PR Hack of the Week

Great news coverage mentioning your company adds credibility to your brand. Add a list of all the high-profile media outlets that have mentioned your company: “As seen on …” This is a great addition to your sales presentations and your website’s About Us section.

Review the 10 elements of newsworthiness to identify the key elements in your company’s news that are important to reporters and their audiences. Through experience, we know that a good story has more than one of these 10 elements to earn coverage. It’s about aligning your story to the news elements, topics, and trends of the day – not what you want to discuss.

Self-publish your articles on:

An accessibility statement is an explanation of the level of web accessibility that your company commits to achieving. You can create an accessibility statement yourself, use a free online template or generator to guide you, or hire someone to create the statement for you, like an attorney.

We recommend evaluating news coverage results according to quality, not necessarily quantity. You want your earned news coverage to reach your potential customers, so focus your efforts on targeted outlets, not the general public. Don’t measure the number of news articles; instead, measure earned coverage in your top 10–20 target media outlets as well as meaningful conversations and relationships with their reporters.

Don’t just post the same message on all social media channels. “The problem is, we’re all using social networks as distribution instead of native platforms to tell stories.” -Gary Vaynerchuk

Many of our national media contacts are already planning their holiday gift guide coverage. Are you looking to earn news coverage for your company’s cool product or service that would make for a unique holiday gift feature? Most news outlets will complete their holiday coverage content well before the holidays arrive. Don't miss out: Start pitching your product for holiday gift guides in September.

Too many companies put unnecessary emphasis on churning out a steady stream of news releases on commercial news wires in an effort to get their message out. News releases should be brief dispatches that have real news value. Is it new? Different? Is it local? Will it save money, time, lives, or the environment?

Networking helps you learn and grow. When you make a new connection, that person may help you out with anything from landing a new job to being your mentor to introducing you to your next client.

"Damn, I’d wish I’d said that." – The Content Factory