That population white paper, and 6 common content marketing mistakes

I don't usually write about politics because it distracts from the purpose of this blog. This blog is about content, not so much about public affairs. But the ongoing contention over the Singapore Government’s latest White Paper has important lessons about the place of content and publishing in public relations.

I want to take this opportunity to explain the concept of content marketing to the public relations people that make up the majority of my meatspace professional network. It may not be the biggest example of content-strategy-gone-south from Singapore, but it is the most mainstream in recent memory.

Press releases work perfectly well, thank you very much

Every now and then I come across articles helpfully pointing out that press releases have stopped working, and it's time to switch to a digital content strategy. Sometimes I don't know if marketers in the digital space are just ignorant, or if they are being dishonest in order to push their brand of marketing.

Press releases are nothing to switch “away from”. A media strategy and a digital content strategy are different things, and if anything they are complementary, not mutually exclusive. Just because you’ve stopped issuing press releases doesn’t mean you’re on the way to SEO and content marketing success.

More likely, if you didn’t know what you were doing with your press releases, you probably don’t know what you’ll be doing with your content strategy.

Going viral still isn't a strategy

What does the Singapore telco SingTel, UK sanitation pad brand Bodyform, and the US presidential race meme #bindersfullofwomen have in common? Other than that all three were news items that streamed across my Facebook page last week?

Yes, there's a good reason why I'm leading a blog post with the "What do X have in common with Y" cliché. Honest!