Forbes this week announced Journalist Entrepreneurs, a Forbes-branded newsletter platform, hoping to attract indie newsletter authors in the same way it attracted freelancer contributions ten years ago. Unlike the cattle calls of 2010, Forbes this time seeks to attract editorial stars who already have big newsletter audiences and social media followings.
Most PR pros know about the ten Forbes Councils, providing relationship-building services and the chance to be published on the Forbes web site. Fewer know of two other Forbes community plays — Forbes EQ and Forbes Ignite. They’re worth exploring if your org — or your clients — focus on social equality and improving our world.
Agencies and clients face a reckoning with contributed content. The latter still assumes that opportunities abound. More than 100 entries in the SWMS contributed content gatekeepers list proves them right. Then again, when it comes to Tier 1, it just might be best to pay whoever lifts the velvet rope.
There are hundreds, right? But only 40 have published content either in Forbes’s CIO channel or its cloud channel since Oct. 1. We think we got all of them — name, channel, email and a link to their work. The vast majority are analysts, though some are vendors, with an edit freelancer or two. Happy hunting and let us know whom we’ve missed.
To nail that elusive company profile, make sure you’re studying the lists. Yes, one can apply for inclusion and what happens after that is something of a mystery. One can glean a lot from list results, however. For example, we recently studied a list within a list — the 20-company Rising Stars list within Forbes’s Cloud 100 — and here’s what we learned.
Is the Forbes Technology Council worth the money? We hear that a lot from PR pros looking to place contributed content. In our view the answer is ‘yes’, though there’s actually something bigger going on, which we’ll get to in a sec.
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FRIDGE NOTES
Steve is a longtime friend of SWMS and worked at subscriber LaunchSquad before moving on to IBM, Salesforce and now Anthropic. Steve knows exactly how to harness Claude’s power for comms purposes. Follow him and learn.
Press Gazette has a great story about Google reintroducing AI summaries into search results — less so in queries about breaking news, but definitely when someone searches for trend or how-to info. Convenient for users, maybe… but publishers stand to lose a ton of long-tail traffic because of this. No wonder the vast majority of publisher “innovation” is about commerce or consulting and no longer builds upon journalism.
CNBC Make It had a popular video franchise called My Biggest Lessons, in which CEOs shared something valuable that they learned along the way. No new segments have appeared since May 31. We’ll monitor this for you.
Great reporting from Mark Stenberg at Adweek. Two departures on the sales side seem to have hurt. The story also suggests that former Fortune CEO Alan Murray — who said he was retiring — may turn up at WSJ. Fortune is said to have released Murray from his noncompete, taking his word that he was ending his career.
Adweek subscription required.
Ten months ago SWMS spotlighted five up-and-coming Fortune reporters, suggesting that PR get to know these rookies. Where are they now? Jane Thier continues to excel in the Success section. Ruth Umoh now edits Next To Lead. Kylie Robison split for The Verge. Rachyl Jones is a fellow at Semafor. Alexandra Sternlicht this summer won a Knight-Bagehot fellowship at Columbia. Competition for this is brutal — congrats Alexandra!
