Most brands face a slippery slope when it comes to their engines of content creation. We live in a day and age when the term “content marketing” stumbles out of a brand’s mouth almost as often as buzzwords like “big data” and “native advertising.” Woe the brand that is not creating, publishing and curating relevant content, yet many brands struggle with precisely that. They struggle with everything from its creation to its strategy to its editorial content, and even the best places to publish and share it effectively. Many new media pundits claim that the most effective brands employ in-house newsrooms or former journalists to help uncover and spread interesting stories. Yet we also live in a time when the half-life of content is shorter than ever. In a river of tweets or a flood of a Facebook newsfeed, even the most interesting content will last only a few hours (maybe a day if you’re lucky). This is further complicated by the fundamental nature of social media, a place where friends and acquaintances connect and not necessarily the ideal place for a brand to try to make some noise.