Maintaining a "third-party" information resource. How and for what

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



Under the cat - an attempt to remove the burden of quotes, a story about working with a resource, calculating the cost of maintaining it and describing the effects obtained. Designed for marketers from IT and not only for them.

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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, the ECM-Journal was renamed, which defined positioning as a core resource for content management professionals. Later, largely due to the experience and developments of the directum-journal .ru, club.directum.ru appeared — the community of developers and leading users of the system and part-time support — is also a valuable living resource; but that's another story ...

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

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

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

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

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

Due to this, ECM-Journal is considered one of the leading sites dedicated to document flow 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 platforms 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, ECM-Journal covers about 55-75% of the entire target audience: experts, business users , IT professionals who are interested in our topics with which you can work.

What is the cost

On average, for the last year, 19.25 materials per month are published on the ECM-Journal :

• from 2 to 7 author's articles (as a rule, republishing the materials of our authors, published on other thematic resources);
• from 7 to 14 posts of blogs of members of the community (most of them are original materials of a small volume);
• from 3 to 8 other materials (republishing someone else's materials with the consent of the authors, including translated articles).

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

Monthly costs of maintaining a resource of voiced fertility are made up of

• salaries of the editor-in-chief (almost full-time employment), reviewers (if necessary) and SMM-manager (part-time employment) - up to 200 man -hours ;
• the cost of maintaining the site - all sorts of hosting and up to 10 developer hours;
• employee time spent writing material is, on average, about 60 hours for all authors for all articles, no more than 10 hours for one material;
• payment for publications of materials of external authors; now at the 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 conditional fixed costs and 4,000 rubles * number of external articles as variable costs, since the editor does not specifically search for external authors and plans to publish them.

Few tricks

Independent Editorial Board

Collected from authors who have written more than ten materials, approves or disapproves of each new publication. The material appears on the site when it is estimated by at least five members of the editorial board (the preponderance of the advantages over the minuses is mandatory). Joining the editorial board is voluntary, an invitation is sent after the publication of the tenth approved post. The main plus (in addition to saving) is the presence in the editorial board of representatives not only of our company, but also of other market players; due to this, the competitiveness of publications is increased, there is no additional temptation to use the resource for PR purposes .

Awarding our employees for publishing

Works as an additional motivator. I myself know how pleasant 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 also chosen due to the fact that the ECM-Journal was created in the wake of the popularity of LJ. This format liberates the authors. To publish, you do not need to write a complete article, but rather 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 red council.

Planning work with internal authors

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

What we get in return

Knowledge Base Accumulation

First , directly to train their own specialists. A beginner is often advised to get acquainted with the basic materials on the ECM-Journal , especially if he himself can become an expert author in the future.
Secondly , the link to the site materials helps in the training of partners' specialists. Since the development of partners in the company is given special attention, this role of the information resource should be highlighted.
Third , the knowledge base is assembled 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 circulation” or “Information systems in management”.

Introducing the correct vision

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

Development of experts

Publications pump the ability to accumulate and analyze data, formulate 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. They all train, especially if you have “your” training ground.

Getting feedback

Comments (especially negative ones) to the materials of our specialists are the most important material. They force you to dig deeper, help to look differently at the 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 the information partner of the largest industry events. Visiting an event for an info-partner representative is usually free. During events, you can make friends, take an interview, get information for writing materials.

Relations with outside experts and journalists

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

Placement of non-blocking banners

A company that officially maintains an information resource and invests in its development is practically the only advertiser on the site - our banners are placed free of charge and are protected in the site in such a way that with the standard Adblock settings they do not hide from visitors. The CTR of the banner that brings traffic to the webinar page of our company is 0.12%.

Time base contacts

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

Total

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

Behind the brackets there is enough marketing interest related to the ECM-Journal , so if it was useful for you to read all this, please ask questions. Maybe the 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 then became the middle and top managers of the company, or how the work with internal authors-experts is structured ).