There’s nothing that spells validation quite like having a media outlet write a favorable article on you or your business. It’s the type of third-party validation that forces customers, competitors and funders to take note of your work and success. It is also a way to get your message across. This is one of the reasons companies invest so significantly in public relations.
Frequency Makes Your Marketing Effective
And while the published article is important, it’s the floor – not the ceiling – in terms of content marketing. It’s the beginning of your work, not the end. Human nature is such that we often need to hear a message multiple times before we believe it and before it sinks in. From a marketing perspective, the best way to get a point across is to repeat it a minimum of seven times. This means you have a lot of work to do after a reporter or producer has published an article or TV/radio segment highlighting your business or work.
Influencers Are Key to Sharing Your Content
The first thing you’ll want to do is share the article or link for the TV/radio segment with your followers on social media. When you share the article or segment, be sure to tag the reporter or host who wrote/produced the article as well as its respective media outlet. Tagging the reporter and the outlet will increase your post’s reach while also giving a nod to the reporter for his or her work. Since editors monitor how articles perform, tagging the reporter helps tremendously, because it increases the number of people who see the content while recognizing the reporter and media outlet that produced the content.
Social Media Sharing Drives Engagement
In addition to sharing the article or segment on social media, share it with your supporters and funders. Don’t assume they’ve seen it. Take a minute to craft an email highlighting the article or segment, being careful to include both the link to the article or segment and the most poignant portion of it. This increases the probability of your supporters and funders seeing the article, even if the link doesn’t work or they elect not to click on it. You should aim to do this every time a favorable article is published on your work. In addition to sharing the article or segment on social media and via email, consider sharing the piece with reporters who have covered your work in the past or reporters you’d like to cover your work in the future. This positions you as a potential source and places you on their radar.
Repurposing Content Has a Number of Benefits
If the article or segment performs well on social media – meaning it generates a lot of engagement – you could create a Storify that captures reactions to the content. You could also prepare a poll on Facebook or Twitter that gauges how people feel about the content. This is a way to boost engagement while ensuring the content’s message is shared with as many people as possible. The bottom line: The published article or TV/radio segment is just the beginning of your content marketing work. While media stories are coveted, they are the catalyst for sharing your message with a broader audience.