Placing contributed content ideally comes without strings — “pitch it, place it, forget it” — but that’s not how it works at Third Door Media, publishers of Search Engine Land, Marketing Land and MarTech Today. Third Door is in the community business. Community editor Wendy Almeida wants to help but you must help her too.
What makes for a smart approach to contributed content? Answer: something that you know has worked. A Sept. 25 Enterprisers Project piece called “Beware the dark side of agile project management” drew more page views than anything else TEP published that month. Let’s deconstruct why.
G2’s contributed content guidelines are refreshingly explicit and perhaps a bit demanding — you really need to know your SEO. Still, it’s worth it: submitting to G2 may land you a surprisingly effective hit while revealing how trade editors see their jobs these days.
The Enterprisers Project, described by owner Red Hat as “a community of CIOs discussing the future of business and IT,” may represent a contributed content opportunity for you. Content director Laurie McLaughlin (yes, formerly of IDG and UBM) explains why.
Which publications still accept one-off contributions? Of the 114 titles in our contributed content Google Doc, roughly 100 still accept standalone articles. Unfortunately, the most attractive venues — Forbes, TechCrunch and WSJ to name three — want ongoing commitments. Inc. and Entrepreneur already have hundreds of contributors and don’t hunger for more.
Financial Times opinion and analysis editor Brooke Masters this month produced a short video — and companion article — explaining how to contribute content to the publication. Brooke offers five basic points that every executive author should consider before pitching — to the FT or for that matter anywhere else.
A sharp-eyed subscriber alerted us this week to a cool, little-known Business Insider feature called “My First Day as CEO.” After a bit of sleuthing we identified the editor who oversees the franchise, and she offered us good background and pitching advice.
If you like the Forbes Technology Council, you’ll like the newly announced Ad Age Collective. It’s based on the same idea: paying an affordable annual fee for the right to publish content to a prestigious site and to enjoy additional benefits — such as professional introductions and early-bird pricing to live events.
How do you land coverage in WSJ Journal Reports? Pitch the beat reporters. “It’s hard to target these reports,” says senior editor Larry Rout. He explains that the best stories come from those with the domain expertise, be it in healthcare, energy or wealth management.
When Axios launched in 2016, its founders described its goal as “smart brevity,” or more colorfully, as “Twitter meets The Economist.” Take a look, for example, at Sara Fischer’s most recent Media Trends newsletter and you can see that Axios has succeeded. Observe the form, not necessarily the substance.
YOUR ACCOUNT
FRIDGE NOTES
Here’s how Mike Isaac presents himself. A single perfunctory paragraph doesn’t cut it anymore in a world of disinformation and synthetic, AI-generated content where no one really knows the agenda. The NYT wants to get out in front of that, especially before the 2024 elections heat up. Read the background behind this in Vanity Fair.
Legendary journalist Louise Story reveals how the smartest edit shops are using AI. Here come the flexicles.
Sara Fischer of Axios nails another scoop: Time is merging its Time Ideas section into a new one, called Time100 Voices. It doesn’t promise big opportunity for tech PR — it aims so high that only the Benioffs and Nadellas stand a chance.
Recent research from Semrush, a data partner of ours, reveals the most searched societal issues based on average monthly Google searches between January 2019 and June 2023, and how they rank across 35 countries. Searches related to mental health are skyrocketing.
It is now called AI Time To Impact, and if you care about what’s real in AI and when we need to care about it, AI Time To impact is a must-read.
Says Digiday today: 40 percent of Gen Z uses TikTok or Instagram when searching for lunch recommendations. The younger you go, the tighter the grip held by platforms. Musk’s calculation that few will ever leave X might not be too far off in the long run.
