What Makes Up a Hit When it Comes to Content?
Actor, entrepreneur
and seemingly all around whiz kid Joseph Gordon-Levitt (3rd Rock from the Sun, 500 Days of Summer, Inception) is the brains and financial brawn behind one of the better content sourcing and distribution strategies I’ve seen recently. His production company, hitRECord.org, has tapped into a torrent of quality, original content among creative individuals who lack the resources to produce and distribute their great ideas on their own. While it’s a project 5 years in the making, they only officially announced their status as a production house for artists in 2010. But, what’s that got to do with you and your brand, you ask?
Sourcing good, interesting content has to top the list of challenges facing brands interested in moving beyond anything more than plain-Jane advertising. As marketers, we’ve learned and carefully perfected the process of searching out new channels, poring over research about our audience and carefully allocating resources for publishing, placing and distributing “stuff.” But having stuff that doesn’t suck is what tends to elude us.
What Gordon-Levitt and hitRECord have proved is that there’s a lot of people out there with stuff that doesn’t suck who have the opposite problem. Rather than me explain in detail, just soak in this announcement from “Regular Joe” about the project going public:
hitRECord: THE NEW DEAL 01-01-10 from hitRECord Joe on Vimeo.
Sure, this is a celebrity with an existing personal brand to play off of but if you search some of the submissions on hitRECord.org you’ll find the emphasis is more on connecting the dots to great content than putting Levitt in lights. Similarly, your company has an existing brand that may currently be stealing the limelight but you also have resources and reach that individual contributors and collaborators would kill to have access to.
Could your company blog benefit from an outside perspective? Is there an untapped fan base of your services or products that might just be willing to offer their take in exchange for compensation or even just recognition from your brand? Is there a more influential, but upstart source of information about your industry who you could collaborate with?
All valid questions, don’t you think?
As Marketing Manager, Luke Meyers handles all aspects of marketing, branding and market research for McMurry and writes on topics related to content marketing, branded media and emerging technology. Before McMurry, Luke worked in fundraising and development for the Visiting Nurse Service, one of the oldest non-profits in the country.