A Low-Cost Way to Increase Your Chances with 'The' Media

Clients and people looking for help always have a similargoal in mind, they want to make their organisation orbusiness look as credible as possible. One way to do thisis have an all singing all dancing website, but there isone page that can really help on the credibility sidethat people often forget... The "MediaPage".

I have worked with journalists for years and discoveredthat although they are a rare breed of humans, like us,they love a bit of special attention. That little bit ofspecial attention can mean you getting written up intheir story or alternatively being given a quick glanceover and ignored.

A media page is really straightforward and can pay largedividends. Once you have made contact with a journalisteither by phone or email, and they have shown an interestin your story then you are halfway there. Quite often thejournalist will ask you a number of general questionsabout your business and they nearly always ask for yourweb address. This is because when they are writing yourstory up they need to "pad" around the actualstory you have put forward by saying a bit about what youdo and how long you have been formed.

They get the normal stuff by browsing onto your site andreading the "about us" section, but also,they look for a "media" page.

Best practice for your media page means havinginformation like; all your past press releases about yourbusiness, your media contact details (including an out ofhours number where necessary), areas that you are able totalk about and be considered an expert in, a library ofbusiness and corporate photo's, key events anddates, case study and advocate information and a latestnews page.

The photo section should show the business at work andalso key members of your company, like the managingdirector and alike. Be careful what pictures you chosebecause, just as a journalist browses your site whendoing a nice story, if you ever find yourself on thewrong end of a news-story, what you thought was a funnypicture could be used against you.

Journalists are always looking for case studies tosupport articles and if you can put these forward thenthe media area is the place to do it. Make sure you havea bank of advocates ready to talk about what a goodservice they had from your organisation and list thedifferent support areas in the case study section.

"Key events and dates" allows you to putacross a brief timeline of your business landmarks andgrowth as well as giving you a bit more credibility. Youcan also use this to highlight future events you may beattending, or even future events of a charity or otherorganisation you are supporting.

Probably the most important thing to get right is thetext first read when the browser opens the media page.Although there is no real harm in allowing members of thegeneral public to see your media page it is always a goodidea to put some form of words on there that drawsattention to the fact it is meant for the media (andmakes the journo's feel special too!). Somethinglike,

"This section of the website is meant for mediaonly, all non-media enquiries should be directed via thenormal contact routes".

So, there you have it, a simple way to lend a bit ofcredibility to your company and also a good thing to dropinto conversation the next time you are trying to get ajournalist to use a news story about yourorganisation.

Well, enough from me. As ever I hope this helps andremember if you have any special requests for future article, give me a shout.

Andy Barr 

Date: Mar 31 2007 2:57PM
Category: BUSINESS EDITORIAL