How does a news editor decide what to publish? There are a strict set of rules which they follow to determine what’s going to make it into their news stream. It comes down to timing, significance, proximity, prominence and general interest. You need to generate online content that fulfils at least two of these characteristics to stand a chance of your brand making it into the news stream.

Timing: News editors relish breaking news simply because it sells. Hence, the more current your content, the more newsworthy it will be. Readers are used to being fed constant updates on events and being informed of the latest stories as they unfold, so your content has to contribute to this expectation.

Significance : A story about a newsworthy event involving hundreds of people is going to demand much more interest that an event involving a couple. The number of people involved determines the level of news significance.

Proximity: The closer a story breaks to home, the more newsworthy it’s deemed. There are exceptions to this rule (depending on the scale of the event), but the vast majority of the time, people want to know about what is happening around them. If something happened in your city, it’s much more relevant to something that happened on the other side of the world.

Prominence: Content featuring famous, well-known people or brands have much more sway in terms of news value than a piece of content featuring a member of the general public.

General Interest : These stories are unique in that, if they’re good enough, they disregard all of the aforementioned principles and still make the news agenda. These are stories which tug on a person’s emotions and don’t usually date as quickly as other news.

The overriding element that summarises all of these points is relevance. Content needs to be relevant to be picked up by news editors. That means relevant to their readership as well as your target market.

The fact is, no one is going to log onto a news website to read a piece of biased, ad riddled content. So, the content for your brand has to adhere to this.

The key point to remember is that news websites aren’t a marketing service, but they can be a marketing platform you can take advantage of if you know how.

If you’re looking for a Digital Content Marketing agency to create great online content to help boost your brand, then get in touch with us at Quad Digital and head on down to the Quad HQ on the HMS President.

You want user generated content (UGC) on your site. You know why? Because it gets people interested in, engaging with and sharing your brands name.

But, not all UGC is the same and every company requires a different variety. UGC can fall into various categories, including product reviews, blog posts, forum entries and social media sharing. Most importantly, not always is it beneficial.

Content created by your users does a lot to influence your brand. It stands as a representation of your company and has a lot of sway in recruiting potential customers to your site.

So, before you start plastering your UGC all over the web, consider which type of audience you want to attract.

Once you know this, you can start seeding your site or social media stream with comments and content that is going to get your desired audience communicating with your brand.

Here are a few ways to inspire people to generate content for your brand:

Run a competition

This year, Tourism Australia has re-launched their ‘Best Job in the World’ competition, which gives people the chance to win one of six amazing jobs in Australia, while also subsequently promotes tourism in the country.

After huge success last year, YouTube, Canon and Ron Howard have teamed up again for Project Imagin8ion. The competition asks photographers to submit their most imaginative photographs under categories including setting, character and time, with a winner being selected in each. This will form the fodder for a 30-minute movie to be directed by Howard. While the entrants get the opportunity to contribute to a movie directed by a Hollywood star, the brands also get their names shared and publicised.

Make a platform for people to contribute to

Websites like TripAdvisor and Allrecipes do this very well. In fact, much of their business plan depends on UGC. For these brands, having their users providing the content for their site creates a website for people who want advise from a community of likeminded and knowledgeable people. It’s the relatable factor that makes this approach work. On these sites, users contribute travel advice and recipes respectively. Millions of users log on daily for advice from people like them, not a travel writer being paid to review a hotel, or a top chef expecting every household to have a pasta maker and a bamboo sushi rolling mat.

The Guardian has also just implemented this approach. Their new platform – GuardianWitness – invites anybody who’s in the right place at the right time to contribute live news content to the site, whether video, photographs or audio material.

Make UGC your product

Chicago-based printing company Threadless sells designer t-shirts. But, it’s not what you might expect. The company invites artists to submit their creative designs to their site for ranking. Over a week, the Threadless community rates the designs from 1 to 5 and leaves feedback that helps the company decide which piece to print on a t-shirt. The chosen artists receive upfront cash and royalties from the sales. Effectively, the users are doing all of the work; all Threadless has to do is print the t-shirts.

Trust your users

After all, they’re the ones who will buy your product. Burberry launched the site, Art of the Trench, in 2009 and in true high-end designer fashion, paved the way for many other brands to follow. The website shows photographs of real, fashionable people wearing the iconic Burberry trench coat. Utilising your users photographs is a great way to get people sharing your brand on social streams.

Yogawear brand Lululemon has also done this effectively by incorporating Instagram into their marketing plan. Using a specific hashtag, users were asked to tweet or Instagram photos of themselves living #TheSweatLife and wearing Lululemon clothing.

If you’re looking for a  London based digital Content Marketing agency  to help boost your brand, why not  get in touch  with Quad!