Called Meredith Integrated Marketing, the operation has created custom publishing, email, social media and mobile campaigns for major marketers, including Kraft Foods, Chrysler and Wells Fargo. It recently recruited digital-ad veteran Martin Reidy to lead its marketing arm, and says it is on the prowl for more acquisitions.

I have a hard time putting into words how brilliant this is. And not just because it’s so similar to the work I’ve been doing for Learfield Communications, another major media company.

As I wrote in a comment over at Buzz Machine, advertisers are shifting a lot of marketing dollars toward producing engaging, valuable content for their customers. That content’s not advertising, but it’s marketing. So it makes perfect sense that they would turn to people who’ve been producing content for a living for decades: magazine publishers, radio companies, local TV stations. Workers in those places know how to tell stories, to engage audiences, to inform and entertain people.

My job at Learfield InterAction is built on this premise. Journalists are the best people to create content for audiences of all types — whether it’s the general public listening to a newscast, or a group of 75 donors to a small nonprofit. Why not take some of our journalism expertise and put it to good use for clients? As long as we don’t intermingle that content with our straight-news product (and we don’t), it’s simply another way of engaging audiences.

Disclosure: My employer, Learfield Communications, has a business relationship with Meredith involving one of its magazines. I don’t work on that project.

Twenty years ago, our car radios had 5 pre-set buttons. Most of us picked our five favorite stations, programmed them, and never listened to anything else.

Now, along comes the iPad, with its home screen full of icons. And that’s a huge opportunity for small organizations who create their own application for the device. Because those home-screen icons on the iPad will effectively serve as station pre-set buttons. If the iPad becomes a new platform for consuming media, it will be the best opportunity ever for your company or nonprofit to grab “pre-set button mindshare,” alongside the millions of other options offered to consumers on the Web.

Of course, you don’t need to be a pre-set button for everyone in the world. The real value is in being a pre-set button go the 100 or 1,000 people who mean the most to your organization. So the trick is to decide what those 100 or 1,000 people want to receive from you so much that they’re willing to give you a place on their home screen.

The amazing opportunity of an iPad application is that it will reduce friction between you and those important people. Less friction for you to push content to your audience. Less friction for your audience to consume your content.

Creating an application to deliver your content goes a step beyond creating content for a mobile Web browser. You’re not simply making your content available. The idea is to encourage your audience to give you one of their pre-set buttons, and then earn their trust by delivering valuable stuff. That “stuff” is what I’ll address in my next post for this series.

(This post is part of a series about how the iPad may play a role in the communications strategies of small organizations.)

Social media allows us to customize our communication. I can talk directly to Jon Swanson, and not to preachers. I can have conversations with Glenda Watson Hyatt and not just people interested in accessibility. That means, if interested, I can talk specifically about things that matter to them, and not to crowds.

His examples are obscure — but that’s the point. Your organization has spent many years trying to figure out how to communicate with the most people. Doing that meant watering down your message so it would make sense to everyone.

Now you don’t have to water down that message. There’s still a place for general communication, but the majority of your effort should be focused on building deeper relationships with your core audience, not building more relationships with a general audience. Social networks let you customize your communication — down to the person if necessary. Doing that will make your organization stronger in the long run.

They’d like to do more, but they’re hamstrung by security restrictions from the IT department. They can’t access Facebook or Twitter or YouTube in the office. And they’ve been shot down so many times, they’re tired of trying.

But you know what? Even though my government clients face many of the same hurdles as you, I have never had to shut down a project idea because of those issues. Why? Because our conversation is always about content.

We don’t worry about the tools up front. We first decide who a state program needs to reach, and what kind of information they need to provide. We decide what format that information should take (online text? print newsletter? audio interview? videos?). Only then do we decide whether social media is a fit.

When social networks are a part of the answer, we make it work. We often assign one of our writer/editors to create much of the content and post it to the appropriate places online. We work closely with program managers to make sure the content is what the core audience wants and needs. Once the content is approved, we take care of distributing it in all the right places — whether it’s a blog, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, or somewhere else.

And here’s the thing I’ve discovered: everyone loves this solution. Bosses love it because it means better communication with the public. IT loves it because it ends the struggle over security issues and constant page updates. And program managers love it because they finally have a real home of their own on the Web, to communicate about the good work they’re doing.

If you have questions about how it might fit into your state program, email me, or find me on Twitter or Facebook. I’d love to help you reach the people who need to know about your program.

As marketers look for more efficient ways to engage their target audiences and use new channels such as social commerce, they are increasing their content marketing budgets. Content marketing budgets are up this year from 56% last year and 42% in 2008. We recommend advertisers and broadcasters prepare for the future of social television by aiming to deliver more targeted commercials and true branded entertainment experiences that embrace the connected TV era through the use of social commerce and TV Widgets.

Keep in mind, you don’t have to use TV to deliver branded content. The beauty of branded content is that it can reach your target audience online, and you already have a relationship with many of the people whom that content is being created for.

The companies will be creating “in-store and digital initiative designed to provide more entertainment options for the entire family.” And most importantly, not all of this is in-store programming. According to digiday:Daily:

A focal point of Family Moments is a project with Procter & Gamble to produce family-friendly TV programming, beginning with “Secrets of The Mountain,” a TV movie which will debut on NBC on April 16, 2010. “Secrets of The Mountain,” a two-hour movie, is a drama/adventure and focuses on Dana James, “a public defender and single mother who takes her family to visit a mountain cabin they inherited from their eccentric uncle, only to find themselves embarking on the adventure of a lifetime.” It will be produced by P&G Productions has produced nearly 50 movies of the week, 35 years of “People’s Choice Awards,” 20 soap operas and a number of beauty pageants and variety shows.

Wal-Mart and P&G have identified a need among their customers, and they’re filling it.  But you can do the same thing on a smaller scale. What information does your core audience lack?  What can you provide?  It doesn’t have to be a feature-length movie. It can be a newsletter, or a weekly interview with an expert in your field, or a daily roundup of industry news gathered from across the Web.

Branded content is any kind of information or entertainment you offer people as an organization.  And it’s an incredibly effective way to build a stronger relationship with the people who are most important to you. Your communications plan  will be better for providing it.