News coverage is the best content because it has the benefit of someone else telling your story. But not all third-party content is created equal. While some coverage is almost always better than no coverage, the more widely viewed and more respected the outlet, the more valuable the content. Another important factor – is the content/coverage in a publication being seen by the audience you’re trying to reach?
Recently, we hit the bull’s eye in The New York Times with a story about the success of our client the Quonset Business Park. A former Navy base on Narragansett Bay, Quonset was widely perceived to be underperforming for years until hitting its stride in the last decade. Today, it is the region’s premiere business park and the leading engine of job creation and economic growth in Rhode Island.
The Times story “Quonset Makes a Name for Itself in Business” captured Quonset’s success well. Even better, the Business section of The Times is the ideal place to reach one of Quonset’s key audiences – business decision makers who are looking for a place to start or expand their business.
Once the sun rose on the day after The Times story, though, came the obvious question – what next? At our firm, getting good media coverage for our clients is only the beginning of the process. From there, we go on to amplify the story and work to get it in front of as many people as we can. We do this by making it available on as many platforms as possible, some of which we publish ourselves on behalf of our clients.
Here are just a few examples:
- The first, most basic place to begin amplifying a story like this one is on your website. Here’s The Times story on the Quonset website.
- Next – social media. If you go to the Quonset Twitter feed you’ll see numerous tweets, starting on March 15, mentioning key points in The Times story, and linking back to the story for those who want to read it. You’ll see Quonset re-tweeting other mentions of the story, as well.
- Check out the Quonset Facebook page. You’ll see similar mentions. Also – we took advantage of the heightened interest to invest in boosted posted posts on the platform – where we paid a few hundred dollars to reach a larger, targeted audience. This, in turn, resulted in a jump in Facebook followers for Quonset. (Nothing succeeds like success.)
- Quonset’s e-mail newsletter is an important communications tool for the Business Park. Whenever we review the data from each edition we not only marvel at the quantity (the strong “open rate”) but also the quality (the list of individuals who are actually reading it – basically a list of key decision-makers and opinion leaders in Rhode Island) of its readership.
- Coverage of coverage is another way to amplify stories like the one in The Times. For instance, both Ted Nesi and Ian Donnis, two of Rhode Island’s most respected journalists, mentioned the story in their widely read weekly columns “Nesi’s Notes” and “TGIF: 21 Things To Know About Rhode Island Politics & Media”. Both linked back to the story.
- We amplified the coverage of the coverage on Quonset social media.
- Finally, there are “speeches about coverage”. Quonset’s success is due in large measure to the support of elected officials at all levels. Here, State Rep. Bob Craven rises on the floor of the Rhode Island House of Representatives to talk about The Times story, and deliver Quonset’s message of success and economic growth.
Bottom line: For us and our clients, what happens in the days after good media coverage is at least as important as what happens in the days before.
