Timing is of the utmost importance in today’s 24-hour news cycle. Recent events, or events in the making, are likely to lead the news.
How relevant is a news story to the audience? A California earthquake is almost always more relevant to a West Coast audience than to an audience on the East.
Stories that can be easily simplified or summarized are likely to be featured more prominently than stories that are convoluted or difficult to understand.
On the other hand, events like natural disasters, accidents, or crimes are completely unpredictable. These events are also likely to have significant news value.
War, elections, protests and strikes require continuing coverage. These events are likely to remain in the news for a long time, although not always as the lead story.
Certain events, such as elections, major sporting events and legal decisions, happen on a predictable schedule. As the event draws closer, it typically gains news value.
Certain high-profile individuals are considered more newsworthy. If someone throws a shoe at an everyday person, it’s probably not news. If someone throws a shoe at the President of the United States, it will be in the news.
How many people will the story impact? Issues like climate change have become big news precisely because environmental changes impact the entire planet.
While the suggested content might not be newsworthy enough for a press release, there are many places where it can be shared to reach the appropriate audience or stakeholder.
Targeted pitches are conversational and outline the details of a news story and briefly state why it’s interesting to the reporter’s audience.
Finding “angles,” or perspectives, for pitches maximize a reporter’s interest. Examples of pitch angles would be:
Targeted media pitching by an agency or internal PR team ensures that key reporters and their specific audience receives news stories that are most relevant.
Executive social media also represent the views of the company, but should reflect the background, experiences, and views of the executive as well. This is a platform for a more personal social media presence still reflective of the company. If possible, executive social media pages should be staffed. Examples would be:
Thought leadership pieces include op-eds, or opinion pieces, often written by a subject-matter expert, a person with a unique perspective on an issue, or a regular columnist employed by the outlet.
An op-ed is not a news story that simply describes a situation; it is the author’s opinion on a given subject. Offer specific recommendations – the best opinion pieces have a clear, persuasive and well- argued call to action.
A staggering number of op-eds are submitted to various top tier news outlets around the United States, and the majority are rejected. Those selected consist of unexpected, persuasive, and interesting opinions, typically from an author well versed in the topic.
Impact stories use a real narrative, featuring actual people and events, to make an emotional connection between the audience and the work done by the company. They are most successful for news that has an emotional tie to the community, features “human-interest,” demonstrates the scale of certain achievements, and is concise. Data heavy news articles wouldn’t shine in an impact story.
Internal newsletters and publications should feature news that is relevant primarily to the employee and executive base. Some examples of this would be:
Corporate social media posts represent the views of the company. News featured on these platforms should be relevant to the audience, easily understandable to the public, enforce the company’s views, and strengthen corporate messaging. Examples would be:
Sponsored content is promotional media that’s paid for by an advertiser, but shared by another brand, influencer, or publisher. It contains useful and relevant information and is a persuasive way to tell a targeted audience more about what the company offers.
Sponsored content organically blends into its source for a more natural look and feel to the reader.
Sponsored content can be formatted as an article, photo, video, social media post, infographic, and more.
