Tips for Connecting With The Media On Social Channels
Building media relationships is important for your press and publicity strategy. After all, they are the people that will help share your news and spread your message to your audience. They are the people that will help you achieve your press release goals. A media outreach campaign requires a variety of tactics.
One effective way to connect with the media and start building that relationship is to leverage social media. You should know that many journalists, reporters, and bloggers use social media to generate story ideas. This means if you have a relationship with them on social media it may be easier for you to pitch your story idea and to have your press release information covered.
#1 Follow Them On Social Media
The first step for building a relationship with the media on social channels is to identify the people that you want relationships with. Now you might already know who those people, are so the next step would be to find their profiles on major social sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
Once you found them and followed them, make sure that you set up notifications so that you are aware of when they publish posts. Create a schedule so that you are able to review, at least daily, the information that they’re sharing. Take notes on what they share and what they comment on because this will give you insight as to what they’re interested in covering.
#2 Comment And Engage
Of course it’s not enough just to follow media representatives on social media – you also want to make yourself known. So the next step is to comment on their posts and engage with the reporter and their followers. However, make sure to share insightful and beneficial information. If you’re sharing an opinion, back it up with facts and logic.
#3 Provide Value
Share information with them that you think they might appreciate. For example, if you’re following a sports reporter, then you might share a new study on concussions in girl’s lacrosse. If it’s one who writes about local business, then you might share information about a startup that you have just learned about. The bottom line is to make sure that when you share information with the media representative, it’s information that is relevant to their job and journalistic interests.
#4 Promote Their Social Channel.
Finally, you can build a relationship with media representatives by sharing their posts. Of course don’t share everything that they post, but share of the information that is relevant to your followers and that you find powerful and interesting. Engage with them in a way that helps promote them while also being genuine.
Building relationships with media representatives can take time. Identify a few key people that are a priority to your media outreach strategy, and leverage the power of social media to connect, engage, and hopefully to build a reciprocal relationship.
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