Word-of-mouth referrals are the “golden egg” for sales. The marketing equivalent is media coverage. When a trusted journalist writes a positive story about your company or product, she is ultimately giving her stamp of approval for all the world to read.
Yet despite the power positive PR can have on almost every aspect of your business (from marketing to sales, to recruiting, to culture), many CEOs are not using social media to leverage online coverage. And understandably so! Your CEO is busy, and probably finds tweeting of lower priority than, say, raising a round of seed funding. But from a long-term perspective, using your CEO’s social media presence to amplify media endorsements can have a lasting impact.
Here are five reasons why:
1. It extends the reach and lifecycle of an article. With any piece of marketing content, value often correlates to the number of decision-maker eyeballs on the piece. The more quality content a CEO shares, the more likely it is that members of his or her network will share as well; increasing the potential of reaching your target audience. Digital content also lives longer via social media. If an article is timely or breaking news, CEOs should share it once a day at different times to make sure it spreads evenly to all corners of his audience. “How-to’s” and listicles are usually evergreen, meaning they never expire and thus have a long lifecycle. Your CEO and members of the team can share these articles several times over the course of a year. Want to pave an even longer runway for a stunning piece of coverage? Put some Facebook ad dollars behind it.
2. It legitimizes the content. Media Insight Project research recently revealed that, when it comes to trusting media coverage, people place more weight on who is sharing an article on Facebook than who wrote it. If a trustworthy source (like Oprah), shares an article on Facebook, 51 percent will deem the content well-informed and trustworthy, versus 34 percent when a non-trustworthy source shares the same article. A CEO’s social share goes a long way towards increasing trust in a piece of media coverage.
3. It forges a connection with the journalist. News outlets are a business. Journalists are held to KPIs and benchmarks just like employees at your company. The better a journalist’s content performs online, the better they look to supervisors and the rest of the newsroom. A CEO’s diligent posting (and tagging, if possible) of the journalist’s content goes a long way in strengthening the relationship.
4. It boosts your CEO’s reputation as a thought leader. Editors looking for contributed content will often use social media to vet spokespeople. A CEO’s LinkedIn or Twitter profile that doesn’t reflect thoughtful posting is a red flag. On the opposite end, profiles with regular posts to previous media coverage will communicate that not only does your CEO know what he’s talking about, other media outlets think so too.
5. It looks good to anyone researching your company. You can bet that prospective customers, possible investors and potential hires are thoroughly combing your website and leadership’s social media profiles. Earned media stands out as an impressive boost to your company’s reputation as third-party validation. Because if the New York Times loves you, why shouldn’t they?
For more tips on how to leverage media coverage using social media, follow BLASTmedia on Twitter!
