This SWMS cheat sheet is unlike any other we’ve done, combining insights on contributed posts and paid posts across 146 publications in B2B and B2C.
This month we studied guidelines from contributed content gatekeepers. Dozens and dozens of them.
If you have a San Francisco-based story to tell, you can tell it yourself in the San Francisco Standard, now in its second year.
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Does TechTarget accept contributed content? The one-word answer is yes — but it’s a bit more complicated than that.
You won’t see better contributed content than this piece posted last month on VentureBeat. Written by Gusto CTO and co-founder Eddie Kim, the piece is true thought leadership. It plants the flag and, even better, busts a myth.
Former AP, PC Week and Computerworld journalist Bob Scheier helps develop thought leadership content for global B2B companies. He is very, very good at it. In this Q&A, Bob shares tips and tricks for getting techies to come across with clear, usable insight.
SWMS contributor Bob Scheier writes: Everyone and their brother seems to be looking for “thought leadership” these days – the unique, thoughtful insights that show you understand the technology you sell, and the industry you’re selling into.
Protocol has not only hired a boatload of top journalists in its first 18 months, but also has recruited almost 200 contributors whose work appears in a thought leadership vertical called Braintrust. If you represent thought leaders, you’ll enjoy this Q&A with Protocol associate editor Kevin McAllister — your pitch contact — and Protocol president Tammy Wincup.
Industry Week senior editor Laura Putre wants your contributed content and is willing to do more than most gatekeepers to get it.
YOUR ACCOUNT
FRIDGE NOTES
Well, for now it’s Jim Jordan… but such news illustrates the kind of world we seem to be headed for. Adweek has the details, subscription required.
No “predictions” post will appear on this site. That said, quite a number of subscribers have asked for a Zoom/MS Teams presentation on what 2025 will bring. A conversation is precisely the right tool for the job. After the election — and with AI transforming publishing and life — “2025” is best discussed among peers, not predicted. So if you’d like to have a confidential group exchange on what stands to unfold, and why, and how comms pros can come out on top in spite of it all, drop a line and we shall schedule something.
According to Adweek, Omnicom CEO John Wren and IPG CEO Philippe Krakowsky were in merger talks for eleven and a half months before the transaction was announced this week. Amazing that it didn’t leak.
Should PR pros stop visiting X, with all its lies and hate? It’s only going to get worse. Or are tidbits from targets too important to walk away from? Click here to watch tech edit vet David Strom and I disagree (at high speed) about this, as one compelling visual after another pops up on your screen. In 2025, SWMS will officially launch “SWMS Sound Thinking,” designed to be “argumentative insight in six minutes or less.” Each segment will explore a timely and controversial topic of interest to tech comms pros. This prototype runs 5:25. Hope you enjoy it — feedback vital and welcome! –Sam
New EIC Jamie Heller has asked her reporters to start going on camera — for the BI TikTok channel — to explain the big, deep-divey story they just published. Other publications do this — especially archival Fortune. BI is now on that too. Game on.
At this time last year, Eric Newcomer and his two podcast co-hosts — Max Child and James Wilsterman — each formed an “AI startup fantasy team” and picked five AI startups to seed their rosters. We’re now in year 2 and it’s time to draft again. The podcasters wonder… which startups do they dump? Which do they add? The player whose startups accumulate the most total value by Nov. 1, 2028 is the winner, so there’s plenty of time to make adjustments. Here’s a link to the AI fantasy team podcast — you may need a password. Not sure.
