You Scored a Great Hit, Now Comes the Easy Part
Congratulations, you’ve earned a great TV story, newspaper article or bylined thought leader piece in a trade publication! Now what?
Share that success via social media marketing! By doing so you can:
- Get more eyeballs on the story, thus expanding the audience for your organization’s messages;
- Further enhance your physicians’ expert reputations in the eyes of patients, consumers and journalists following you on social media;
- Keep internal audiences, including administrators, star doctors, partners and off-site staff, in the loop on the great work your public relations department is doing;
- Improve SEO, as the online version of the article (frequently containing a link to your organization) gets shared;
- Build relationships with reporters by sharing their work (something they’re often judged on);
- Highlight your agency’s work for prospective new clients.
Social media marketing of client hits is part of SPRYTE’s DNA, and should be part of yours too. And it should go beyond just a link, or a canned “Share This” from the original website. This is your opportunity to hype the story with advance notice if possible, short accompanying text, and even behind-the-scenes photos from the event or interview.
Make the Most of Your Success through Social Media Marketing
Here are some more tips for marketing your results online:
Share the clip promptly, preferably within 24 hours of its appearance. Sometimes links go stale as articles are removed, and some publications put their content behind a paywall after a certain amount of time.
Don’t include the entire text of the story in your post; an introductory sentence or two, along with a link to the original site where the story appeared, is sufficient, will respect copyright, and is preferable for SEO purposes.
Break up the story into short snippets of information, to share in the days after it originally runs, especially if it contains useful tips. Be sure to include the link to the full article each time.
Use one or two relevant hashtags, along with handles for the organization, physician, reporter and any third parties involved in the story.
Highlight the story’s presentation if desired (for example, if it appeared front page, above the fold), by including a photograph or snip with the media outlet’s logo, along with the article link.
Encourage your staff to like and/or share the post on their personal social media channels (and do the same on yours).
Be mindful of paywalls. If the article isn’t free on the original website, you can still quote from it or include an image of the headline and first paragraph or two without stepping on toes, under the Fair Use Doctrine. Don’t include the entire article without written permission of the publisher.
Keep it professional. Linkedin isn’t the place for breathless excitement and exclamation points. Highlight a useful business or communications angle for your description if possible, to make it relevant for that audience.
Pay attention to photos. Facebook will grab a default image from the linked page, and you can no longer change this. If there’s no photo, or you don’t like the default, remove the link, add your own photo (you must do this step first), then paste the article URL in the text box after the blurb. The photo will appear under the post, and the URL will remain in the text box.
Punt if necessary. Not every story is available online, particularly TV or radio clips. If there’s no link, get creative. Use a screen grab or the outlet’s logo, or attach a photo you took at the interview to accompany your post.
Say thank you. It’s never a bad idea to enthusiastically thank the reporter or media outlet for doing the story in the text accompanying the link. This can strengthen the relationship. Just include handles, so they can find it – and hopefully share or re-tweet it.
You likely worked hard and put in significant time to secure that great earned media hit, but leveraging it with social media marketing is under your complete control. Making this part of your standard practice will extend the life of the clip and let others know about your great work!
