We are all digital media companies now

This article about "homeless" media companies that publish content directly to third-party platforms raises some compelling questions even for organizations that are not media companies and even for those of us who believe -- as I bet most us still do -- that an owned web site is still essential to our strategic objectives. After all, if you sell a product or service other than content or your users' data, then you likely need someplace all your own to do business. 

I listen to a lot of PR and marketing podcasts, and I've heard a lot of concern over publishing content directly to third-party platforms such as Facebook and LinkedIn without also posting that content to an owned channel. After all, I may be the author of this post on LinkedIn, but I'm not the owner. It could disappear tomorrow, or LinkedIn could decide to make me pay for the privilege of posting it, or make you pay for the privilege of reading it. (And what a privilege it is!)

The dilemma, however, is that as each social media channel or other third-party platform seeks to distinguish itself from its competitors, it offers publishers unique features to make their content more engaging. Publishers will need to make use of those features in order to compete with the other content on that channel, which means it will be harder to recycle the content on other channels. Besides, the users of each network tend to overlap, so you don't want to bore your Facebook followers with the same photo you just posted on Twitter. 

And let's not underestimate the sheer convenience of creating native content. How many of you once hosted videos on your own web site? How many of you still do so? You probably embed them all from YouTube, and let Google worry about server space and whether the users are watching on a Mac or PC, or an iPhone or Kindle Fire. The range of content on many social channels is also appealing, to both publishers and their audiences. I publish on LinkedIn now, rather than my own blog, because I may not be able to take the time to publish something meaningful on a regular basis. But because of all my other activity on LinkedIn -- posting updates and sharing links to articles of interest, editing my profile and making new connections -- my profile here always appears active, as opposed to a blog that might not get updated for weeks at a time. 

Yes, I probably should be cross-posting, but this is a personal endeavor, and not a professional one (though it is career-related) and I can live with the consequences if it all goes away tomorrow. Our clients and employers don't have that luxury, which means we all have to continue to be content machines, churning out a variety of stories, photos, videos, infographics, etc., for a variety of channels -- earned, owned, paid, and shared -- depending on our audiences and our strategic goals.

Hey, no one said our job was easy. But on our best days it sure is a hell of a lot of fun.

This post first appeared on LinkedIn. You can read the original article and comment here.