 Ultimate guide: a content calendar should be utterly aligned to your business objectives. Any business serious about showing its best face to the world in 2017 needs to develop a monthly content calendar - one that converts to results. As creator of the DIY Newsroom approach to content, my mission is to empower businesses to do it themselves. Indeed, if you are a medium-sized or larger business, or any business with communication nous and resource, you should be controlling your own message rather than leaving it to external agencies. Get it right and you could zoom through cyberspace from zero to hero. But let us be clear. Crystal. As the ultimate reference guide, the content calendar will make or break your level of reach and engagement with your target markets. The content calendar requires considerable thought and should be utterly aligned to your business objectives. Content should embody who you are and what you stand for. It needs to be compelling, relevant and hit the target. Critically, get the outline of a distributed content strategy right - and then start scheduling and sharing. Yes, those likes, followers and connections beckon. Yes, you want to use that new fandangled tool to automate the delivery of your enriching blogs, inspirational quotes and insightful posts. But stop. Pause and think about whether you have factored in these five essential steps that will underpin the success of your distributed content.
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 One of the key lessons for me when it came to designing best-practice communication strategies in 2016 was to listen more and talk less. Amid the cacophony of communications today, that’s not easy to do. To stand-out from the crowd, we can make the mistake of trying to be louder or more loquacious than whoever is near us. However, in seeking to better serve clients, markets or audiences our focus must be pointed laser-like at what concerns them - what really concerns them. That means zipping it and turning on the satellite dishes on either side of our head. If you do that, our experience is that results will follow. Here’s five reasons why: Submission to New Zealand Commerce Commission in support of the merger of Fairfax NZ and NZME5/12/2016 EDITORIAL COMMENT Flame Tree Media is more than an interested party in what goes down in the New Zealand media market. One of our key clients is Fairfax NZ and we have also consulted for independent publishers there. We believe the proposed merger between Fairfax NZ and NZME would be a good thing for New Zealand, those businesses, journalism and, most importantly, for Kiwis. We produced this submission for the NZ Commerce Commission, which is considering whether to clear the merger. It is expected to make its final decision by March 15, 2017. Coincidentally the Ides of March. Hmm. Learn these 7 things from the best newsrooms and you will light up the world with your content5/12/2016  Communication units have learned a lot in recent years about leveraging social media, but if they really want to supercharge their messaging they should adopt the best behaviours of modern newsrooms. Newsrooms have the attributes, processes and energy that power content for ultimate audience engagement. Over 30 years, I’ve run or worked in dozens of newsrooms in Australia and New Zealand - the biggest and smallest. I’ve also seen how exceptional operations like The Sun and The Guardian in London, and the Chicago Tribune and Boston Globe have operated. Each of those newsrooms have a personality and idiosyncrasies that exude their target market. Like any organisation, no one newsroom does everything superbly. But here’s 10 traits of newsrooms, compiled from the best of the best, that comms teams could use as a checklist when considering how to better position themselves.  I’m still shaking my head. Yes, that Donald Trump was elected President. But also at the staggering and anachronistic decision by New Zealand’s competition watchdog to reject the proposed NZME and Fairfax NZ merger. In a 195-page draft determination, the Commerce Commission found the merger would substantially lessen competition in the market. The commission stated NZ would only be behind China for concentration of newspaper ownership. A merged company would account for 90 per cent of daily newspaper sales in the country - a far more dominant position than Rupert Murdoch has across Australian media. On every front, from a reduction in competition in discrete local markets through to the impact on ad buyers, the report paints a grim picture post-merger. It is particularly damning of how the merger would materially diminish the plurality of views across NZ.  Mobile-mad: 80 per cent of the world's population will have a smart phone by 2020. Keeping up with the information revolution is an exhausting exercise - but taking advantage of five forces will put smart operators at the head of the communications pack. Never before have there been so many ways to communicate and never has it been so complex - lots of social media platforms, tools, apps and methods to send you bonkers. Whether you're a business or a personal brand, cutting through the claptrap requires a simple, strategic and sustainable approach. Couple that with the right intel about the communications battlefront, and you're on your way. Be it with our work with big media undergoing transformation or with small companies seeking to establish a DIY newsroom approach, some common themes are apparent. Here's five of them - forces we believe will drive content success into 2017: |
AuthorStuart Howie is a communications and media consultant. He runs Flame Tree Media and is the author of The DIY Newsroom. Stuart has worked in media and publishing for more than 30 years as an executive, editor and strategist. 
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