How B2B PR Will Succeed in 2011

Elizabeth Sosnow recently penned a thoughtful post with the title: "How B2B PR will Fail in 2011."

While the title is provocative, a more optimistic title might be, "How B2B PR will Succeed in 2011."

Sosnow claims the age-old model of PR is at risk, implying that a focus on social media, press releases, by-lined articles, trade shows, and other traditional PR staples misplaced. In its stead, she recommends content marketing.

While I too am a big proponent of content marketing -- particularly of producing content that engages -- the fact is that B2B PR has always been to some extent in the content business. Think white papers, case studies, speeches, by-lined articles.

What has changed today is not so much the ability and need of B2B PR experts to produce content but the fact that companies now don't need to go through gate keepers. Anyone today, as the litany goes, can be a publisher. Coinciding with that is that the sphere of content, as Sosnow points out, has widened, thanks to digitalization. Today articles, newsletters, ebooks, blogs, e-magazines, videos and podcasts, are all types of content that can fall under the PR umbrella. The digitalization of information has made content inexpensive both to create and distribute.

Where the rub is going to be as I see it in 2011 is not so much creating content. But in developing a strategy around the content that coheres with your overall marketing strategy and ultimately gets people eager to learn more. Granted that I am a sample size of one, but I am already buried under a veritable volcano of content. And, I bet you are too. What I need more than anything is smart, quick-read content available on demand. SmartBrief is one company doing a good job at just that. But there is a room for more.

Which brings me to the two buzzwords you'll hear a lot more about this year: content curation and one to one marketing. Both are not new terms, but technology is now making them a reality. And both make content marketers more effective. Curation refers to collecting (as opposed to creating) content on a subject or subjects and providing quick digests and links. Companies like paper.li, storify, pearltrees, and curatedby are making curation as easy as the click of a button.. One to one marketing, a concept Don Peppers and Martha Rogers popularized in the 1990s has always been the holy grail of marketing. And here too technology especially is making it easier especially thanks to software like bit.ly that tells you who has clicked on a link or applications like Tweet Spinner that tell you who is talking about your subject and has the most influence.

As I see it, it's now up to B2B PR to seize the content marketing mantle, and integrate that with an overall PR and marketing strategy, that helps expand your thought leadership and reputation.

How do you plan to improve your B2B PR in 2011? I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

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Wendy Marx, B2B PR and Marketing Specialist, Marx Communications.