive and will discuss potentially you’ll need to bring in a copy editor. Newspapers
controversial posts with the PR person even often require copy editor candidates to take an
editing test, and to do some sample editing. You
the PR person can overrule the blog editor.
period, to see how she performs on the job.

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 WHAT SHOULD WE WRITE? 4

brother. He’s a civil engineer, and he’s interested in technology but doesn’t
follow technology day in and day out. I imagined myself writing for him -- a
smart guy who wants a quick summary so he can stay up to speed. My job, as I
saw it, was to do the heavy lifting of reporting this stuff out so that I could
provide readers with that information.

Think of the constituencies you need to to address -- customers, employees, the

world at large, investors. Put yourself in their shoes, imagine what they might

Are there topics or subjects that are off-limits? Can we write about
competitors? In general I think it’s a bad idea to bash a rival on your corporate
blog. It might be fun, but it could also make you seem petty. Praising a
competitor, on the other hand, could be a really smart move.

across as charming. Done poorly, or done too often, and it can seem annoying

territory, but again, when done well, it can actually help the company. Robert

Microsoft from 2003 to 2006, and made a name for himself by daring to
criticize the company.

One example came in 2006, when Microsoft agreed to censor a Chinese blogger
at the request of the Chinese government. Scoble made news when he dared to
stand up and say: “The behavior of my company in this instance is not right.”

Microsoft.

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 Microsoft’s PR department and top management
probably did not relish the idea of having a
Microsoft blogger criticizing Microsoft in public.
But the company did not silence Scoble or
censor him.

Being willing to accept criticism made Microsoft

look stronger, not weaker; better, not worse. It
showed that Microsoft knew it was faced with

transparent about how it was making those

choices.

Many newspapers hire an ombudsman (or

“public editor” at the New York Times) whose
job is to criticize the paper and call out editors
and writers when they make a mistake.
Newspapers don’t hire ombudsmen because
they love the abuse. They do it because being
willing to criticize themselves helps establish
their credibility.

Of course, corporate blogs are not the same as

newspapers. Rules about editorial
independence will vary from one company to
another. The job of writers and editors is to keep
the editorial process honest and perhaps, at
times, to stretch limits, as would happen in a
traditional news outlet.

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 BEST PRACTICES 5

There are some ways in which the corporate journalism and traditional
journalism should play by the same rules:

Be transparent. Be honest about who you are and why you’re publishing this

you should disclose it.

Don’t write ad copy. You can (and should) write about your company and your
products. But there’s a way to do this that feels honest and legitimate.

Tell the truth. Ethics are the cornerstone of what you’re doing. Just like a
newspaper reporter, you should be seeking to tell the truth at all times.

Have an opinion. People respond to content that comes with a point of view.

you to customers.

Admit mistakes. If you goof up, admit it. Express your regret, and apologize. You
will be amazed what happens next. Fessing up makes people trust you more. It
shows people that you are human -- and honest.

Get people to contribute to your blog. Seek out people I call “megaphones,”

they will promote their article, and your brand will go along for the ride. If you
can’t get them to write for you, the next best thing is to write about them.

Be promiscuous. Promiscuity is a virtue, at least in the world of publishing.

business-savvy people. Try to write for them, or get them to syndicate articles
that have already appeared on your blog. Do the same with industry
publications from your market space, and the local paper. Your goal is to be in
as many places as possible.

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 MEDIA FOR
SMALL COMPANIES
6

Big companies like Intel or GE have deep pockets and can easily afford to build
a media operation, and don’t necessarily expect to generate sales from their
blogs. Small companies are more likely to want to see a return on their
investment, something that can be measured.

Those companies should focus on the model in which content generates leads.
To keep your budget low, hire a recent graduate from a journalism or
communications program, or even an intern from a local university.

weekly and monthly basis. See which posts generate the most pageviews.

format.

need millions of readers. A corporate blog can have a small audience, but if it’s

well, especially if you’re a small company and just starting out.

Also, be patient. It takes time to build an audience. It may take six months or
even a year for your blogging to really kick in.

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 STAFFING UP 7

Imagine what happens when a journalist goes to work in a corporation, where

collaboration and consensus are prized. For a journalist, getting dropped into a
corporate setting can be like landing on a different planet -- one where,
sometimes, it feels like there’s not enough oxygen.

You want to hire a journalist who has shown a knack for creating new
initiatives and ideas, and someone who relishes change. Has the reporter ever
created her own blog? Does she understand the business model of the
publications where she has worked? Does she understand the business model

the company?

The biggest hurdle you will face as you try to build a corporate publishing
operation will be establishing trust with readers. People are naturally skeptical
of anything that comes from a brand. Hiring real journalists is one step you can
take toward establishing credibility. Letting those journalists behave like real
journalists is the next one.

This may mean giving up a little bit of control. And this may be scary. But if you
have the right people involved, and they’re doing great work, a corporate
newsroom can become an enormous asset to your business.

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 CODE OF ETHICS 8

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