Many of the advisors that we work include a “News” or “In the News” section on their website. In this location, they can showcase where they either continually seem to have great media relationships, where they are constantly being interviewed or they have had a few key “claim to fame” opportunities in the past. Whatever your “News” section, consists of, it is important to leverage those media opportunities to the fullest extent!
PR is about creating content and managing communications-in whatever format it is.
-Lord Chadlington, CEO at Huntsworth PLC
What Should You Do If Your Firm Gets a Press Hit?
Okay, so first things first, your firm got a press hit, and that is awesome! So, what do you do next, though? It may be your first bit of media that you have ever gotten or your tenth, it doesn’t matter, it’s always important to showcase it! In this case, it’s okay to brag a little, show your visitors the good stuff that you are doing! Check out the 5 tips below on what you should do if you get a hit in the media.
Director of Communications, Jillian Baker of ZEGA Financial, provided us with some great additional insight about sharing their news that we will be sharing throughout the blog. Their CEO & Co-Founder, Jay Pestrichelli, has a great relationship with the media and has done many interviews.
1. share it on social media
You know how much we love social media at Twenty Over Ten! It’s such a great way to drive visitors to your website, and interact with a totally different audience then who you interact with on your website.
Keep in mind whatever you are sharing your news, you need to give credit to the writer or interviewer by tagging them, as well. Wherever you get interviewed, be sure to retweet and reshare posts about the article or the interview from the media outlet directly.
Zega Financial has an active Twitter account where they share their latest media stories so that others can easily access them. They made sure to tag the interviewer, include a strong image, hashtags and a link to the story.
Once a broadcaster quotes ZEGA Financial or shares a video with them, they will write a blog post to send it out to their readers, tweet it and share it via LinkedIn.
Additionally, they have established a network of reporters that they speak with periodically, so keep in mind that it’s important to maintain strong relationships with the outlets you communicate with, as this will increase your chances to have recurring segments. Having a strong PR team that works to get interviews with financial channels is a great way to start getting these relationships going.
Also, it’s important to post about it several times in the upcoming weeks, saying something along the lines of, “In case you missed it…” Social media moves quickly, and there are constantly new posts being shared daily and even hourly, so the tweet that you put out can very quickly get lost in the mix, which is why it’s okay to share it several more times throughout the upcoming weeks.
2. blog about it
Content is such a great way to drive traffic to your website as a part of your inbound marketing strategy, so why not brag a little and dedicate some posts or videos to your news coverage? Give the reader a look at what it’s like “behind the scenes” and share how the overall experience was and what it meant to you as a company. However, get creative with it, as you shouldn’t reprint the entire article on your site without permission since it’s the work of the media. You can “make it your own” in a sense and add images and pictures to it.
You can also include a link that goes back directly to the source so that others can read it verbatim and you also be giving credit where it is due. If there was a video be sure to embed the video into your blog post as well.
ZEGA’s blog is their biggest communication tool for their readers. They typically share media spots on Jay’s LinkedIn page because he has more connections than theirour company page, and they get a lot of feedback that way.
3. ask for help from others
In the case of getting a media hit, you should share it around the office and ask your team members to share on their social channels and within their circles. Many people in the office, especially millennials, are extremely active and savvy on social media, so getting that extra “manpower” from other accounts is extremely helpful. It’s okay to also encourage them to comment on your social posts, as well.
Every little bit helps and they work at the same firm as you do more than likely, so they will also be proud of the interview and want to spread the word about where they work.
4. repurpose it
We’ve talked already about repurposing the content on your blog, but what about other avenues, such as your email newsletter or perhaps creating a longer-form piece of content around the subject matter like an ebook or a white paper?
If you have a monthly newsletter, then definitely share your work! We send one out every month and include top tips and tricks, and another great thing to do is brag a little! Show where you got a hit in the press, with a link or video. If you send a newsletter out to current clients, then seeing this just solidifies that being with your firm is a great choice and that you are well-respected. If you send one out to “verified leads,” so someone who isn’t quite a client but is on the fence, then this is just another push in the right direction as to why they should be with your firm!
If you go the route of having your visitors download an ebook or white paper, in order to see your media hits, then create a strong call-to-action to entice them to check it out and become one step closer to becoming a client.
5. track it using google analytics
You know how much we love using Google Analytics at Twenty Over Ten, so if you haven’t already signed up to use it, it’s a definite must! Once you received your media hit and you shared it, did your site experience an uptick in visits? How can you track that without using a tool to track your work?
There are so many different things that you can track also while using Google Analytics, which is another reason it’s such a useful tool! In fact, there are over 10,000 metrics that can be measured, but we just wanted to show the top 5 metrics so that you can tell who is checking out your site once you had your media hit.
- What are the Main Demographics of your Visitors?
- How Did Visitors Find Your Website?
- How Are Your Landing Pages Performing?
- How Much Time is Spent on Your Site
- How Many Unique Page Views Did you Get?
ZEGA Financial uses Google Analytics to track the uptick to its site after posting media spots. Jillian mentioned that there are people visiting their site more according to the analytics once they are mentioned in the news.
This information is extremely useful as now only can you see how many people are visiting your site because of this media hit, however, it really breaks it down to see so much more about who is visiting, which can help you to purpose your content to target a specific niche even more.
Key Takeaways
So, what did you learn from this article? Getting a hit in the media is very exciting, whether you are new to this or you are used to speaking to someone in the news every week. Additionally, you probably noticed that it can be hard work to get noticed, but like everything with financial advisors, you can’t stop right there!
From creating a strong story angle, pitching it and doing follow-ups with reporters, it takes a lot to get a hit! Don’t stop there though, be sure that you are promoting your hard work across multiple channels as we mentioned in this article, and it will really drive traffic and increase SEO.
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