The front cover of a Magazine, or trending on TikTok?
2024 looks to be a dynamic year, when traditional mainstream publishers are outdone by streamers on TikTok, how does that shift your media strategy?
Media coverage looks expensive.
It usually is.
Currently many businesses I consult for are looking for press coverage.
Corporate PR companies can provide media coverage, and for that they usually charge a princely sum.
PR companies, or the innovation itself may send press releases, but it’s hit and miss.
Usually, items are not topical or of current interest, so an editor or a journalist may not be able to do anything with it.
Then 6 months later, the innovation/start-up or business get picked up for some reason, let’s say a positive reason, their area of influence becomes topical and now they are the buzz word and item on everything from the BBC to Hello Magazine as the most interesting thing ever heard of.
Until the next thing.
Which may well be the next day.
The point is, this costs bootleggers, start-ups in fact all businesses money.
Media or no media… that is the question.
Melissa Kwan, an insightful, no-nonsense bootstrapper points out that without VC funding they don’t have the funds to pay the PR companies for coverage; only time to focus on creating a superior product.
Yet Kwan also explains her way to success and profitability by “Marketing like her life depends on it, (because it does)”
Seeking Media coverage, or not seeking coverage has its perils
For example:
Company “A” come out with a fantastic product. But they don't have positioning because they hadn’t refined their target audience or brand marketing, voice and persona of the product, website or social media presence. So, it fails.
Company “B” did do all the positioning work, but didn’t have time or resources to focus on the product as much. Yet with a far less superior product they sail on their press coverage, TV interviews, magazine cover stories, branding, and look like a roaring success.
However, Company “B’s” success might well be short-lived and soon nose dive as the product is flawed. Whose failure will no doubt be a story somewhere else.
“There's no such thing as bad publicity” Phineas T Bartum
I don’t agree all press is good publicity.
I’ve heard of a previously successful small business fail after a very fierce negative press review on social media.
Recently a mental health app AI courting the NHS was featured in the Daily Mail as counselling from a robot. They had to dive in, get some crisis media management, and negotiate some sort of right-of-reply, but honestly damage to reputation can be hard, if not impossible to recover. Ask Prince Andrew.
The shift
I say with absolute certainty, the media as we know it is fast changing to survive. Some of this is truly exciting, using AI in ways I had no idea could be done, more on this in another post.
Old models of journalism were previously slow to shift into the social media era, and are now keen to not be as slow this time.
Yet despite budgets, news rooms, technological advances and heavily skilled and knowledgeable staff, many mainstream publishers still haven’t cracked distribution.
Current reporting on the Israel and Gaza conflict, Dylan Page, news TikTok-er has millions more followers than the New York Times or the BBC.
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Your reach on mainstream broadcast TV can be much lower than it is on TikTok, which might well lead you to question why you’ve been hankering for a spot in the national press.
Many PR teams adapted and now are very in tune with this shift.
They offer product placement opportunities or posts to influencers allowing them to engage the very person they’re looking to reach. Thus achieving increased brand awareness, sales amongst other targets, and notoriety. I got these types of connections myself, when I wrote in my blogs about living in NYC and London.
Yet newsrooms have and can still find it difficult to engage audiences used to algorithms tools choosing for them.
“…challenging to reach younger and less educated audiences – many of whom are already comfortable with algorithmically generated news and have weaker ties to traditional media.” Nic Newman
Younger audiences are trusting their own generation to share information. Many of whom grew up with smart devices, and so are forcing the giants of media to shift into a new paradigm of journalism to stay relevant and appealing.
Older audiences are gravitating the same direction, when news media, even restaurant menus, are pushing them there anyway.
For now, at the start of 2024, when minding your own media business, it’s good to consider what are things you can do, and be aware of to keep up.
Shift with it!
Editors from multiple leading global publications have said their focus in 2024 is to increase output on video, newsletters and podcasts. The number of articles produced will remain the same.
Make this work for you.
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Join the media circus.
Create a tailored media pack that can easily integrate into the new ways of modern journalism, include a video, a podcast, an interview with the CEO or CTO you get the idea. It will be a great resource for visits to your sites.
Produce your own video and audio content if you haven’t already.
Consider Search Generative Experience (SGE).
This will affect every industry as it integrates AI into search results fundamentally changing the way we search and the results we receive.
Google are starting their own tests which you can sign up to use.
If you have staff and resources to enable consistent engagement, open a stream on TikTok, YouTube or/and WhatsApp.
It’s not just Rishi Sunak’s Government heading to WhatsApp communications, many news publications are looking to expand on this platform in 2024.
Data and analytics should be considered. There are likely metrics and research already available to determine what’s right for you, specifically, get the balance. Consult a media strategist like me for the potentials of where you are now, to where you can be.
There’s much to say about Generative AI, Machine Learning and deep learning but lets do that in another post, I promise not to bore you. Some of it is so exciting!
Preparation for all this may well be costly, but your public facing brand, media coverage or not, will be what propels your success, or keeps your genius hidden, and no-one wants you to hide your genius. Truly.
I expect all this will make you think about your own media strategy in a completely different way.
Mostly, I hope that you see that you need to have one, no matter what your business is, or where you are in the journey.
Older generations might have considered you’d have “made it” when you’re on the front cover of a magazine, or a segment on broadcast news.
But it’s worth remembering content today is produced much faster, in more places than ever before so that can be fleeting rather than a pinnacle move.
It’s time to pivot.
Now is a much more creative, dynamic world of media strategy with many moving parts.
More to come, please do subscribe to Minding Your Own Media Business.
No AI was used in the writing of this post.