Member Article

How to make content go further - maximising marketing and PR potential

Back in my customer advocacy days I was constantly asked: “How can you use this content to tell the same story more than once?”

That doesn’t mean we churned out the same content over and over again, it means that it forced me to consider every piece of work I produced, to see how else the story could be reiterated to maximise audience reach.

When you think about it the reason this should be done is pretty obvious. People consume content in different ways. Not everyone reads newspapers, or has access to online news and you either bother with social media or you don’t, therefore it’s essential to hit each platform.

From a PR perspective and from experience practicing PR in a digital age, a simple press release will not suffice. How can the story be turned into a Tweet, an Instagram post or even into a short video for something like Snapchat? How can you use your content to interest and engage as many people as possible?

It’s also important to think about the hyperlinks you can include in the written piece and, where appropriate, which hash tags should be added on at the end. Doing small things like this will help Google find your online content and drive online traffic to it.

Another barrier PRs come up against is the perception that online coverage is not as good as securing an article in a local, regional or a national printed publication.

The truth is that achieving coverage online will attract a larger audience than print media. I’m not saying we should ignore print media, but that there is a perception it should be held in higher regard than online publications.

This is a shame because articles published online have a longer lifespan, the ability for the reader to share and comment on the content and will often attract a higher readership. For example The Daily Mail has a circulation of 1,708,006 but the website has 3,316,200 unique visitors every day – that’s a 94 per cent increase than its printed counterpart.

New online business publications are springing up every day and share some of the most interesting and regional content. North West FYI, BDaily and Times North are just some of the websites we submit to on a regular basis and it is important these sites are respected and not forgotten when issuing news.

To quote Bill Keller, a former executive editor at the New York Times: “The web audience is growing at a great clip, while print circulation is not. And online revenues are growing faster too, albeit from a smaller base. If the trend continues, there’s little doubt that ‘eventually’ online becomes the main business.”

He said this in an interview in 2007. He predicted the future because we’re already there.

The ‘eventually’ he is referring to is much smaller now and although the transition hasn’t fully taken place, it’s plain to see that digital and online should be high on the list when it comes to devising PR strategy. The digital age is upon us and it’s up to the content creators to lead the way. #TheDigitalAgeisHere

Emma Brereton of The Write Angle PR & Marketing Ltd, based in Chorley, Lancashire.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Emma Brereton .