Note from Jennifer: Today we have guest post from one of my friends and fellow content marketing writer, Leah Ingram. She is a writer based in New Jersey and has been a member of the American Society of Journalists & Authors (ASJA) for 20 years. Leah is the author of 14 books and has created content for many brands, including Costco, Delta Airlines and Panera Bread.

By Leah Ingram

Recently, I attended Content Marketing World in Cleveland. In every session about creating content, this is what I heard –hire journalists. Journalists know how to tell stories and tell them well.

I’ve been a self-employed writer for nearly two decades. I have a degree in journalism. With regards to assignments, I tend to specialize in a few areas–personal finance, health, education, business and philanthropy. In that time I’ve written about thousands of topics for more clients that I can count.

Health Topics Covered for Brands

In the area of health, most recently I’ve covered the following:

• A roundup on childhood immunizations, for which I interviewed experts at major medical centers, plus used data from the CDC and NIH.
• An article on how adult children should consider an older parent’s financial mistakes as a sign of serious health problems, not just senior moments. I interviewed doctors and real-life people.
• A profile of the founder of an exercising-tracking app that raises money for Parkinson’s disease.

What did all of these stories have in common, beyond the health hook? I wrote them all for publications that would fall under the umbrella of content marketing or branded content.

What I love about these assignments–and why I fully believe that journalists can write content marketing, including health-related branded content–is this: I pitched the idea, and I decided the experts I was going to interview for each. My editor had no part of the interview or research process. All he or she did was make the assignment, edit the piece once it was turned in, and process my check. Sounds like traditional publishing to me, but it wasn’t. Those pieces eventually appeared in a retailer’s magazine (in print and also online), on a corporate website, and in the online magazine for an insurance company’s branded website.

Americans Get Their Health Information Differently Today

Content like this, especially about health, is so important because consumers have changed how they get information. I’m sure plenty of Americans still read traditional magazines to learn five ways to flatten their abs or 10 tricks to tackle mealtime woes. But when it comes to real-life health concerns, they’re going online.

According to Pew Research Americans are consuming health information online in the following ways:

• 72% of Internet users say they looked online for health information within the past year.
• 77% of online health seekers say they began their last session at a search engine such as Google, Bing, or Yahoo.
• Another 13% say they began at a site that specializes in health information, like WebMD.
• 70% of U.S. adults got information, care, or support from a doctor or other health care professional, when asked to think about the last time they had a serious health issue and to whom they turned for help, either online or offline.

Why Brands Are Building Content Sites

Given these stats it’s no wonder that well-respected medical institutions such as The Cleveland Clinic, The Mayo Clinic and the University of Chicago Medicine have all built out robust consumer-centric content sites. In fact, a recent Content Marketing Institute article states that the Cleveland Clinic’s website has become one of the most visited health care destinations online.

If I contributed to any of these sites as a writer (I do not currently), this all would fall under the umbrella of content marketing. So would the writing I did for BabyCenter.com some years ago. Those assignments focused on common childhood illnesses. In case you didn’t know, BabyCenter.com is part of the Johnson & Johnson family. FYI, my editor at BabyCenter.com used to work at Meredith, publisher of Parents magazine but which also has a content division MXM; it works with brands like Kraft, Lowe’s and TGI Friday’s.

Journalism and the Content Crossroads

Given this well-known intersection of traditional journalism and branded content, I was shocked recently to receive an email from a niche journalism association. Every Tuesday I participate in Twitter chats on content marketing. In one of those chats, I’d tweeted that 95% of what I write is content marketing. This association must have been stalking my tweets, because hours later an email arrived saying the following:

“Unfortunately, [writing content marketing] will disqualify you from membership with XXX. If your writing situation changes, you can always apply again. I will pro-rate the membership dues and issue you a refund of $30.”

This organization, which I’d just joined and attended its conference, believes that the old-fashioned definition of journalism is the only kind of writing that their members should be doing.

What decade are they living in?

Why Journalists Can Contribute to Content Marketing Projects

Every writer I know is doing some form of content marketing these days. It is difficult if not impossible to make a good living as a full-time freelance writer if you’re going to take the position that only clips in the New York Times, the Washington Post or The New Yorker qualify as journalism. More power to you if you’re writing for those outlets. However, I’ll bet that unless you’re a Pulitzer Prize winning writer with a six-figure contract with those publications, you’re likely supplementing your income in other ways. It could be teaching journalism. Or editing a magazine. Or, gasp, writing for corporate publications or custom content or content marketing.

The problem with this organization that wants to kick me out is this: the journalists that run it do not understand that you can write journalism for content marketing projects. Sure, there are still advertorials and special advertising sections for which the client tells you exactly the people to interview. That definitely crosses the line out of traditional journalism. Even so, if the rate is good enough, those kinds of assignments can make up a part of my or any writer’s income pie, if they want.

But back to the role of journalists in content marketing.

After receiving the email from the journalism association, here is how I replied:

“It is journalistic content marketing, such as this piece for XXX magazine. It’s a health piece that came from meeting the editor at [your conference].

XXX magazine is what we used to call custom publishing. Now it’s call content marketing. So this is what I mean. My clients fall under the umbrella of content marketing but I’m writing ‘real’ pieces for them, not advertorials.

If you must renege my membership, so be it. But I think you are painting with a broad brush about the kinds of writing that journalists are doing these days.”

From what I understand my membership situation has been discussed at a membership committee meeting and will now go before the entire board of directors. I’ve been told that my situation is still unresolved.

Why Brands Hire Journalists Like Me

Unresolved or not, here’s the bottom line: My clients do not hire me because of my membership in a niche journalism organization. They hire me because they value my two decades of journalism experience. They hire me because I’m great at conceiving story ideas. They hire me because I am easy to work with. And, most importantly, they hire me because I know how to tell stories and tell them well.

So back to all those brands at Content Marketing World that promoted the idea of hiring journalists like myself to create content. Yes, 100%, yes.

http://www.suddenlyfrugal.com/content-marketing/

Have you had a similar experience where others (editors, journalists, anyone else) did not think that it is possible to ethically do both content and journalism?  If you do both, what has your experience been?