The difference between communications, public relations (PR), marketing, and even content marketing might not be clear for most, especially those outside of the marketing and communications industry.
I started in PR and six years into my career, I'm now firmly a content marketer. How did I make this gradual move and what's the difference between it all?
The few internships I had during university included a stint in-house and at an ad agency, but the most memorable was the one during my first summer at university with a global PR agency. There, I did traditional PR work like media monitoring, pitching journalists and supporting events, as well as more digital stuff like social media community management.
I certainly enjoyed my time there doing both PR and social media work. It seemed a nice mix between what I thought I'd like to do, PR, and what else there was beyond traditional PR.
This influenced my decision on my first full-time role after graduation. I got recommended for a role as a "Content Specialist" at another global PR agency. Initially, I had no idea what that was, as I had only ever known junior roles like "Account Executive". How am I or could I be a "specialist" back then? I thought.
Still, I went to interview and found out that the role was mainly to create content, mainly for social media and a blog, for a specific client, who for some reason didn't matter to me at that time, for reasons unknown to myself. All I knew it was a government agency. I got the job and later on found out it was probably due to my internship experiences in both PR and social media. This was definitely the case as I went on to do traditional PR for a couple of clients, on top of my content creation tasks for the government client.
Yet this role brought me into the world of "content", and I found myself enjoying creating content like writing social media copy and blogs, while also managing others in developing more complex content like graphics and videos.
When it was time to make my move, I did so into an in-house "Content Marketing Specialist" role. Again, I didn't really have a clue what "content marketing" was back then. I was only ever creating content that I thought looked pretty for whoever was following the government client's social media accounts. Of course, metrics like engagement rates and reach were looked at but as government is neither B2B or B2C, these metrics didn't seem to be a big thing then.
In this next role, I dabbled more into how content could make an impact in marketing, but truth be told, I was initially still focused on just creating good-looking content, without much regard for who might read them. As a year or so went by, the potential reader grew in importance in my head but at a regional MNC, it felt like content coming out from this seemingly big organisation would surely be read.
Then I moved to Germany and took up another "Content Marketing Specialist" role at a start-up. That gave me a greater insight into the role of content, not only for marketing, but also for sales and business development. There, I realise how content could support sales and the bottom line. There, I then knew that I had to re-orient myself from just creating good-looking content, to content that is actually being read by the right people who might have a role in purchasing whatever my company is trying to sell to them.
I took this in mind as I moved to my current role as a "Content Marketing Manager" at a software services platform. Here, I have greater awareness of content as a facilitator for sales, and not just for brand awareness.
What's the difference, to me?
Content marketing enables people, hopefully the right ones who might have a role in purchasing whatever it is we're trying to sell to them, to come across my company and/or find out more about the benefits of our services, mostly even before sales tries to sell to them.
Content is the mere vehicle that stores your message (what your company does, the benefits of using your services, etc.) in various ways that would then be read by others.
PR is mainly about getting news media to write about your client or company for potential prospects to read about you, while content marketing is about creating your own content for your own channels that can hopefully be found by potential customers.
There are certainly overlaps between content marketing and PR. One can support the other. And both are just parts of an even bigger picture, and I've yet to even come close to mastering either one of these fields.