You’ve decided to hire a journalist for your content marketing team – congratulations!
All the evidence says you’ve got yourself a hard-working individual used to delivering high-quality editorial on tight deadlines. Those are some darned useful qualities.
But not all journos will hit the ground running. Making the switch to content marketing can take a bit of adjustment. And reporters who can’t get their head around the differences are going to struggle.
I know because I spent 17 years as a newspaper and radio reporter before being wooed to content marketing. I know because, as a managing editor for a content agency, I’ve employed and then unemployed several members of my old profession.
What follows is my list of areas where reporters can struggle when they make the switch and my suggestions for helping them adjust. Or, as I like to call it: How to Train Your Journalist.
1. The ‘holier-than-thou’ problem
Journalism is a vocation. From the first day of university through to the last day of a newsroom career, it is relentlessly competitive. To succeed, a journalist must really want it. It’s also a profession that has a special place in democracy – holding governments, corporations, and individuals accountable.
Gosh, but that can give you an ego. For some reporters, that can be hard to let go. And what you, as the person employing them, end up with are writers who think they’re too good to be writing the content you’re commissioning.
The first sign they’re not effectively making the gear switch to content marketing is turning in what feels like lazy copy. When you read it, you can tell they’ve not really made an effort. This is a problem of attitude and I’ve reluctantly had to let writers go because they couldn’t get past it. (It’s one reason to try reporters on a freelance basis before you bring them on staff.)
Before they start writing, get them excited about your product and services, and what you’re trying to achieve (or what your client is trying to achieve). Get them out of the office. Send them into the factory, onto the shop floor, or out in the trucks. Get them talking to your most passionate employees. Put them through the more entertaining elements of your staff training. Let them soak up the enthusiasm you and your team have for what you do.
If, after all that, they won’t “get with the program,” consider letting them go.
2. Help them chill out about journalistic-first principles
There are certain things reporters freak out about. Not providing balance (getting two or more sides of a story) is one. Allowing people you’re writing about to see what you’re writing before you publish is another. And – heaven forbid – letting sources change their quotes so they sound better.
For obvious reasons, some of these first principles of journalism don’t really translate to content marketing. Hey, if you’re writing content for Burger King you don’t give Ronald McDonald the right of reply.
The key mental gear-shift is…
