Maintaining a “third-party” information resource. How and why

Since 2006, our company has been investing in an “independent” information resource - ecm-journal.ru . Anticipating that the issues of “independence” and “independence” may seem controversial, I first write the definitions in quotation marks; but, in  general , epithets have a place to be.



Under the cut - an attempt to remove the burden of quotation marks, a story about working with a resource, calculating the costs of maintaining it and a description of the effects obtained. Designed for marketers from IT and not only for them.

The importance of “independent” positioning

When the project was conceived, the site had a different name, much more PR-directed ( directum-journal .ru).

In 2008, it was renamed to  ECM-Journal , which determined positioning as a specialized resource for specialists in the field of content management. Later, largely due to the experience and experience of directum-journal .ru, club.directum.ru appeared - a community of developers and leading users of the system and part-time support is also a valuable living resource; but this is another story ...

Compare excerpts from the Regulation on the information resource DIRECTUM (version of the document from 2006):

“ To successfully achieve the goals, including to increase confidence in the materials of the information resource, to increase attendance and loyalty of visitors, the materials of the information resource:
1. They should not directly advertise DIRECTUM products. Nevertheless, materials may refer to the DIRECTUM company and its products if they talk about experience in solving business problems , demonstrate the application of DIRECTUM technologies ”-

and from the Regulation on the information resource ECM-Journal (2008 version):

“ To successfully achieve the goals, including to increase confidence in the materials of the information resource, to increase attendance and loyalty of visitors, the materials of the information resource:
1. They should not directly advertise DIRECTUM products. Mention of the company and DIRECTUM products should be avoided . ”

The ban on PR of our system on a “third-party” resource is the most important decision from the point of view of content marketing (even though there was no talk of such a wording as “content marketing” ). It was possible to turn ECM-Journal into another company’s blog, where one way or another there is a place to promote oneself, but the resource has become virtually independent.

Thanks to this, ECM-Journal is considered one of the leading sites dedicated to document management and work with corporate content.

Over the past year, the metric shows 24,357 visits and 16,773 unique visitors per month on average. For comparison, the three leading sites of similar subjects report to our PR department.in attendance at the level of 22,004 people per month on average, with a maximum of 31,500 people / month. It turns out that the ECM-Journal covers about 55–75% of the entire target audience: experts, business users , IT professionals who are interested in our topics that we can work with.

What does it cost

On average over the past year, 19.25 articles per month are published on the  ECM-Journal :

• from 2 to 7 articles of authorship (as a rule, republishing materials of our authors published on other thematic resources);
• from 7 to 14 blog posts of community members (for the most part - original materials of a small volume);
• from 3 to 8 other materials (republishing other people's materials with the consent of the authors, including translated articles).

Now on the site there are about 15 active authors. In total, over the course of its existence, more than 150 authors have been registered who published more than 1,200 posts and left more than 4,500 comments.

The monthly costs of maintaining the announced fertility resource are the sum of

• salaries of the chief editor (almost full-time), reviewers (if necessary) and  SMM-cabinet (part-time) - up to 200 man hours;
• site maintenance costs - all kinds of hosting and up to 10 hours developer;
• the time of company employees spent on writing materials - on average about 60 hours for all authors for all articles, not more than 10 hours for one material;
• payment for publications by external authors; now at a rate of 4,000 rubles per article (by the way, who cares - write to  editor @ ecm-journal .ru ).

In total, the company invests in the resource about 270 hourly rates of employees + hosting as conditionally fixed costs and  4,000 rubles * number of external articles as variable costs, since the editor does not specifically search for external authors and does not plan to publish them.

Some tricks

Independent Editorial Board

Collected from authors who have written more than ten materials, approve or disapprove of each new publication. The material appears on the site when it is evaluated by at least five members of the editorial board (an advantage of pluses over minuses is mandatory). Joining the editorial board is voluntary, the invitation is sent after the publication of the tenth approved post. The main plus (in addition to savings) is the presence in the editorial board of representatives of not only our company, but also other market players; due to this, the competitiveness of publications increases, there is no unnecessary temptation to use the resource for  public relations purposes .

Bonuses for our employees for publications

It works as an additional motivator. I know for myself how nice it is to see a bonus for an article written once and republished on  ECM-Journal with your tacit consent.

Public Blog Platform Format

It was chosen, among other things, due to the fact that ECM-Journal was created on the wave of LJ popularity. This format liberates authors. To publish, you do not need to write a finished article, but just ask the community a question, share the news, expressing your attitude to it. This post is also encouraged by bonuses ... of course, if you like the redsovet.

Planning to work with internal authors

Required, no matter what. At least for the main topics selected for promotion. The publication schedule allows you to achieve indicators of resource occupancy. More than half of the materials, in fact, come out in accordance with media plans (read, due to the joint work of the editor of ECM-Journal and PR specialists of our company), the smaller part - thanks to the initiative of the authors themselves.

What do we get in return

Knowledge base accumulation

Firstly , directly for the training of our own specialists. It is often recommended for a beginner to get acquainted with the basic materials at  ECM-Journal , especially if he himself may become an expert author in the future .
Secondly , the link to the materials on the site helps in training specialist partners. Since the company pays special attention to raising the qualifications of partners, this role of the information resource should be highlighted.
Thirdly , the knowledge base is compiled into a course ready for student learning. The resource editor works with representatives of universities and helps to form training programs in such disciplines as “Electronic document management” or “Information systems in management”.

Implementing the Right Vision

We use the ECM-Journal in order to raise innovative topics for our industry, to focus on those things that in our opinion are important in ECM. Turning to three fourth of the target audience, you can form trends.

Expert Development

Publications pump skills to accumulate and analyze data, put thoughts into texts, convey information to readers, and defend their point of view in the comments. Having colleagues with such skills is a great pleasure. All of them train, especially if they have their own training ground.

Getting Feedback

Comments (especially negative) to the materials of our specialists are the most important material. They make us dig deeper, help to look differently at questions, the answer to which has long been found within the company and seems to be the only true, which is sometimes wrong.

Free participation in exhibitions and conferences

ECM-Journal is an information partner of major industry events. Attending an event for an infopartner representative is usually free. During the events, you can make friends, interview, get information for writing materials.

Links with third-party experts and journalists

It is easier for the editor of an independent resource to communicate with representatives of competing companies , as well as to negotiate with journalists and independent experts on joint work, for example, on holding a round table.

Placement of non-blocking banners

The company, which officially supports the information resource and invests in its development, is practically the only advertiser on the site - our banners are placed free of charge, they are sewn into the site in such a way that with standard Adblock settings they are not hidden from visitors. The click-through rate of the banner that leads traffic to the webinar page of our company is 0.12%.

Contact database

Resource subscribers are a valuable audience. These contacts are not directly transmitted to our company, but as part of mailings on behalf of ECM-Journal, they are sent invitations to events in which our company takes part and for which ECM-Journal acts as an information partner. Now the base (collected including from the club.directum.ru site mentioned at the beginning of the article) totals 5 570 people.

Total

At least for ourselves, we concluded that investing resources in an independent information platform is a noble cause. You need to invest a lot, but it's not only about  content marketing , but also about other bonuses for the company, so the game is worth the candle.

Outside the brackets there are quite a few marketing interests related to ECM-Journal , so if you were interested in  reading all this, please ask questions. Maybe a topic will be born for another article (for example, about the fact that at the dawn of the resource it was written by those who later became middle and  top managers of the company, or how the work with internal authors-experts is built ).