All posts by : Greg Peake

We’d all love to see our name featured prominently in The Australian, the Australian Financial Review or the leading heralds, mails and posts across the nation. But why break your back trying to constantly win over major publications when smaller, niche publications could be better for your company?

 

It was perhaps best written by Glean.info CEO William Comcowich:

 

“Forget The New York Times. Send news to niche publications instead.

Clients and top company executives typically want large, national publications to mention their company. They dream of a feature story on their company in The New York Times.

 

“For companies in many industries, a feature in The New York Times is more likely to boost a client’s ego than sales or revenue. Although major, national media outlets sometimes provide substantial publicity boosts, trade journals and other types of niche publications offer more valuable media opportunities for many companies, especially those in B2B industries.”

 

This is not to say that major news outlets shouldn’t be targeted if your company has a terrific story. There is nothing wrong with wanting to grow your name and business through the power of earned media via powerful publications.

 

However, there are several key PR benefits to focusing on niche publication.

 

Here are just a few.

 

More value for the press release. Often when pitching a story to major publications, a media release is taken apart and only certain pieces are used to create the journalist wishes to tell. And that is assuming the media release is even used. Major publications are sometimes in competition with each other, and the media release so painstakingly put together may only be used once, if ever. Frequently, niche editors run press release in both print and digital pages, share them on social media, and include links to your website. Editors might also ask for an article about the technology behind the product.

 

Niche publications are also happy to report on small companies in their sector. As long as the pitch is on topic, they typically respond to media requests faster and publish articles sooner. In addition, because niche publications are often short on staff, they’re more open to accepting contributed content.

 

Reach a specific audience. Readers of the Sydney Morning Herald are looking at any articles that pique their interest. Readers of niche publications are straight away looking for pieces on a particular topic. If your company operates in their industry, then a niche reader will want to read about you.

 

According to Comcowich, “a feature in the Huffington Post offers little benefit to a business that sells a casting reel for left-handed fishermen. Despite the site’s millions of daily visitors, few readers will be interesting in buying the item. An article in B.A.S.S. Times, with a circulation of about 100,000 readers, will reach avid fishermen. Even if they don’t need a left-handed casting reel, they probably know someone who does.”

 

Explain a technical story. Major publications usually cover broader topics and typically attempt to simplify the content for a wide audience. Niche publications have readers who are experts or passionate about the publication topic, which means their writing gets down to the nitty-gritty technical details. Therefore, companies are able to show who they really are to readers who want to know, quickly getting to the details of their product and saving time when in media pitches, podcasts and interviews.

 

Build legitimacy in a niche community. Niche publications have the respect of industry insiders because of the credibility they have earned providing specifically targeted content of a high quality. Some industry associations even distribute free publications to their members, promoting a sense of objectivity and trust in the publication. Richard Etchison of Crenshaw Communications said, “a consistent presence in the right trade outlet can announce the arrival of a new company as a legit player, or it may help establish a founder as thought leader.”

 

Niche publications can also offer entry to larger outlets. Journalists and editors for major newspapers and consumer magazines sometimes use the presumed expert knowledge within formats like trade journals, drawing on content for research and reference purposes.

 

Large digital presence. Niche publications often primarily take the form of magazines, blogs, online news, videos, blogs and direct member emails. Print format has become less popular due to costs and the time required for production and distribution. Instead, niche publications opt for a digital presence, allowing for a higher rate of content creation, social media engagement and search engine optimisation (SEO). Ultimately, going niche allows a company to spread their message across the expanse of cyberspace, further than the reach of a physical print medium.

When it comes to content production and marketing, one of the biggest traps businesses fall into is trying to communicate through too many channels without a clear goal in mind. Thanks to the digital landscape on which we live, there are so many ways to create a message and even more ways to engage with people.

It’s a tremendous opportunity, and one that should not be taken for granted. However, therein lies the issue – many businesses fall under the FOMO spell (Fear Of Missing Out) and try to communicate through too many channels at once in in fear of failing to get their message across.

The end result is a waste of time and resources, and a number of KPIs that may never be met.

When I was a younger PR practitioner, there were times when my competence was judged on how many channels I could come up with to engage with our audience. For a while I was sure that the key to business success was to launch a message through every form of content known to man. The result was an audience who felt they were being spammed.

I soon realised that there was a difference between being strategic and being lazy. In order to ensure your message, and your business, succeeds, you must first ask ‘Why’ – why is this an effective medium for my message? Why will people respond to this form of communication?

I believe in using more than one channel for content production and marketing, but being strategic is vital.

So, how do you choose the right delivery for your content?

While it’s not fun to fail, experimenting with certain content marketing mediums is useful to find out how your audience engages with your brand. Pay attention to the data and take note of open rates, clicks, views and responses to ‘call-to-action’ prompts.

It’s also good to focus more on who you want to specifically engage with, rather than focusing first on how you wish to reach them. An internal newsletter, for example, via Mail Chimp or Vision 6 may be more effective for a mailing list of company members and sponsors.

Deciding on what to actually say should also be a priority over the medium. Would your message be more effective amongst the headlines of a reputable news source, or would it be better conveyed through a video shared through social media?

While there are certainly challenges involved, today’s landscape allows for great potential for the forward-thinking content producer with the ambition to properly utilise what is available.

Social media has moved to the front seat of many PR and marketing strategies. Many groups and individuals engage with social media on a daily basis, and when done correctly it can immeasurably boost a brand or message.

One of the biggest challenges presented by social media is knowing the perfect time to engage with users. Some strategies suggest engaging in the morning and afternoon, before and after the audience is focusing on their jobs or day-to-day business. Other strategies prefer relying on social media during the day when people are more likely to be looking at a device.

Some people may ask why it matters – isn’t it more important that the message is out there? But research has found that social media users are more susceptible to messages when they are feeling more positive, and positive and negative emotions have been directly linked to a person’s location and the time of day.

A recent study conducted by the University of Melbourne, the Victorian Government and the University of Tasmania combined social media such as Twitter and big data analytics, and tied them to real time and place which provided insights that suggested optimal social media engagement.

“Each tweet is tagged with the time it’s posted. Tweet sentiment scores can also be averaged across specific periods, such as hour, day or month. Beyond the general positive effects of parks compared to built-up areas, we found some general patterns that show people tend to be influenced by the time they are tweeting.

“Across the day, from lunch to the end of the work day, people tended to express less and less positivity, before bouncing back in the evening. This change seems to mirror general schooling and working life – that is, how people experience and recover from their work.

“Similarly, there is a general pattern of people being more positive on weekends than weekdays. While this pattern is similar for both parks and built-up areas, parks seem more positive than built-up areas regardless of the day of week.”

You may recall earlier in this piece a reference to location also being a factor in social media receptivity. After analysing 2.2 million Tweets in Melbourne, the researchers found people in parks are more positive than those around areas like major transport hubs, and that tweets in parks contain more positive content than in built-up areas.

For built-up areas in general, negativity is often associated with major transport hubs, perhaps unsurprisingly, and residential areas.

It’s important to note that the study was conducted to illustrate the importance that open spaces like parks have on human wellbeing, but it also revealed some illuminating insights into when people were typically more receptive to social media engagement.

“Hundreds of millions of people around the world use Twitter for updating their family, friends and followers about their daily activities, thoughts and feelings. People sometimes post public tweets that are linked to the location they are sending from. The words in each tweet can be analysed for their emotional content (referred to as sentiment).

“Sentiment analysis categorises each word as positive, negative or neutral, to give an overall score for each tweet. We averaged tweets across the parks that they were posted from, to give an overall positivity/negativity score for each park.

“On average, tweets by people in parks express more joy, anticipation and trust, and lower levels of anger and fear, compared to tweets by people in built-up areas. Being near parks also reduced negativity, but did not affect positivity.

“People might be happier in parks for several reasons. Parks can help them to recover from the stress and mental strain of living in cities, and provide a place to exercise, meet other people, or host special events such as music festivals.”

When you have a story to tell, it’s important to know when people are listening.

References to research were sourced from an article on The Conversation by Kwan Hui Lim, Dave Kendal & Kate Lee. Read the full story here.

Developing positive content about an individual or organisation is only a small part of what defines Public Relations. Whether it be from the advice of a PR practitioner or the choices made by an organisation, much of the PR sphere involves responding strategically to any situation in order to maintain a favourable public image.

Trust and relatability are values that an audience holds dear and they contribute heavily to public image. This means that sometimes, a well-spun positive message to cushion a negative situation doesn’t cut it. Instead, maintaining a positive public image sometimes means crafting content that defends in the face of public scrutiny or admits guilt.

Public Relations content needs to reflect the expectation people have that individuals and organisations understand what constitutes appropriate behaviour. For example, when people do something wrong, we expect them to own up to it. When someone is being wrongly persecuted, defence is acceptable as long as innocence can be proven.

Here are some examples of this in action.

Know when to ‘hit back’

In 2016, the Sunshine Coast Daily’s brand took a slight dive after publishing what many would consider a ‘low brow’ piece on their website and social media.

The story was republished after originally appearing in The Sun, entitled ‘Women quits job to breastfeed her boyfriend’. As the headline implied, the story was about a woman who took part in an ‘Adult Breastfeeding Relationship’ with her boyfriend.

After reaching an untold number of Facebook news feeds, readers and Facebook followers curiously clicked on the story and were left feeling like taking a shower after reading. But not before letting the SCD know what they thought about the quality of their content.

 

The SCD’s reputation took a slide as more people began to realise stories like this one were constantly appearing on their Facebook news feeds, and as far as they were concerned, the SCD’s quality of journalism had gone to the dogs.

A trashy story? Perhaps. Was it what many people were clicking on? Absolutely. It was this fact that inspired SCD to step in and stand their ground.

 

Their response piece explained that their range of stories is diverse, and ultimately the SCD couldn’t be held responsible for what people seemingly preferred to view on social media.

 

Of course, many rolled their eyes at such a defence. But the logical points managed to hit home for some:

 

While some readers did not change their negative opinion about SCD content, the news platform felt their point was valid and needed to be addressed. Doing nothing risks the audience continuing to believe that SCD doesn’t grade better than fish wrap. Whether people accepted the statement or not, it was a strategic piece of PR damage control that made their point clear and provided people the appropriate context.

Know when to fold

In April 2017 the media and communications industry was in a frenzy over the now infamous incident involving United Airlines and their response when a passenger was rather brutally removed from their seat.

If you’re having trouble remembering, On April 9, 2017, O’Hare International Airport security forcibly removed passenger David Dao, a 69-year-old doctor, from United Express Flight 3411 when he refused to depart the airplane. Management requested he and three other passengers give up their seats on the plane for flight staff. Camera footage was taken of Dao being manhandled by security as they pried him out of his seat. Other passengers looked on in horror as the man was dragged down the aisle.

Dao reportedly suffered several injuries including a broken nose and it turned out the plane was not actually full, even though he was asked to give up his seat for airport staff on the grounds that the plane was overbooked and the staff needed to fly for work purposes.

However, the real issue to be addressed here his how United Airlines responded to the incident the next day. The airline released a statement which, in part, stated:

“Flight 3411 from Chicago to Louisville was overbooked. After our team looked for volunteers, one customer refused to leave the aircraft voluntarily and law enforcement was asked to come to the gate. We apologize for the overbook situation.”

United chief executive Oscar Munoz then followed this up by apologising for “having to ‘re-accommodate’ these customers.” He also issued a statement to United Airlines staff supporting their actions as per protocol. His statement to his employees also went public.

Naturally, this sparked all kinds of outrage. The public were furious that this “combination of airline jargon and public relations spin” was part of their first response. Especially after such objectively confronting footage was released. PR blogs and opinion pieces rained from the sky, weighing in on how this could have been better handled.

This is a stark contrast to the PR dilemma the Sunshine Coast Daily faced. No matter what protocols United Airlines had in place, trying to immediately justify their actions through bland corporate spin was not the right move, especially when the public was stirred by footage of a bleeding passenger in distress.

It was universally agreed that the best course of action was to face the music; back down and own up to what happened. Take actions to prevent it from happening again. Show (don’t tell) that they could earn everyone’s trust back. The security guards were reportedly dismissed several days later, but by then it was much too late – the public had up their mind.

As we consider these two examples we can draw the ultimate lesson about public image. Humans are complex creatures, and Public Relations content should be created to reflect that fact.