In yesterday’s post on using social media to drive brand journalism (co-written by Tim Gray, content strategist at online marketing/web design firm Blue Fountain Media), we discussed  moving beyond the traditional self-centered PR mindset. Today we go into greater detail about researching and creating great content–and making it social.

We’ll start with the second step in the journey toward successful brand journalism:

2. Establish “The Newsroom Effect”

Brand journalism requires marketing/PR professionals to start thinking like journalists (or, at the the very least, bloggers).

Learn your beat by listening through social media channels. If you have a personal Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest account, then you’re already something of an expert—you just have to practice observing channels that are relevant to your target audience through their eyes.

1. Share and share alike: You don’t just need to share your own content—send your audience a few pieces from other sources that you follow. They’ll appreciate the effort as long as the material is relevant to them.
2. Develop an editorial calendar: Everyone likes consistency, and readers want to know that they can expect fresh content from you on a regular basis. If scheduling is a challenge, encourage team members and others at your business to contribute ideas or posts of their own.

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Visitors won’t find advance prototypes of the next model of Apple’s iPhone or iPad at Mountain View, California’s Computer History Museum. Instead, its Revolution exhibit takes a look back at the first two thousand years of computing. The twenty galleries contain an awe-inspiring display of computer related lore from the early abacus, slide rule and punched cards to programming languages, super computers, robots, and video games to more recent tablets and mobile devices.

As the multimedia collection demonstrates, these inventions were used in nearly every facet of life: by governments during wartime to crack enemy codes, by healthcare companies for breakthroughs such as electronic pacemakers, as well as for automobile dashboards, synthesized music and sneakers with microchip technology. Several reminders of short-lived companies, brands and products are also on hand, namely DEC/Digital Equipment Corporation, and Atari’s Pac-Man game.

Colorful visuals abound for those who are less tech-inclined. Among these are the Google Street Views car with a camera and GPS on top and the Noogler propeller cap given to new Google employees. At the museum’s entrance is a statement about fashion, entrepreneurship and capitalism. It’s a dress covered with red dollar bills, worn by Sandy Lerner, co-founder of Cisco Systems, to celebrate the startup’s IPO in 1990.

An article in Sunday’s New York Times focused on female Silicon Valley executives, including Marissa Mayer of Yahoo! and Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook, preferring more fashionable work attire than their predecessors. Lerner’s dress was an even more striking commentary about the Silicon Valley lifestyle.