Almost a year ago, a friend sent this article to me by Barry Lowenthal on AdWeek.com.  I re-discovered it by chance while looking for something else, and it resonated very strongly with me.  Businesses, both large and small, generate volumes of content – much of it relevant, share-worthy, and generally interesting – outside of the realm of the marketing “function”.  But who in your organization is charged with determining what should be shared, how to share it, through what channels to share it, etc.?  In the words of the article, who in your business “evangelizes the importance of content in driving business results and helps the company think about whether or not a piece of content is worth sharing?”  Who leads your company’s content creation, distribution, and strategy charge?

This article really got me thinking, so I wanted to share it.  Even though it is nearly a year old now, and much changes in a year, I believe it is still relevant, perhaps even more so now due to the ever-increasing rates of change and content generation.  I look forward to your comments.

Content is marketing, we all know that. But marketing is also content. So are HR manuals, social media policies, annual reports, analyst reports, research studies, customer evaluations, product reviews, employee testimonials, customer testimonials, videos from conferences, CEO blogs, tweets, updates and check-ins.

Every piece of communication that companies create is potentially an asset that can be shared. Every piece of communication can help dimensionalize a company, further define its brands and tighten bonds with customers. But very few have that kind of macro perspective on and exposure to all the content they produce. At larger companies, which are often siloed and matrixed, few people even think about the kinds of content that can be shared with customers…

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