How to Get Your Article Featured
This week we got Kathryn Dishman-Baird (Newcastle’s Entrepreneur of the Year) onto our channel to talk about how to get your article featured on a specific new site or industry website.
Kathryn knows her stuff when it comes to Digital PR, and as well as dropping 3 awesome tips for getting more coverage for your article – we also had a lot of fun!
Not only that… but we also hopped over to Kathryn’s YouTube channel to talk about the 5 Ingredients of an Awesome brand. So catch that here too.
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Video Transcript (for all you who like to read)
Hey, guys. Today we are joined by our awesome friend, Kathryn Dishman-Baird, who is going to teach you how to get your article featured. Yeah, are you ready to rock?
Yes, let’s do it. Woo hoo! Let’s wait for that whistle.
So Kathryn, how’d you do it? How do I do it? Well, I’ve got three points that I’m going to go through. You totally caught me off-guard there.
Short video. So Kathryn’s gonna share three points to get your article featured. Kathryn, what’s number one?
Point number one is do your research. Understand not only who your end user is in terms of the readers that you want to talk to, but also what are your target publications?
Right. So within that, what I mean is, you need to understand who exactly you want to attract through your positive coverage. So is it, for example, Pete and I were talking just before we came online about how an accountancy firm may want to talk to their peers, so they may want to promote themselves in Accountancy Aid, so that they raise their profile within the finance industry. But they may also actually want to target specific sectors. So for example, they may wanna target creative industries, so if they wanted to target people like us, they would target Mashable, Social Media Examiner, Digital Spy, Huffington Post, different types of publications like that. So what you need to do is know exactly who you’re talking to, but also need to know who the team is that are actually writing.
Who could potentially write about you and your brand? Awesome first point, Kathryn, but how about point number two? Point number two is about reaching out to journalists or editors, or whoever it is that you want to write stories about you. Or actually feature your content themselves.
So there are a few different ways that you can do this. One of them is that you can actually search out PR opportunities on Twitter and connect with journalists and editors on Twitter. These days, a lot of publications actually publish their entire team on the team page of the actual magazines or whatever the outlet is, and you can actually get their Twitter handle very very easily. There are a number of ways that you can contact them on Twitter, one of which is you can simply follow them. You can DM them.
Another way is you can actually keep an eye out for any PR opportunities within your target industry by keeping up to date with hashtags such as #PRREQUEST, #HELPAREPORTER, which is more of an American hashtag. #JOURNOREQUEST. You can contact them using the hashtags, and that means they’ve actually got a valid PR opportunity that you will want to take advantage of. And what they do is, they’ll say, “I’m writing an article on a certain industry. “This is the topic I’m looking at, #PRREQUEST,” and then they actually tailor their responses. So you’ll find that there are journalists out there that will want to contact you without you not really having to do that much other than respond to their tweet. Nice. Definitely nice.
And so, the final point, number three? Get into their little black book.
Oh. Oh, naughty. How many little black books are you in, Kathryn? A few.
Well, it’s not a black book these days, it’s more of a digital list. Spreadsheets. It’s a spreadsheet. But when I was at university, I was always told that to actually build a relationship with a journalist, you need to get into their little black book so that they will come to you when they have any PR opportunities, because they know you’re a trusted advisor, that you will comment on any stories, and that you’ll be an asset to them as well as them an asset to you.
So I always tell people, establish a relationship with the journalists, contact them, be friends with them, meet with them, tell them about your business, about your brand.
It’ll take a little bit of time, but once a period of time is done, you’ll realise that you’ve actually got a really good relationship with them, and you get into that little black book.
So, would you recommend actually reaching out to journalists and asking just for a coffee? Yes.
And journalists are quite happy to meet? They are happy to meet. They love to know about new businesses, they like to know what’s goin’ on, and what I would say is be mindful of any deadlines that you may be aware of. So don’t ring them 10 minutes before their upcoming deadline and ask them for coffee, ’cause they’ll just say, “I’m too busy at the minute.” But give them a call, have a chat with them, tell them about your business, and you’ll be able to learn a little bit more about their publication as well.
So you’ll actually be able to learn about any upcoming features that you may be able to be part of, or any stories that they’re planning on writing that you think you could actually provide an expert commentary on. So this part and this point is very much about positioning you as an expert in your field, because that’ll help you get featured within different magazines or outlets. But it’ll also help you build relationships with the journalist that you need to. Mm-hmm, love that.
Thank you so much, Kathryn, for coming on our channel. Thank you. We have had a lot of fun filming this one. We also did a video over on Kathryn’s channel,
talking about the five ingredients of an awesome brand.
So we’re gonna link that below as well, so go and check that out, make sure you subscribe to Kathryn too. Yeah, exactly. Go and subscribe to Kathryn please, and also make sure you check out her PR PROgramme, it’s absolutely amazing. Kathryn, will you tell us about that? So the PR PROgramme is for businesses based in the Northeast of England, and what I’m doing, every month is hosting a workshop to help businesses proactively manage their own PR.
There’s a different topic every month between, it started last month and it goes on until October. So feel free to check it out. Awesome. We are going to link to that below, as well. Make sure you are subscribed to our channel for more of these weekly videos, and like our Facebook page for more of these videos, too. And guys, we will see you next week.
He’s been Andrew.
He’s been Pete.
She’s been Kathryn.
See ya next week.
See ya next time. Bye