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courtesy of mashable Platforms such as YouTube, WordPress and Twitter have made it easier and more affordable than ever for brands to create and distribute their own content, thereby becoming media companies in their own right. Brands are investing accordingly — whether they’re hiring editors, producers and social media managers, or expanding the roles of their existing teams — to create editorial, visual, audio and other kinds of content. Fashion label Tory Burch, for instance, hired away InStyle editor Honor Brodie to run its blog, awarding her the title of editor in chief — a first for the brand. Brodie has used the blog to transform the label, which was previously known almost solely for an iconic line of medallion-stamped ballet flats, into a full-fledged lifestyle brand. Brodie and her team post profiles of interesting people (authors, philanthropists, artists, bloggers, etc.), places and things on a daily basis. “Several years ago, I noticed that a lot of style-conscious women were searching the web for both content and a retail fix,” Brodie says. “The laptop was competing for attention with TV and fashion magazines as a way to entertain and inspire. In this new world, it seemed to me that brands could become a trusted destination for content,” she recalls. Toryburch.com is now a site, Brodie says (and we agree), “where content and commerce work together in a very twenty-first century way.” In similar fashion, online retailer Net-a-porter has created a magazine that blends entertainment with e-commerce, while WEBS, the largest independent retailer of knitting, crocheting and weaving supplies, has used an informative podcast series to drive sales on its website. In addition to lifestyle content, brands are often electing to announce new products or hiring decisions via their Twitter accounts and blogs, rather than through (or in addition to) formal press releases distributed to individual editors and presswires. Google and Twitter announce many of their new products that way, sometimes even setting press embargoes in time with the publication of their own social media posts. And Lady Gagapremiered her latest music video not through VH1 or MTV, but on Vevo.
