Today’s post is the first in a new series debuting on Bateman Banter we’re calling: “The New J-School”, a semi-regular examination of the evolving nature of journalism in today’s digital age. The month of January brought to light some interesting developments we feel signal the start of a much larger trend — one that could swallow the conventional ad-supported media whole — the rise of corporate-sponsored journalism.

In the last week, two former BusinessWeek editors disclosed new deals to write for the corporate blogs of companies they used to cover. Steve Wildstrom, until recently the Personal Technology editor for BusinessWeek, forged a relationship with graphics chip giant NVIDIA to write for the company’s popular nTersect blog. This kicked off with a well-publicized trip to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas where Steve reported live from the show floor. Wildstrom’s former BusinessWeek colleague Steven Baker also announced ongoing deal to write for SmartData Collective, a community of blogs sponsored by data warehousing leader Teradata.

Either by choice or necessity, more and more journalists are becoming independent agents forced to fend for themselves in the open market. Wildstrom and Baker are at the forefront of this new breed of journalist cutting their own deals, and, in the process, figuring out how to do the reporting, get paid and deal responsibly with ethical issues. As these free agents seek out new opportunities to make money, they’re finding very little coming from traditional advertising-based media outlets. There are, however, an increasing number of corporations producing their own content and becoming media companies in their own right, and many of them need help.

For even the largest companies, maintaining a corporate blog with the kind of content needed to become the “must-read” site in a given sector is an uphill battle. At best, there may be 2-3 budding thought leaders in every organization, but the responsibility of writing thought-provoking, compelling content week in and week out is burdensome when it’s an adjunct to a full-time job. The burden is then passed onto the PR team to clean up poorly written or conceived copy until it’s suitable for publishing; nudge others to complete their drafts; and source more and more “content creators” within the company to share the burden.

Cutting deals with former journalists brings a new level of professionalism, respect and credibility to a corporate blog while alleviating the burden that has fallen on the marketing and PR professionals who produce it. Moreover, these deals allow the newly freelance journalists to remain a part of technology sectors they’ve followed for years. Without a masthead to call home, fewer PR people are calling them with breaking news or to broker meetings with their CEOs. These journalists are worried, and rightfully so, that their value in the marketplace will diminish as their relationships with story sources and C-level executives erode over time.

If approached the right way, the rise of corporate-sponsored journalism sounds like a win/win for the reporters and corporations, but it also raises several questions. How will this impact the quality of the reporting long term? How will this benefit readers, if at all? In the tech sector, the number of journalists considered truly credible is quite small. With the publishing industry imploding, who’s grooming the market influencers of tomorrow?  How long before demand soon outstrips the supply? Could companies that fail to broker deals with newly independent journalists ahead of their competitors soon discover there aren’t any good ones left? Worse still, could a Cisco or Oracle or EMC swoop in and buy all the quality ones up?

Next time on “The New J-School”, we’ll attempt to address these “what if” scenarios and share our thoughts on effective ways to integrate corporate-sponsored journalism into a marketing strategy.

A sponsored online conversation is loosely defined as the practice of paying a blogger to post about your brand. It was gained widespread attention last winter when Kmart engaged pay-for-post pioneer IZEA to recruit online influencers to go on free shopping sprees in exchange for unfiltered posts about their experiences. Since then, marketers, PR executives, analysts and the blogging community alike have deliberated over whether or not this is a legitimate, ethical form of marketing. General consensus says it’s legit, if managed the right way. According to Forrester’s Sean Corcoran, the right way boils down to two things: 1) sponsorship transparency and 2) blogger authenticity:

“Sponsorship transparency means that both the marketer and the blogger must make it absolutely clear to the reader community that they are reading paid content – think of Google Adwords “Sponsored Links.” Blogger authenticity means that the blogger should have complete freedom to write in their own voice – even if the content they write about the brand is negative.”

At the Bateman Group, we agree sponsored conversations can be a very effective channel to engage influential bloggers around a hot topic, trend or product. This is why we’ve been brokering these conversations on behalf of our clients for nearly three years – well before the phrase was coined. While I like to believe we were ahead of the curve, the concept has recently caught on like wildfire. Just check out Jeremiah Owyang’s running list of sponsored conversations involving several household brands.

During a meeting I had with IZEA’s Randy Mountz last spring, he explained that more than half of the other new business meetings he arranged in San Francisco that week were with ad agencies, the remainder being integrated PR and social media marketing firms (like the Bateman Group) and several social media specialty shops.  I found it puzzling that we (PR) were in the minority. True, sponsored conversation is paid media, and paid media has historically been handled by ad agencies. Yet, how could our counterparts at Saatchi & Saatchi or Leo Burnett be in the same position to broker a sponsored conversation with an influential blogger whom we personally know and follow?

Although ad agencies may have demographic info on a particular blogger’s audience and unique visitors, we know their hot buttons, we’re familiar with the angles that will engage more of their readers (versus turn them off), and we have the relationships. It’s not that the ad guys couldn’t do this in time, but we’re paid by our clients to do it every day. Having had the opportunity to accumulate this wisdom and network of organic relationships with bloggers over several years gives us a huge advantage to deliver value in this realm.

Within a few weeks of my meeting with IZEA, Forrester’s Josh Bernoff reinforced the fact that sponsored conversation sits somewhere in the middle of PR and advertising:

“In PR, you try to get a blogger to talk about you, but your chances of success are hit or miss. In advertising, you can be sure to get a placement, but it’s not in the blogger’s voice. Sponsored conversation – paying a blogger to write about your product – fits in the middle. It guarantees a post, and it’s in the blogger’s voice.”

Josh is a smart guy and his explanation makes perfect sense on one level: Sponsored conversations do admittedly encompass facets of both disciplines. However, because PR/social media marketing practitioners have much more organic relationships with bloggers by virtue of our day-to-day job requirements, I predict that we will emerge as the de facto brokers of these conversations in the future, not the ad agency account execs.

These are some of the basic principles we follow at the Bateman Group when producing high-value sponsored conversations for our clients:

1. At the most fundamental level, being successful with sponsored conversation requires picking blogs and bloggers that are a match with a client’s product and/or thought leadership agenda. This is why it makes sense for our client Panda Security to work with Dana Gardner, a ZDNet blogger, to talk about trends in cloud security with fellow ZDNet blogger and SaaS analyst Phil Wainewright.
2. Building relationships with bloggers and their extended peer network can create a ripple effect. When we facilitate sponsored conversations for our clients, we regularly invite peer influencers (analysts, bloggers, etc.) to engage around a single topic or product in a roundtable format. Bloggers are often motivated by their peers and appreciate being invited to the table. And the content instantly becomes more credible and reaches more people.
3. Sponsored conversation shouldn’t just be used as a vehicle to promote a product. We’ve found it can also, more often than not, be a very powerful platform for thought leadership. A good integrated PR/social media marketing agency understands how to strike the right balance between authentically organizing a community of influencers around your brand and blatantly pushing a product.
4. If you’re looking for scale and want to engage an agency like IZEA to manage a broader campaign that includes tens, hundreds or potentially thousands of bloggers, then quality control is key. Integrated PR/social media marketing agencies are in a better position to help these pay-per-post networks prioritize the right blend of bloggers and engage the most influential ones with a compelling hook that appeals to their loyal followers.

The latest stir in the world of sponsored conversation is around the concept of sponsored tweets, but I’ll leave that for a later post once the model has been tried and tested. In the meantime, I’m curious to get your thoughts on who will emerge as the driving agents of sponsored conversations within the blogosphere…