Content Marketing Today

Content Marketing Now a Topic on Bold New Business Week Online Service

Recently launched ‘Business Exchange’ features timely and useful resources on hundreds of vertical topics that now include content marketing.

It’s no secret that all media companies are facing increasing challenges to their survival.  Of course, that’s one of the reasons that embracing a content marketing strategy is essential for marketers in the 21st century. 

Facing those challenges directly, Business Week has launched a new site which not only allows individual contributors to provide their own content button that allows them to recommend information sources data may be direct competitors to the publication.

The Business Week bet is that, by creating a vibrant community surrounding those key business topics, they will be able to provide a treasure trove of vertical information as well as highly vertical advertising opportunities. 

As they put it on their Media Kit:

With Business Exchange, users can create, find, and track business topics that are relevant and meaningful to them, as well as access articles from thousands of sources. They can also follow other users’ activities, connecting them with their industry’s brightest minds.

The New York Times August 17, 2008 edition reported on the new launch, quoting Business Week editor-in-chief, Stephen Adler

“As journalists, we’re good at finding great sources of information and distinguishing what’s important, but we also want to harness the very significant capabilities of our community…It only takes a very small percentage of people being active in a topic for it to be really vibrant and valuable for everybody else.”

Business Exchange is an effort to embrace independently generated content which can substantially extend the breadth and depth of Business Week’s perceived coverage of critical business issues. it also aims to create a community of users who may gather around shared topical interest. The creators make this a bit easier by integrating LinkedIn profile information with Business Exchange.

How we got ‘content marketing’ onto Business Exchange

The folks at Business Exchange make it very easy to get a topic started.  First, you suggest a topic and, if it does not yet exist on the site, you are invited to create it.  You can add content that includes news, blogs, and other resources.  I was able to get ‘content marketing’ okayed within 48 hours.  Once you have identified source material, news and blog posts are pulled in automatically.  Based on my experience, most of these are relevant but some are either off-topic or blatantly commercial efforts.  However, you have the choice of identifying them as such so that they will likely be pulled from the site.

As time allows, I will be adding more and more resource information to ensure that this topic is valuable to anyone arriving at Business Exchange.

The only downside is the same that applies to maintaining a blog.  Because I got this thing started, I am now the ‘curator’ and morally responsible for keeping the content marketing topic timely and comprehensive.

You can contribute content to Business Exchange, too!

Be sure to take look at the content marketing topic on Business Exchange. I encourage you to participate by adding content and suggested resources so that content marketing becomes an even more vibrant and important component of Business Exchange. 

Of course, you may have your own topic that needs to be covered in depth and which has yet to be established on Business Exchange.  It’s very easy to get started.  So, go for it!

Kudos to Business Week for thinking and acting outside of its own editorial box to bring relevant and valuable content on critical business issues.  I sure hope that the vertical marketing opportunities provided by Business Exchange can get them get past the tough advertising challenges that they share with all of their competitors.