Scouting for Content – Girl Scouts Head to the Social Web

The following is a guest post courtesy of Jackie Ross.

Content marketing just received a healthy dose of girl power.

The beloved spreader of good deeds and great cookies, the Girl Scouts, has expanded the conversation beyond the community center and campfire and into new arenas like chat rooms and blogs. It’s all part of a recent brand makeover that uses content to reach the hearts and minds of American girls.

Old-school pastimes like cookouts and sing-alongs haven’t disappeared from the Girl Scout lexicon, but the association has wisely refocused on how to best achieve its mission to “build girls of courage, confidence, and character, who make the world a better place.” And “the how” is through communications.

Blogs, chat rooms, videoconferencing, and student-penned books give girls a voice and a platform where they can connect to each other and the causes they care about. A Go Girls Only section of the Girl Scouts website gives girls a forum to “Sound off and be heard” and read “What’s up?,” the latest news from the association.

“Now we’re talking the language they’re used to,” the Girl Scouts’ multicultural marketing manager told The Washington Post.

So the value of the Girl Scouts, as it turns out, is not Thin Mints and Macaroons. But instead the messages – the content – that empowers the association’s members to connect and engage.

Jackie Ross is Director of Corporate Development for the World 50, where she builds and manages small, private networks of C-level executives.