Election Social Rundown, Hiring Journalists for Brands, McQuestions

The Content Strategist picks the day’s most relevant and interesting stories about the world of content from around the web. Here’s what you should be reading today:

Search Engines, Social Media, and the Election

Search engines and social media sites went all out for election day, according to ClickZ.

Google’s content for voters included a tool to find voting locations and hours, and “a suite of free tools called the Election Toolkit, which is really just a giant ad for media, campaign managers and others to use Google+, YouTube, and an assortment of search tools.”

Yahoo’s Just the Ticket blog featured election articles, along with real time results, and Bing let people see “what social media users are talking about, which political hashtags are trending, tweets from influencers, and trending search topics.”

YouTube asked users to submit videos about who they voted for, and Facebook posted a Polling Location search tool.

Hiring Journalists for Content Marketing

Kasey Steinbrinck of Copyjuice argues that companies should be hiring journalists to produce their content for marketing purposes because journalists know how to tell stories, and they are excellent at doing research.

“With a job as a content marketer, journalists still get to do what they love … telling stories, creating something original and having their voice heard,” she says. “However, they get to do it with a lot less pressure, and most likely a lot more freedom.”

McDonald’s Creating Content from Questions

Jay Baer writes about the McDonald’s campaign, “Our Food, Your Questions,” which is  running in Canada and invites anyone in the country “to ask any question whatsoever about McDonald’s food on a special website developed by Tribal DDB Toronto.”

Participants can ask questions by connecting by Twitter or Facebook. More than 16,000 questions have been asked, and about 10,000 have been answered. McDonald’s, in creating this campaign, has given customers more knowledge, cleared up any issues with the food, given consumers a voice, and promoted transparency.

President of The New York Times Retires

The President and General Manager of The New York Times, Scott Heekin-Canedy, will be retiring at the end of the year, according to The Wall Street Journal.

After he leaves, his position will be terminated in an effort to “streamline the company’s corporate structure in the wake of a series of asset sales in recent years which has shrunk the company’s focus to the flagship newspaper, the Boston Globe and the International Herald Tribune.”

Earning Media Coverage for Health Video Content

Lisa Arledge Powell of Content Marketing Institute gives suggestions on how companies creating health video content can earn media coverage.

She says that marketers should produce videos that are similar to ones produced by the media entities they are targeting. They should also not be evergreen, and should tie into “something relevant, such as today’s headlines, the time of year, national health observances, pop culture, or other timely events.”

They should also include real-life stories, and commentary from a health expert.

Chrome Puts Out “Do Not Track” Feature for Users

Google’s Chrome browser now has a feature called “Do Not Track,” which allows users to turn off tracking from marketers, according to Mashable.

It blocks cookies, which let marketers determine how to target users. However, it isn’t a final solution, and marketing firms have to agree to remove cookies in their possession.

Branded Content and Film 

The Guardian’s Michael Berliner writes about branded content and the relationship between marketers and filmmakers.

He says, “If brands can latch on to content that audiences find appealing and they actively want to watch — rather than simply making the advertising material that people endure before getting to the good stuff — then there is a lot of brand recognition and goodwill to be earned.”

He points out Red Bull, which posted the space jump footage, and Terry Gilliam’s film The Wholly Family, which received funding from a pasta company.