As part of my responsibilities with one of our clients, I coordinate a media placement program. The program works to facilitate exposure for both our client association and its members by helping industry publications find member experts to fill specific media needs. Our client enjoys a great relationship with leading industry media groups who love to quote or otherwise feature members as industry experts.
This process of placing members in the media consists of two primary work flows. In our primary method, editors and reporters from industry media titles are looking for insights, quotes or case study information from our members on a given topic. I present the publicity opportunity in our online membership community and anyone interested can participate. Alternatively, association members have ongoing opportunities to write blog posts or recurrent columns on topics of their choosing.
It’s awesome for our members to receive mention in these publications and on the associated websites. It helps them build both name recognition and credibility with their end-user client target base. Helping to facilitate these placements and media relationships is a tremendous benefit of membership in this particular association. In addition, we do request that placements we curate mention our members as such – members of our association, so that we build name recognition and credibility as an association, as well.
This is an impactful, and growing, program. But once the placement is published, the work isn’t done. There are ways to amplify the content’s reach to maximize everyone’s exposure for their effort made.
After a member receives coverage or mention in the press, we announce the placement in our online community for members, and across all of our association social media channels. We also provide the following suggestions for members to make the most of their networks and maximize their exposure:
- Include the media placement as a news-worthy item in an email or as one item in your regular e-newsletter, distributed to your company’s email list. Include a link to the article!
- Add the piece, with a link to it, to your company blog or news section of your website. Make sure the content is easy for readers to promote themselves by adding social share buttons to the post.
- Add the piece, with a link to it, to your company profile in any industry-related online communities or directories.
- Post a link on your company’s Facebook page. Tag the people and organizations mentioned in the article.
- Post a link to your company’s Twitter page, including:
- A mention @reporter or @publication and @association (some will re-tweet). Include a “.” before each @mention so that the tweet will appear to everyone, not just followers.
- Hashtags #association, #member (if you have one) and #publication. - Post a link to your company’s LinkedIn page. Again, tag/mention anyone else referenced in the article.
- Post a link to these other areas in LinkedIn: company, personal, personal update, appropriate LinkedIn Groups, and LinkedIn Blog. Include a short explanation in each case. Tag/mention people and companies involved. The others you tag might like and share your update!
- Similarly, post a link to your company’s Instagram, Google+ or any other social media accounts not yet mentioned.
- Make an impromptu video (just using your phone or tablet will suffice) with the media placement in hand. It’s OK to show off! Show off the print magazine/issue or show the screen with the article on it. Post the video across all the channels mentioned above.
- Consider pulling snippets (brief quotes or other poignant points and tidbits) out of the placement and pushing them out over a period of time via your social media for ongoing, refreshed promotion of the placement.
- Encourage employees to share the news of your organization’s media coverage via their personal social media. More and more companies are doing this by establishing an employee advocacy program.
If both the featured member and our association work to promote and drive traffic to the placement on the media outlet’s website, it can help land the piece on that publication’s “Top 5” list, which, you guessed it, drives even more exposure for member and association. It’s a true win (for the member)-win (for the association)-win (for the publication)!
Please comment below: What strategies work well for you in expanding your content promotion and social reach?