Benjamin Ard (00:00.654)
Excuse me. Welcome back to another episode of Content Amplified. Today I'm joined by Daniel. Daniel, welcome to the show.
Daniel Nasaw (00:09.887)
Hi, thanks for having me, Ben. So to introduce myself, I'm Daniel Nassau. I am the head of content at Altana, which is the world's first product network. And I think the reason you're interested to talk to me is I spent most of my professional life as a journalist in a daily newspaper newsroom.
much of that as an editor doing coverage areas of national and international interest. And that informs how I think about content tech marketing. And I'd love to share what I've learned on this brief and fulfilling journey with your audience and with you.
Benjamin Ard (01:02.496)
I'm excited. This is going to be fun. You have such a cool amount of experience. You look at content through this lens of journalism. So really like putting a title on this episode, covering your company like a beat lessons from journalism for B2B content. First and foremost, for those of us marketers and not journalists, what does it actually mean to treat your company like a beat? Maybe explain a little bit what a beat is.
Daniel Nasaw (01:29.708)
Yeah.
Benjamin Ard (01:29.994)
And kind of what does it actually mean to treat your content and company like a beat?
Daniel Nasaw (01:33.733)
So, you know, a beat is a way of organizing a reporter's job. You know, the easy ones here in Washington would be, you know, the White House beat, the Pentagon beat. When I was a reporter at the Arkansas Democrat Gazette in Little Rock, I had the night cops beat. And then I was at the state Capitol. And so,
You know, what you want to do as a reporter is utterly immerse yourself in your beat. Get to know everyone and everything and become a subject matter expert. Get on first name basis with everybody you need. And, you know, know what's going on and know what the news is and know.
how the news on your beat fits into a context with everything else going on, whether that's the United States economy, national politics, what's going on in the city of Little Rock, where's the city hall budget at, what's going on with law enforcement, all of that stuff. so,
What does it mean to cover your company like a beat as a content marketer? You know, I think first and foremost, it means being curious about what your company does and interested in the mission because it's really hard to fake it. You know, look, being a newspaper journalist or any kind of journalist, it demands so much of you that if the interest
and the curiosity aren't genuine, you're going to have a hard time doing the job right. So, you know, I'm lucky. Altana, do a we are the world's first product network and we connect importers with upstream suppliers and downstream customers and with regulators like Customs and Border Patrol.
Daniel Nasaw (03:48.137)
And we are solving some of the big problems in global trade and in business that have bedeviled global companies since the dawn of globalization. And that to me is really important and very, very interesting from an intellectual standpoint. And what we do at Altana cuts to
a lot of what I worked on as a journalist when I was at the Wall Street Journal and was the national security news editor or editing political news. Especially now we see the current administrations rewriting the rules of world trade. So you wanna be curious about your company, invested in it.
invested in the mission, then to cover like you know, like a beat you, you know, who are the people internally who can help you, who has the subject matter expertise, because for example, at Altana, we, you know, we do a lot, you know, we're all about global trade, and there's a lot of very technical knowledge that goes into that. So for example,
you know, the word trans shipment is thrown around a lot. Like people sort of understand that to mean something kind of shady, like disguising a product and, you know, disguising the country of origin in order to, you know, lower your tariff rates. But trans shipment is actually a, you know, a legitimate part of global logistics. just, there's another meaning to that. So, you know, it,
behooves me to talk to the subject matter experts in our company, such as our vice president of trade, Amy Morgan, and say to her, what does this mean? Or what are some HS codes that I can use as an example in something I'm writing? Or I talk to the sales guys and women, like, what are you hearing? And really important.
Daniel Nasaw (06:11.757)
for a sort of high concept company like ours, what are the executives saying? So our company, you know, it feels like the concept comes right out of the brain of our chief executive and co-founder, Evan Smith, our chief science officer, Peter Schwartz, and our COO, Raf Tafranian. And so, you know, I make sure to...
to read and circulate transcripts when Evan goes on a podcast, stuff he says on panel discussions. So I read that and I absorb it, just the same way that if I'm covering the White House, I need to know day to day, what is the president saying? How is it different from what he said yesterday?
How is it different from what somebody else said? So if you want to cover your company, you've got to cultivate internal sources, figure out who the power centers are, who has the information. And then I think the last thing is on a team level, you want to operate with a newsroom culture that prioritizes initiative and collaboration and information sharing and teamwork.
especially at a startup. Everybody has to do everything. It's all hands on deck. I am a player coach. And in the newsroom and at Altana, I believe in what I call radical collaboration. So bring people on board on a project at the very beginning, instead of handing over something you've worked on and saying, what do you think of this? Can you help me make it better? Start at the beginning.
Benjamin Ard (08:09.43)
I love that. That's amazing. Okay, Daniel. So I love this idea of treating your company like a beat. I like that. I actually know what that means now and where that goes and how to treat it and kind of understanding what that means in the bigger context. I love how it's finding the key players and then how that relates to everything else going on, the different stories that people care about things like that. So when you look at it and you look at a traditional content marketer,
How do you think they could level up their game by thinking like a journalist? Like how could they think like a reporter, journalist, and what kinds of stories do you think they're missing if they don't think like that and they don't have that mindset?
Daniel Nasaw (08:51.565)
Well, the main thing, I think it depends on your company or your client, but you can't treat your company and your market in isolation. Altana is not a discrete story. We fit right in to big, big currents in business and global trade and geopolitics.
So, you know, my former, boss, current boss, Andy Ambrosius, he worked for Via. And so he had to know, you know, how, what's going on in public transportation and in urban transport. And, you know, so I think knowing how your company fits in
that context, that's critical, because that enables you to see around corners, to know what your market is, what your customers are thinking about, and then you know how to reach them. I think that's, that's the main thing. And that in addition to, you know, initiative, radical collaboration, and, and
you know, studying what the executives say and everything else we've discussed about how to cover your company like a beat.
Benjamin Ard (10:27.734)
I love that. That's super cool. Okay. So I'm going to put my shoes and all or put my feet in the shoes of our listeners right now. They're listening and saying, you know what? do need to think a lot more like a reporter, like a journalists. How can they start to do this? Like what, what exercises or recommendations or anything in general that can help content marketers say,
Okay. I know I'm taking the steps to think more about this, like a reporter or a journalist.
Daniel Nasaw (11:00.567)
So I would say first hire journalists. There's a lot of us on the market. mean, I'm ex-journalist. Journalists and ex-journalists because there are a lot of us. I, you know, this is TBD, but I think that TBD in my case, because I've only been doing this since December, but you can teach a journalist to do marketing.
I think pretty well, pretty easily. so, you know, journalists, an experienced journalist, it's not just a craft, it's a way of looking at the world and bringing that on board onto a marketing team is going to be critical. And also read news, read general news. Don't just read trade blogs and trade news because, you know, it's
You know, you don't want to just know what other supply chain executives are thinking or, you know, whatever, you know, machine learning engineers are thinking about. You want to know what's going on in the world, in the news, so that you can connect that to your company's mission. Connect your company's mission and your product, your company's product to the world and fit it into that context.
and get out of your silo. Whether you're on a big team or a small team, your job as a marketer is going to be much easier if you have very good contacts in the rest of the company who can help you think about what they're thinking about and think about what their customers are thinking about. And what are they hearing at trade shows that they go to?
Benjamin Ard (12:57.654)
I love that. Very cool. So we're getting close to running out of time. These episodes are short on purpose. I'm going to throw you a curve ball. Okay. So you talked about being an editor. I feel like that role doesn't really often exist in content marketing teams and B2B. Do you feel like it's an interesting role that we should consider? How can other people on the team play a role as editors?
Daniel Nasaw (13:04.578)
Sure.
Benjamin Ard (13:24.12)
from like the early stages to even, you know, peer reviewed content to make sure it's up to a certain standard. How does B2B better adopt like the editor role? Cause I feel like there's the writer, the journalist, but the editor role feels to be missing. What are your thoughts on that in general?
Daniel Nasaw (13:43.213)
So there's a lot that goes into the newsroom job of a line editor. Improving the copy is an important part of it and probably the most fun, but the management is a big part of it. And the editor needs to be driving the product forward and organizing
resources. So, you know, you could, my role is, my title is Senior Director of Content, you know, Head of Content. They could call me an editor and it would make sense to me. You know, at, on the level of the copy, look, even good writers need an editor because there may be
somebody may be good at technical, writing technically, but that may not be what you want. You want a slick sheet for a salesperson to take to a trade show. And maybe that's going to be technically minded, but maybe not. Or you want to explain stuff in broadly accessible language.
People write way too long and editors are really good at tightening up copy and making it snappy. You know, sometimes I think if you're writing for, you know, a Pentagon audience, you know, maybe they like jargon and, you know, and sort of stiff writing that they're used to, but in general, you know, you want an editor to elevate the writing. And again,
There's so much more to being an editor in a newsroom. It's organizing resources. It's synthesizing lots of information. It's sort of understanding the currents of the news or in a SaaS company, like it's understanding the currents of global trade and business and AI.
Benjamin Ard (16:00.494)
you
Daniel Nasaw (16:09.215)
and where's all this stuff going and how do we fit into it? And that mindset I think is critical. And an editor should be able to think in the abstract and being able to take a step back from what is my company selling to what is our mission and how do we serve it?
Benjamin Ard (16:32.971)
I love that. That's amazing. Well, Daniel, I love this episode. I have learned a lot about it. In the industry, I don't know a ton about, but I do feel like the lessons directly apply to B2B marketing and all the different things we're doing in content marketing. Thank you so much for the insights. If anyone wants to reach out and connect with you online, how and where can they find you?
Daniel Nasaw (16:55.053)
You can find me on LinkedIn or it's Daniel Nassau, N-A-S-A-W, or email me, Daniel at Altana.ai. Thanks for having me.
Benjamin Ard (17:05.41)
Wonderful. Well, Daniel, again, thank you so much for the time and insights today. It has been absolutely amazing. I really do appreciate it.
Daniel Nasaw (17:13.343)
All right, it's been fun. Thanks a lot then, bye.