Every Company is a Media Company

Smart businesses are beginning to produce content that’s less about their product and more about topics that their customers gravitate to, writes Rick Burnes, an inbound marketing manager at HubSpot.

Whole Foods publishes recipes and cooking videos. These companies are producing quality media, just like The New York Times or Discovery Channel.

Why? Every company, no matter what industry, is essentially gathering and distributing information, both to employees and external audiences, and trying to attract attention from prospective customers. 

Traditionally, this has been an "outbound" function using intermediaries such as media, trade shows, email blasts and direct sales, where companies reach out to potential customers.

These days, one sees use of webinars, blogs, Web site content, news feeds, videos and other efforts that invite potential customers to show up.  So every company now produces and distributes content.