The ABCs of Partner Content for
FT Specialist

Accuracy

All content must uphold the FT Group’s focus on being honest, accountable and professional. FT Specialist will not publish anything that is inherently untruthful.

Any claims made in the content must be quantified with clear references and/or links to facts and figures.

 We will not publish anything that names another person or company in a way that the reasonable reader would see as malicious or libellous.

Be current 

Make sure content is evergreen or current, speaking to the FT Specialist title’s audience about the topics that are affecting their businesses currently. We encourage brands to create content that is educational in nature.

External links

If part of the content supplied is offering insight from a white paper or report, then a link to the full white paper or report on the sponsor’s website can be linked to from the partner content web page.

Format

Paragraphs must be broken up into shorter sections rather than long chunks to optimise reader experience. 

 For online, the average paragraph length is just two sentences of text. Avoid use of bold and italics in copy. 

Grammar, spelling and punctuation

 Content must be provided free from technical errors such as spelling or grammatical mistakes. 

 Content must be provided in British English (ie ‘adviser’, not ‘advisor’). 

Headlines

Headlines should be descriptive, punchy and clearly indicate what will be covered in the partner content. 

Online headlines and print headlines work very differently. In print, you can get away with puns or short, snappy phrases, such as: Sustainable pensions?

Online, this will not work when it comes to engagement and SEO optimisation. Headlines should be more descriptive but still within 60 characters (including spaces). 

Taking the above example, one might write: Is there a future for sustainable pensions? This has just 44 characters but is more likely to attract readers to click through to read it from a newsletter.

Imagery 

Clients are welcome to supply their own imagery provided there is assurance that they have the rights necessary for FT Specialist titles to use that imagery. 

Clients running partner content on The Banker, FTAdviser, Pensions Expert, FDI and PWM are also able to provide their company logo to be placed at the top of partner content pages. 

Image and logo specifications can be found below:

• Hero Images 1275 (w) x 717 (h) px. or images having aspect ratio 2:1 or smaller (1,7 : 1).
  The lower half of the hero image will be overlayed by the headline.

• Images should be landscape, not portrait

• JPG or PNG file, RGB 72dpi

• Logos should be at least 200x200px with 300 dpi, and will be placed on al partner content pages

Readers first

Content should be written with specific readers in mind or adapted as necessary to engage the FT Specialist title’s reader. 

Let your unique offering or people shine through, but make it useful to the user by adding value.

Be authentic in the content provided and the tone of voice used to speak to the reader. 

Word counts

Article length for any website content is 500 words minimum - 800 words maximum, not including any T&Cs and disclaimers, to ensure optimal engagement with readers.

Style and tone

The style and tone of partner content should feel like content that is native to the FT Specialist title on which it is hosted.

The partner content should preferably be written or subbed by a professional journalist. The partner content should not be a press release or brand-forward material, repurposed as content.

Content must not be written by FT Specialist journalists or named, regular contributors to FT Specialist titles. 

Content must not lean too heavily on brand mentions or visuals, and it should weave in independent third-party references where appropriate.

House style essentials

To help assimilate partner content with the editorial environment, we ask the content follows our house style guidelines:

• Watch out for hyphens. 60-year-olds is not the same 60 year olds, or 60-year olds

• Numbers one to nine are written out, after that everything is figures

• Percentages are figures no matter what, so 1 per cent, 2 per cent etc

• Per cent is written as per cent, except in headlines, graph labels or bullet points, where it's %

• Million is abbreviated to mn, billion to bn

• Dates: August 16 2017 (no commas)

• Job titles do not have capitals

• Don't use capitals when describing things, however important they might seem, so no Bond Market, for example

• Acronyms, which can be pronounced as a word, should be in sentence case (eg Acas), and initialisms, which cannot be pronounced, should be all in capitals (eg DWP)

• Make sure you put figures in full when referring to a range. Use £5bn-£10bn, rather than £5-£10bn, which is very different

Video content

This should follow the same rules on aiming for that ‘native’ tone and style that applies to written content. 

It should also follow the FT guidelines on accuracy, audience awareness and positioning.

Please supply:

• An MP4 file with accompanying thumbnail image. 

• Headline and introductory copy of 200-300 words

• A list of key words / topics discussed in the video

 Recommended maximum video lengths:

• Animations, mini-docs, brand videos or interviews: up to 2”30

• Documentary style films: 7”00+

(1) Sponsor logo(s) in EPS format (send to Marketing and Digital) 
(2) Marketing require headshots of ALL interviewees: All photos: provided must be 300dpi and can be files formats such as JPEG or TIFF. ∙ Full colour photos only, no black and white. ∙ Photo files sizes should be no smaller than 1mb, there's no limit on maximum size. ∙ Subjects should be facing the camera directly or with their shoulders at a slight angle, so we create a uniform look and feel once the photos are used in marketing. ∙ The subject should be against a solid white background. ∙ Frame the photos without cropping off the subjects’ shoulders.

Miscellaneous

So as to not hinder partner content performance with the FT, it is recommended not to run the same content on competing sites at the same time. To ensure best performance, the partner content should not have been published elsewhere before.

Partner content articles are hosted in the editorial Content Management System, and are therefore discoverable organically through search engines. It is advisable therefore to consider SEO when writing partner content articles.