This past year was tough on tech PR — no need to recount the details. But in the nick of time IDG Insider Pro has breezed into town. Though it does run product reviews that appear on other IDG sites, it’s no mere roll-up. It’s got unique analysis and contributed content and much that other sites do not have — and it’s pitchable like the old days.
A fixture in our Q4 subscriber meetings was the discussion of SEO and evergreen content. Here’s how the set-up went. “Think about how much has been written about digital transformation… the many thousands of articles. Now let’s go to Google, type in ‘digital transformation’ and let’s see what ranks highest.”
Tech edit industry veteran Matt Rosoff is a builder. He helped IDG build a web channel and event around BYOD. He built Business Insider’s west coast presence as well as its enterprise tech reporting team. Since January, Matt has built out CNBC’s tech reporting team.
You send us lots of rejected contributed content, asking what went wrong. Sometimes we can spot a path forward, but it’s heartbreaking to hear that “the client wants it written this way” or “this has already been approved.” That’s why this week we studied nine sets of contributed content guidelines from top edit targets and packaged what we think is their most valuable advice.
YOUR ACCOUNT
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!
