Journalists and bloggers aren’t getting what they want from brands, which means brands are getting less publicity in media stories. That’s the primary finding from the PRESSfeed 2012 Online Newsroom and Digital Media Relations Survey. Today, journalists and bloggers find stories in different ways and expect story sources, like corporate newsrooms,to provide more than a bit of text if they want to see their brand names in media coverage.
The problem for corporate newsrooms whose employees work to generate publicity for the company and its brands is that they don’t know what journalists and bloggers want from them anymore. Times have changed and the statistics below show you what journalists think is important versus what corporate public relations professionals think is important:
- Images: 80% of journalists vs. 26% of PR professionals think images are important.
- Embed Codes: 76% of journalists vs. 28% of PR professionals think images are important.
- Video: 75% of journalists vs. 43% of PR professionals think video is important.
The disparity between what journalists think is important to get from PR professionals and what PR professionals think is important to give journalists is significant. Despite the fact that research has shown images can increase story views by more than 75%, only 56% of PR professionals routinely include images with their press releases.
Furthermore, since more than three-quarters of Internet users get their news online today, it’s more important than ever to optimize story content for search engines. Images can also be search optimized, which means not only are images and video useful in getting journalists to notice and write about your brand’s news, they also help more people find those published stories via search engines. That means more exposure for your brand!
The infographic below shows all of the key data from the 2012 Online Newsroom and Media Relations Survey.
Click the image to view the full-size infographic in PDF format.
Susan Gunelius is the author of 10 marketing, social media, branding, copywriting, and technology books, and she is President & CEO of KeySplash Creative, Inc., a marketing communications company. She also owns Women on Business, an award-wining blog for business women. She is a featured columnist for Entrepreneur.com and Forbes.com, and her marketing-related articles have appeared on websites such as MSNBC.com, BusinessWeek.com, TodayShow.com, and more.
She has over 20 years of experience in the marketing field having spent the first decade of her career directing marketing programs for some of the largest companies in the world, including divisions of AT&T and HSBC. Today, her clients include large and small companies around the world and household brands like Citigroup, Cox Communications, Intuit, and more. Susan is frequently interviewed about marketing and branding by television, radio, print, and online media organizations, and she speaks about these topics at events around the world. You can connect with her on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or Google+.
