San Francisco Agency’s new CEO, Reetta Ilo, shares her thoughts on the media landscape and gives tips on how companies can gain visibility in today’s world
The world has been turned on its head multiple times in the past five years. The media landscape is no exception to this. Especially in the past two years, we’ve seen extensive layoffs from even the world’s leading tier 1 media outlets; many journalists have gone freelance or changed careers completely.
However, simultaneously, people turn more to news outlets to find content that is real, relevant, timely, and honest. If 5-10 years ago some PR professionals thought that citizen journalism (where regular citizens report news in real-time through social media) will take over, that was a wrong horse to bet on.
When it’s hard to trust any pictures, video, audio, or written content we see on the internet today, the natural instinct to go to sources we trust grows stronger – people, myself included, want to read the news from trusted media outlets.
And tumultuous years have also made the media sharpen its pen. Sloppy news tips will not go through, as journalists seek, with fewer resources, impactful stories that have real humans and companies telling their stories.
When there are fewer journalists to pitch to and media outlets are very picky about story tips, companies will have to look at PR from a more critical and wider scope. Have we included audio media, such as podcasts, in our media pitching mix? Are our company’s natural thought leaders active on social media, as journalists search LinkedIn all the time for news tips? Are we prepared for a crisis that might hit us – not because of what we did, but because yet another unexpected disaster strikes the world?
Another thing that communications professionals struggle with is the current political play that has entered into the media channels even more than before. Many question if it’s OK to continue to use a social media platform that is led by people whose values don’t match mine. Do I want to pour advertisement money into a channel that will help business influencers I don’t like be successful?
These are not easy questions to answer, and sometimes, it might be impossible to look at things objectively. In these times, I strongly recommend that you find a sounding board to spar with. Whether it means hiring an agency or speaking to trusted business partners, companies should get more third-party validation for their communication strategies and channel plans. Sometimes, the answer is easier than it seems. You might get lost in the direction when the world has become complicated.
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