Too many of us only value getting our picture in the paper when it comes to our PR activity – “wow I was on 5 News last week.” At the same time we tend to underrate the value of being featured on blogs or popular social media sites.
Yet the reality is that the digital channels can provide more engaged attention for you.
Indeed some of the blogs are now surpassing the traditional news channels in terms of reach and engagement. Take a look at the Global Newsbrands leaderboard I launched today to show which are the top, global ‘newsbrands’ – covering newspaper, radio, TV news stations and blogs.
In week one’s leaderboard, we can clearly see that the Huffington Post and Buzz Feed are driving more Twitter activity in terms of retweets and mentions than more traditional newsbrands such as The Guardian or The Telegraph.
So, what does this all mean for us as social media marketers?
It means that social media is no longer a news backwater – big social media newsbrands are becoming as powerful distributors of news stories as the old traditional channels. And that’s a trend we all expect to see continue.
So with that in mind, here are my 3 top tips for Social Media PR:
1. Format your news message for the social media channel
Prepare 300-400 word articles for bloggers, prepare 140 characters for tweeters, 6 second videos for Viners – you get the idea! Sending an influential tweeter an 800 word press release just isn’t going to work.
2. Make it visual if you can
Visual PR has always worked better than text – photos of people, faces or even cats all work better than none at all. Most social media channels prioritise visual content over the written word.
3. Build a relationship, think like a columnist
Social media is a stream, social media editors like a stream of content from you, one off articles here and there aren’t much use. It’s your ability to feed their channels with regular content that they will value most