One thing is clear, the function of marketing is rapidly transforming.  There are many things driving this change like technology, data / analytics and 100′s of new channels to market through.  Those are all very tactical and when something is new, everyone goes to the tactical solutions first.  Let’s get a blog up, install new analytics engine and buy some space in as many websites as we can.  That does not address the larger opportunity nor does it address the fundamental changes that need to happen.  The same skill sets of old are not the same skill sets that are needed today.  There’s training, new hiring rules, new organizational charts and new management techniques.  Technology and new digital advertising buys do not address the fundamental changes that are truly needed to transform your marketing department.

Another fundamental change is how you perceive yourself.  Companies have long been defined by their products.  That was it!  The new digital landscape and the consumer shift from mass needs to custom fit have created opportunities for those companies who can think differently.  Companies have an unprecedented opportunity to re-define themselves beyond their products.  For the first time, companies are becoming entertainers (youtube video channels), educators (blogs, wikis), and friends (social networking).  They are re-imagining the roles they are able to play with the broader market (who would have ever thought blenders would be cool?)

 To re-define your company, you must first re-define your marketing department.  Marketers have been built to reach audiences and influence purchase decisions.  In order to play in the digital space, content becomes the core of the activities.  Marketers need to re-organize their staff to meet the heavy content demands of this new approach.  One way to do it is to take a page from publishers.  Publishers have always relied on developing and distributing quality content.  Their approach to market is to connect with their audience rather than coerce them.  Marketers can learn a lot from what publishers have already figured out and the marketers who jump on this early will gain a significant advantage of the majority of companies who will continue to do things the way they have always done them.

To help marketers begin to work through this, we invited Joe Pulizzi , founder of Junta42 to moderate this week’s chat.  Joe is internationally known evangalist of content marketing and has been a long time advocate of how the effective use of content can re-define marketers.  To help us through this topic, Joe will use the following questions: 

Topic: Transform Your Marketing Department into a Publishing Department

Q1:  How does media and publishing relate to marketing and branding?

Q2:  What’s the difference between what a real publisher or media company does versus a brand?

Q3:  What’s the setup look like in a non-media company brand? 

Please join us in this online chat on Tuesday, November 23 at noon ET.  Follow #sm87 from your favorite Twitter client or simply go to our LIVE page at www.hashtagsocialmedia.com/live