All posts by : Greg Peake

The PR community talks constantly about the concept of earned media. It’s our bread and butter, and we are always ready with an explanation as to how it differs from marketing or advertising, otherwise known as ‘paid media’. Earned media is the result of strategic thinking to bring important news to the forefront. Information earns the title when external parties, namely journalists and the media, have deemed it a worthy offering to bring to the public’s attention.

Sometimes, however, we get caught up in the message or product we are trying to sell, and the concept of earned media can get distorted. In the worst cases, earned media becomes a marketing vessel and the only thing that separates it from paid media is the platform and the price tag.
Here are a few things to consider to help keep earned media grounded in its definition.

Earned media needs a powerful message

A powerful message makes a great story. The focus should be less about ‘what’ you are trying to promote with free publicity, but ‘how’ it will affect people. It doesn’t matter how much money you or your company makes, or how important you think you are – if you don’t deliver a message people care about, you end up wasting everyone’s time.

(Of course a big company name or well-known figure adds weight to any story, but you’d be surprised to see how many shallow media releases are out there that essentially say nothing, but were distributed nonetheless because a big company thought their name alone was enough to turn heads.)

This, however, does not mean your message needs to be pandering or fabricated to make people pay attention. Just be honest, but go deeper – who benefits and who suffers from your information? What are some interesting facts surrounding the topic? Which powerful players are involved?

Why does this story need to be told?

Earned media can be spoiled

Earned media is distinguishable from paid media because its essence of honesty and purity. Journalists, in particular, are more likely to run a story if it can be interpreted as an unbiased piece of information beneficial to the public.

An audience is smarter than the cattle some perceive them to be. They can usually tell the difference between when they’re being informed, and when they’re being sold to. Only the very best marketers and writers and blur those lines, and even then, more people are wising up to PR tactics every day.

When crafting content in the hopes it will become earned media, it’s best to avoid certain behaviours like the overuse of adjectives or using a full weapons chest of empty corporate ‘buzz words’ to make simple concepts sound more amazing.

Keep that powerful message in mind, because desperate, empty and promotional prose is easily identifiable and will often lead to content that sours your message and your brand.

Earning media requires patience

Free press as a result of one great story is only a small part of what makes earned media so effective. Earned media is also the right to free publicity as a result of a long-term process of establishing trust and building relationships.

Building an effective media relationship, however, is not as simple as becoming friends with journalists who will, in turn, have your back as a contact no matter what. The journalist could be your child’s godparent, but their job is still on the line if you send them terrible media releases and weak news tips in the name of flimsy self-promotion.

It’s a slow burn. Earned media relies on a strong message and engaging storytelling, but the best results come after a long and consistent period of delivering the best content possible. Over time, you will have built a foundation where publishers will see your name and immediately assume you must have something interesting to say.

Building strong relationships takes patience, strategic thinking and realistic expectations, which are words that describe the very nature of earned media to a tee.

The media spokesperson is one of the most important players in the media machine. Acting as as a journalist’s primary source, they are responsible for representing their organisation and its message to the world.

To the untrained eye, a spokesperson’s job is simple: Attend interviews and press conferences and provide the media with information for their story.

However, underneath the surface a spokesperson must be armed with a range of skills in order to:

• Provide the media with a powerful and controlled message, and
• Maintain their reputation and the reputation of their organisation.

Here are some of the skills that a good media spokesperson must have. They are also the skills that a good PR professional must be ready to teach their clients.

Dress for success

It is important for a good spokesperson to be correctly attired.

Common sense, right?

In the PR world however, correct attire is not as simple as throwing on a suit to ‘look professional’. Clothing should properly reflect the spokesperson’s position and level of authority, and more importantly the environment surrounding the story.

For example, the hard hat, high-vis vest and rolled-up sleeve combo is a much-loved costume for politicians who visit a factory or blue-collar work site on the campaign trail.

Clothing can speak volumes and can convey its own message, so a good spokesperson must ensure they are dressed to match their words.

Do: Consider a lighter, less formal outfit if the story is about (for example) an ‘active families’ program at the beach.

Don’t: Speak on behalf of a multi-million-dollar company unveiling wearing thongs and a band shirt (especially as CEO).

Have something to say

Providing the facts (who, what, where and when) is only the first step. A good spokesperson must also answer these questions:

• Why am I giving this interview?
• Why is the media choosing to spend their time with me?

The answer to both of those questions should lie within the story: you are speaking with the media because what you have to say is newsworthy.

In order for a story to be newsworthy, a spokesperson should always be prepared to add necessary layers to the facts. In other words: Here are the facts, but why do they matter? How will an audience benefit from knowing this?

Too many media releases offer nothing more than a variation of the following:

“[Insert organisation] is delighted to be a part of [insert business venture].”

Of course the organisation is delighted. Who cares?* It is vital to bring more than a simple sound bite to the table.

* It is actually quite important to establish the subject’s position. However, the point to take away is that as a spokesperson, your standpoint and the standpoint of your company should be accompanied by rich and engaging dialogue.

Spokesperson Preparedness

A good spokesperson should never walk into a media event with nothing more than the knowledge in their mind.

A spokesperson should be briefed on the position and viewpoint of their organisation, and dressed appropriately (as previously mentioned). They should also have a general understanding of the media outlets they will be speaking to (e.g. are you speaking to hard-hitting journalists? Are there any ‘gotcha’ tabloids in the crowd?), and a working knowledge of the story’s background should a journalist pose challenging questions. A good spokesperson should also have their ‘character’ prepared.

Play the part

A media spokesperson is similar to a character in a play. You must don a personality necessary for the part. This skill normally involves appearing professional and authoritative in front of the media, but it also includes adopting mannerisms that will engage an audience. If a spokesperson has had a bad day, or not necessarily in the mood to talk to journalists, that will all come through in the delivery. It’s imperative to leave personal feelings at the door and become the character the story requires.

Jargon filter

Often a media spokesperson will be the representative for a big company that specialises in a particular sector like finance, government or property development. And with specialised knowledge comes ‘jargon’. Jargon is the term given to words and phrases that are exclusive to a particular group, and not universally recognised as common language.

The true challenge of jargon is to understand that it is not black and white. A good spokesperson knows when to add jargon to their speech, and when more common dialect is appropriate.

Jargon pros:

• Conveys knowledge and control of the business and its material.
• Gives the audience faith that the spokesperson is the right person for the job.
• Audience feels trusted to follow along – jargon can sometimes be interpreted through context and allows an audience to feel like the media spokesperson has welcomed them into their world.

Jargon cons:

• Too much conveys pretentiousness
• Jargon at the wrong time may confuse the media and affect the message
• Heavy jargon alienates the audience

Tightrope walking

Tightrope walkers have superior balancing skills, and so too must a good spokesperson. It is essential that certain aspects of the message never tilt all the way to one side:

• Be confident, but not arrogant. Journalists and their audience must feel like you’re sharing your insight, not talking down to them.

• Have a message, but not an ‘agenda’. There is a difference between news and advertising, and most people recoil when the two get confused. A spokesperson’s message must be embedded within the story, and delivered in such a way that engages an audience and allow them to feel as though they came to your way of thinking on their own. Blatantly pushing an agenda breeds hollow words, identifiable bias and a cheap story.

• Don’t say too much, don’t say too little. Journalists should be offered a rich backstory and plenty of information to sink their teeth into. However, giving too much away dulls the intrigue, bores an audience and runs the risk of journalists walking away with the wrong angle (due to an overload of information). Similarly damning is saying too little, which could result in the perception that there is no story. It’s important to find the ‘sweet spot’.

The last skill is undoubtedly the most vital.

Keep calm.

Own the message. Own the delivery. There are no biting monsters at media events.

The inverted pyramid of media writing is one of the most fundamental aspects of good media writing. Understanding the concept and applying it to almost all styles of writing will help you win friends and influence people.

The pyramid approach is a style of story-telling that guides a writer to arrange their piece so the most important information goes at the beginning.

It’s become more and more important for media writers to craft stories this way, mainly due to the rapidly growing number of news outlets in the world and the diminishing amount of free time in people’s lives. Media writers know that if their stories have not captivated a reader almost immediately, then all their work will have been for nothing.

It wasn’t always like this. Before the end of the 19th century, journalist of the time would write stories that followed more traditional, slow-paced format. An argument can be made that the style was long-winded and unnecessary, but all stories would follow a more linear timeline – they began with a ‘signal’ that something important, useful, inspiring or entertaining was about to begin, and from there the journalist would tell the story from beginning to end, leaving the climax, or the crux of the information, as the conclusion.

Nowadays, attention spans have shortened somewhat, and people are much more likely to scan the first few lines of a story to determine whether it is worth their time to continue reading. That is why it is important to employ the inverted pyramid to capture a reader early.

Writing in an inverted pyramid

Summarise the ‘who’, ‘what’, ‘when’, ‘where’, ‘why’ and ‘how’ as soon as possible. This is usually done with a strong and engaging 23-25-word introductory sentence that can summarise the entire story in one go. Also try to focus the intro on the strongest news value – often simply the facts about what happened where. From there, the first paragraphs of a story must outline the important parts of the ‘5 Ws’ and include the strongest quotes.

Now that the key information has been identified in a compelling way, most journalists write the body of the story so it flows naturally. This includes telling the story in chronological order. Give further detail (often includes the ‘how’ (which was purposely left to expand on after briefly touching on it in the first few sentences)) and more quotes from sources. Be aware that trying to convey too much information in the body of the story (also applies to the introduction) can be worse than keeping it too brief.

Finally, the last few paragraphs should include the background information, general notes regarding the story, and any final ‘wrap up’ quotes.

While the inverted pyramid is mostly affiliated with the news, it is a powerful tool to wield for any style of writing. Perhaps not in a literal sense for styles like features, blogs or fiction, but the concept of engaging readers straight off the bat means that, in a world saturated by information, people will want read more of what you have to say.

The not-for-profit (NFP) sector is a unique beast when it comes to communication.

Their audience is broad, ranging from organisation members, volunteers, board members, media, politicians and policymakers. Not to mention the wider public in many cases. Their work is centred towards a cause, with no mind towards profit or personal gain.

The content is continuous, versatile and needs to be engaging, and always leads back to the main underlying message that drives the organisation.

Every NFP will have their own communications and engagement strategy, but there are a few universal truths to consider when developing not-for-profit related content.

Good NFP content is more than just words on the page. Those who subscribe to a not-for-profit cause are often looking for information, resources and benefits that will help their interests and the interests of the industry they support. It’s important to provide that through content which, unlike a media release, can house such opportunities. Online NFP mediums like blogs, newsletters, web pages and even online in-house news pieces should be abundant with images and videos that illustrate a point, as well as links to other websites and attachments (i.e published PDFs) that can provide further reading and scope to the information. By providing this, an NFP exhibits a level of commitment to stakeholders, and shows the content they provide is a one-stop shop for all the information anyone could want on their subject.

Some content ‘receivers’ have other things to worry about. Often an NFP is made up of volunteers and members who have their own lives and businesses outside of the organisation. It can get quite frustrating when a lot of time is spent on developing great content and no one seems to respond. You have to ask yourself, ‘how will this content affect the reader’? NFP content is not usually recognised as randomly generated news pieces and web posts for people to stumble on and say, ‘hmm, that’s interesting’, before going about their day. NFP content has to strike a chord; it has to entice; it has to make people feel personally invested. Using links to useful resources as previously mentioned is great way to start, as well as adopting catchy and insightful headlines and headings, but the next step is to develop content that really hits home.

For example…

Writing a fact sheet to convince businesses to contribute to an NFP cause may include content around the following:

• What is in it for the business?
• How will the business be affected?
• Why is the NFP the right group for the cause? What are their goals and how do those goals translate to the business?

Understanding the audience goes a long way. More important to content distribution, understanding who the audience is helps to determine how to provide them with content the way they like it. This might sound a little pandering, but, for example, you would not develop an NFP event invitation that looks like spam and then email it to a group of busy executives twice a day for a month. It’s important to know the receiver, understand their communication channels, and interact with them in a way that keeps them on side and receptive to the message. Knowing the audience also helps with the tone of content. Continuing with the ‘busy executives’ as my example group, these individuals may prefer a professional manner from an NFP, rather than a youthful and off-the-cuff conversation tone. Just like travelling to another country and speaking to a local, NFP content is most effective when it is in the right lingo.

NFP content should have something to say. Consider the following paragraphs for a hypothetical media release, written by a hypothetical NFP organisation:

[INSERT NFP ORGANISATION HERE] is in full support of [INSERT INITIATIVE/PLAN/NEW LAW] established by [INSERT SEPERATE ENTITY HERE].

“This is a great step forward and [INSERT NFP ORGANISATION HERE] is excited about what it will mean for the future,” said [INSERT NAME OF NFP HEAD HERE].

This approach is often taken to tell the world that an NFP is aware of a situation, and usually comes off as self-promotion. When creating content, an NFP should consider the benefit of others first, and their interests last. An insightful report of the information and what it means for others should be the first priority. Once readers are made clear of the news and what it means for them and their interest, then an NFP can round out the message with the pledge of support and whatever future actions they may take on the public’s behalf.

Ultimately, it comes down to understanding the definition of a not-for-profit – an organisation that does not operate for their own personal profit and gain. NFP content should reflect that, and be written and distributed with the interests of others in mind.

As a writer, of sorts, I hate it when people look me dead in the eye and proclaim, ‘the written word is dead’. When I hear it, it feels like all of my career choices up to this point have been nullified by those who prefer to absorb information in other ways, and believe communicating is a ‘one or the other’ exercise.

But there’s no reason to feel like this! Even in this day and age, written content still plays an integral part of business, news and information.

The difference is that written content need no longer stand alone.

Incorporating videos into online content is a great way to add another layer to your message. It’s a tried and true approach for many organisations, bloggers and news providers.

But do not be fooled into thinking that it’s a simple matter of pasting a YouTube link into your text. As writers/content creators, it’s up to us to understand the ‘sweet science’ behind intermingling the magic of video with our craft.

Create a symbiotic relationship
It all begins with a symbiotic relationship. Before you can add videos to your work, an environment has to be created where your words and your videos earn their worth by relying on each other.

• A good video can help illustrate and visually stimulate the point you are trying to make, in ways that even the most coherent text cannot do on its own.
• Well-written content provides appropriate context to a video which would otherwise be pointless imagery.

Keep videos short, sharp and to the point
Including a 10-plus-minute video in the middle of a 400 to 600-word blog is rarely effective. However relevant, a long video with rich and captivating content will command readers’ full attention, and it pulls concentration away from the content you worked so hard to develop.

A video should be used as a quick illustration. If it’s too long, people could start losing interest or they may start to believe your written content is irrelevant. But we’ll get to that…

Keep videos relevant
While people are viewing your content, the accompanying video needs to support what they just read. It should provide imagery that helps a reader on their path to better understanding your content, and therefore should be relevant. Adding a video to your content just for the sake of it can hurt your message, especially if it has nothing to do with what you’ve written.

It may be tempting to add a video to your content because it looks cool, or fun, or it shows that you’re ‘with the times’, but pointless videos distract, undermine and generally get in the way.

Never let videos outrank your content
Typically a video should complement the content, not overpower it, and should only take centre stage in an online piece in certain and rare scenarios.

 

A well-edited video may lead people to think they can get all the information they need from its entertaining imagery, which will make what you’ve worked hard to create seem redundant and irrelevant.

But there’s a problem with thinking that an in-text video has all the answers: By forsaking the text, the key points are sometimes missed entirely.

Videos should always be regarded as merely a tool to assist your content – aiding where necessary so your content can achieve its objective in the best way possible.

When developing a communications strategy it may be tempting, especially for a communications specialist answering to a higher authority, to come up with dozens of different marketing and PR delivery tactics or to get sucked into the latest piece of marketing automation tech. This is usually done in order to make a strategy seem more impressive, but having pages of points in your strategy that say things like, ‘we’ll use social media outlets’, or, ‘we’ll send a media release to all the major newspapers’ is not so impressive. If these tactics don’t have quality content backing them up, it can be counter-productive to the overall goal.

Some of the most effective strategies often take a simple ‘quality over quantity’ approach, by spending a little more time on the story that needs to be told, rather than focusing all the effort on the latest marketing and PR trends to distribute that story.

There are a few easy tips to ensure a communications strategy is not ‘all flash and no substance’.

Know the platforms – match your content to their language

Choosing communication channels for your strategy is only half the battle. The next challenge is how to communicate through those channels. For example, wanting a media release on an online news platform or in the newspaper means making sure the content is ‘news ready’. This means the release needs to be interesting, informative and written in an appropriate news style. Journalists go through a gargantuan amount of media releases, but a large number end up lining bird cages because they appear more advertorial than informative, like promoting a business rather than what the business’ accomplishments mean for news readers. Another example is using social media, where content needs to be suitable for interaction, discussion, sharing/social interaction and have character limits.

Know the audience – how do they absorb content?
This is one of the most important factors because it’s where the most can go wrong. An off-putting message or message delivery is a business-killer. Taking the time to understand your audience leads to knowing what they want to hear, and how they want to hear it.

This does not encourage lying or spin; it simply means knowing how to engage correctly.

For example, young adults are likely to lose interest with long and text-heavy emails or articles that contain unnecessarily pretentious vocabulary. It’s important to know how they absorb messages before delivering one. In the case of young adults, tailoring content to them may involve writing short and sweet pieces that get the message across in a light and conversational tone. Even a small video that can visually illustrate a point help drive a message home for this particular group.

Similarly, a political or executive audience is far more likely to take you seriously if you communicate though formal and professional content, rather than an informal ‘hey, wassup?’ piece of marketing.

Know the product – how should you talk about yourself?
Understanding the value of a product or service is the biggest element in dictating how to talk about it. A communications strategy should weigh the impact of the product or service it’s supporting, and then the content should present a tone or style that reflects that weight.

For example, trying to write a glittering academic feature for the Australian about your company’s new brand of toaster might be excessive and unrealistic, but similarly the promotion of a state-wide awards gala shouldn’t be limited to a paragraph on Wikipedia and a casual post on Twitter.

The best way to remember these points is to consider a simple truth: Before you communicate, you have to have something to say.