NEW YORK, Jan. 10, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Content marketing is the big communications trend for 2013.  Done well, content marketing is an extremely effective tactic; however, publishing poor content is a waste of resources and worse, reduces brand credibility with audiences.  Today on the Beyond PR blog, we define the four characteristics of successful content, and offer suggestions for ensuring the content your organization develops is truly effective and supports key sales and marketing objectives. 

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"Start by asking yourself if your content is REAL," suggests Sarah Skerik, PR Newswire's vice president of social media. "Is it Real, Entertaining, Actionable and Leading? If the content doesn't hit all four of those marks, you should do some editing before it's published."

Content that exhibits all four characteristics Skerik outlines is more likely to attract qualified audiences and to hold their attention.   

"Content creation is time consuming and expensive," she notes. "However, content that is truly "REAL" and is mapped to the different stages in your organization's buying funnel can be a tremendously efficient generator of qualified leads for your business."

Read the full post here: http://blog.prnewswire.com/2013/01/10/is-your-content-real-4-ways-to-attract-qualified-audience-with-content/

PR Newswire (www.prnewswire.com) is the premier global provider of multimedia platforms that enable marketers, corporate communicators, sustainability officers, public affairs and investor relations officers to leverage content to engage with all their key audiences. Having pioneered the commercial news distribution industry 58 years ago, PR Newswire today provides end-to-end solutions to produce, optimize and target content — from rich media to online video to multimedia — and then distribute content and measure results across traditional, digital, mobile and social channels. Combining the world's largest multi-channel, multi-cultural content distribution and optimization network with comprehensive workflow tools and platforms, PR Newswire enables the world's enterprises to engage opportunity everywhere it exists. PR Newswire serves tens of thousands of clients from offices in the Americas, Europe, Middle East, Africa and the Asia-Pacific region, and is a UBM plc company.

Media Contacts:
Rachel Meranus
Vice President, Marketing and Communications
PR Newswire
+1.201.360.6776
Rachel.Meranus@prnewswire.com

Meryl Serouya
Marketing and Communications Associate
PR Newswire
+1.201.360.6009
Meryl.Serouya@prnewswire.com

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