We just hosted 200 senior leaders at Cited, our first-ever conference for the brand journalism community. The goal was to bring together the individuals that are blazing the path for great brand editorial and to dig into what I see as the three largest challenges (read: opportunities) facing those investing in great brand content:
The brand journalism community has been growing rapidly the past few years, but there has never been a place for brand journalists to gather, compare notes, and celebrate wins together. As one person who manages a newsroom at a midsize fintech company told me… “I had no idea there were this many people at brands doing this!”
And that is why we hosted the event.
Working with hundreds of brands to distribute their content to publishers, we’ve had a front-row seat to the challenges teams are coming up against and all of the disparate ways they're solving them. Cited was a chance to bring this evolving community together, and from the panel discussions and presentations to the networking, the event delivered.
Here are some of my biggest takeaways from the day.
Here's the story I've seen play out way too many times: Brand hires a journalist to lead a newsroom. That person staffs up a sizable team. They spend 12 months dialing in an incredible content strategy, only to look up and realize that no one is coming to their blog, and they haven't thought about audience development or distribution. Typically around that 12-month mark is when executives start asking about who's actually reading the content, and, unfortunately, that is when some of these teams get clipped.
We heard from dozens of individuals about how they brought a distribution-first mindset into not just content development, but the full strategy.
Brands are being strategic about where they show up and, more importantly, whether those channels are actually reaching the people they want to reach.
At Cited, AJ Smith, SVP of Content & Audience Growth at The Points Guy, put it this way: “What do we want to be known for, and what do we want to be experts in?”
Many of our panelists came to the brand publishing world from traditional media, where clicks and traffic have been the most important KPIs for years. But the brand journalists we heard from emphasized that it’s more important to reach a high-intent audience rather than just scale. That means thinking deeply about what your audience needs and making sure your content meets those needs.
Ramp economist Ara Kharazian talked about this at Cited, saying he limits his research to topics that help the small businesses on Ramp’s platform make better decisions. It’s not just about telling stories that will go viral, it’s about telling the right stories that will be helpful for (potential) Ramp customers. The exact focus will be different for every brand, but the concept is the same.
As HubSpot’s VP of Media Jonathan Hunt pointed out, the revenue impact of a lot of this work is not always directly attributable. Former journalists now working in this world are having to get creative with how they prove ROI.
There was a lot of talk of new metrics. Jeannie Kim, VP of Brand & Content at Fora Travel, introduced the concept of blended CAC (customer acquisition cost) that measures the impact of both paid and organic together, as many efforts drive each other together and are not mutually exclusive.
Tinuiti’s director of GEO, Jen Cornwell, compared AI visibility to a billboard on the side of the road: You won’t know exactly who saw it, but it builds recognition over time. Content teams are increasingly having to speak the language of finance and ops leaders who don’t share their background.
One huge advantage that brand journalists have is that they’re usually sitting on a treasure trove in their customer data. Kelly Soderlund, head of insights at Samsara, said brands should ask themselves what they have access to and what they can create that’s additive to the conversation.
For Samsara, that means things like looking at construction activity in the lead-up to the World Cup. For Ramp, that means looking at AI spend by the businesses that use its platform.
One of the most inspiring things was hearing from different speakers about their journeys and seeing how adaptable the people in this space are. We heard from classically trained journalists who are now creating custom Claude dashboards to triangulate different data sets and create reports about the impact of their team's content that they can show the C-suite. Another former journalist has created her own customer acquisition cost formula to help the broader org understand the value of the content her team is creating. It was a great reminder of how much people can grow and adapt throughout their careers.
It was a shame to only have room for 200 people in the room, but we will be sharing videos of each session soon, and I can say with certainty that there will be a Cited 2.
We hope to see you there.