How can online advertising leverage brand journalism to tell authentic stories?

Brand journalism flips the script. You're not just telling stories; you're building a relationship. It’s your chance to shape how people see your brand by being real and authentic, not salesy. You create connection, trust, and loyalty—and that's way more powerful than any ad.

I have some clients who will agree with the concept of brand journalism and later on say things like how do truly know it has value? As a long time marketing and reputation builder this inside drives me a bit crazy. I sometimes fail in my efforts to get clients to understand that we talk to people who are both existing customers and potential customers. The customer journey is usually not based on shiny objects, price points, and impulsive decisions. Branding a business takes a long time and work. When you reach a point of being top of mind in your industry it will never be because of a holiday sale you ran. Your reputation and trust are the most invaluable commodity on earth.

Being an early adaptor, I thought of community content sponsored posts that drew positive accolades from the local news community for providing a method to grow online revenue when marketing community businesses with a storied angle. This method of advertising and content building really helps expand upon information that allows the customer to make an informed purchasing decision. I found this method of working very rewarding in how it presents insight on how product/service benefits community. Example of a customer journey I worked with was a women's journey from becoming a welder evolving into a teaching position that included sponsoring a bursary contest for continuing education offered to female welders wanting to grow their careers.

A practical strategy I recommend for Branding is finding your format for delivering peer to peer content that's industry relevant. When your readers take interest in following along regularly to learn more, this grows search rank by the laws of unique impressions coming from unique users that want to spend more time on the website. It's a great method of building out an online brand that ranks well for search.

Anyone who wants to succeed in brand journalism need to have an army of supporters. Brand journalism uses ‘gorilla tactics’ to get visibility as well as multiple shares of their content. Hash tags get your content seen but tagging key influencers who comment gets you into their feeds. The more eyeballs the better. Repurposing content allows you to get the attention of a broader interactive audience. The goal here is not for your post to go viral but to use a cumulative gross audience through using others to share your content.

There are often best practices that social media suggests. Although these are good for the majority of people, the greatest influencers learn to play outside the box with creative brevity that can entice viewers with it’s simplicity. Consider the the 3.5 seconds rule. Thats how long the average viewer will give your post to consider if they will read and react. Its a very short window.