Tips on Getting Into the Tech Media
By Laura Lorek
@lalorek @SiliconHillsNew
1. STORYTELLING — Storytelling generates interest in your startup. People like stories. It helps them understand complex topics easier. “A good story is about something the audience decides is interesting or important. A great story often does both by using storytelling to make important news interesting,” according to the American Press Institute.
2. DON’T BE BORING: The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth works for a court of law and the news business. But you can jazz up a story with a human focus. The media loves stories about people. Take Dan Price, CEO of Gravity Payments in Seattle. He gave all his employees $70,000 a year in pay. That story went viral. Look for human-interest angles within your own startup.
3. WHAT IS NEWS WORTHY? The characteristics of newsworthiness are prominence, proximity, impact, timeliness, conflict, and human interest.
4. IS IT RIPE? Make sure your story is ripe. What does that mean? Too many entrepreneurs tell their story too soon before they even know what their story is. There are no take backs in the media. Once your story is written it is part of the fabric of the company. That means you’ve got to live with it. So, don’t seek publicity if you’re not ready.
5. GET WITH THE BEAT: The story is ready, now what? Find a reporter who covers your beat. If you’re writing about aerospace, seek out aerospace reporters and the same with healthcare. Reporters at larger publications tend to specialize on beats. Even within the technology industry, there are niches like mobile, apps, cloud, software, hardware, wearables, telecommunications, etc.
6. PERFECT YOUR PITCH: And once you find that person, make sure your pitch is polished. Make it short and on point. Email is the best way to pitch most tech reporters. Just write a few paragraphs. You can link to background material if you think it’s necessary. Make sure to get the person’s name right, their publication name correct and make sure you provide them with a way to contact you via email and phone.
7. PITCHING MULTIPLE REPORTERS: Pitching more than one reporter with the same story. It’s OK to do this with breaking news like VC funding, new hires, expansion, etc. It’s not OK to do this with company profiles. It is best to find one publication and ask them if they are interested in the story. You can say you are providing them with an exclusive. If they are not interested, go to the next publication on your list. But don’t pitch them all at once and expect to get the same story in multiple publications. News organizations don’t like to do copy cat news stories. So if the story has recently appeared in a competing publication, they might take a pass on it. That doesn’t mean the story is dead. You can always look for a fresh angle to pitch the story to a new reporter.
8. DON’T COMMIT FRAUD: Be very careful when talking to a reporter about financial information regarding your startup. You don’t want to commit a securities violation or fraud. My advice is to check out Venture Capitalist’s Marc Andresseen’s a16z firm’s post on startup metrics. And whatever you do, do not create a fake news site and a fake reporter to promote your company and products.
9. SOCIAL MEDIA PITCHES — It’s OK to pitch a reporter using Twitter, but not so much on LinkedIn and Facebook. Twitter is a more open format. LinkedIn tends to be a professional network. (If the reporter is in your network and you know them then LinkedIn can be Ok.).
10. PUBLISH — Seriously consider publishing your own blog and posting to Medium to reach a wider audience. I interviewed Thomas Schranz, CEO and co-founder of Blossom, a project management tool for software teams, and he reached most of his customers through posts on Medium and Quora. He’s based in Austria, but most of his customers are in Silicon Valley and they include Netflix, Apple, Facebook and Twitter. “Write it all down” is the advice given to GoldieBlox Founder Debra Sterling and she reports her company blog helped land them stories in TechCrunch and The Atlantic.
11. PHOTOS — To get into blogs, it’s really good to have a photo with the press release you are pitching. Studies show that stories with photos get read more than stories without photos. So always think about providing a high-resolution JPEG.
12. GUEST BLOGGING — A good way to gain exposure and establish yourself as a thought leader in a particular industry or topic. Forbes, Huffington Post, Inc Magazine and others regularly take outside contributors.
13. COMPANY EXPERTS — Company experts can write valuable content and publish the information to the company’s blog, on Medium, or to an op-ed site for a newspaper or on a site like Xconomy, which has a list of carefully curated contributors which it calls its Xconomists.
14. START EARLY: Develop relationships with reporters. Meet them in person, if possible. Be helpful. Provide information of interest to their audience. It could be about a new expansion, an industry trend or even something going on with a competitor. Seek to become a trusted source. Reporters love scoops.
15. FOLLOW UP: When you do pitch something, follow up. Sometimes the timing is wrong. The reporter is busy. But that doesn’t mean that the story isn’t a good one. So much is happening in Austin that the news cycle tends to come in floods instead of a steady stream. Look for times when the news cycle is slow like around holidays and summer. Reporters are always looking for stories to fill the news hole during these times.
16. PODCASTS — Launch your own podcast in your niche. Or look for opportunities to be a guest on an existing podcast in your industry or area of expertise.
17. LIVESTREAMING & VIDEO — YouTube is a great way to connect directly with an audience. So is Facebook Live and Instagram Stories. Look into ways to create more video content for your startup. This videos can also be embedded on news sites.
18. INSTAGRAM FOR BUSINESS — Another wonderful way to tell stories and to attract an audience. It’s also possible to garner news coverage and to become an expert or influencer in an area from postings to Instagram. Half of all Instagram users follow a business and other great stats on why your startup should be on there.
19. START A NEWSLETTER — Publish a daily, weekly, monthly newsletter of interest to the community your company belongs to. Aggregation of interesting content is the key to success.
20. HIRE A PR AGENCY –Austin has some excellent PR professionals who have contacts with local, state, regional, national and international press. This can payoff big time if you are targeting a specific niche and you find the right PR agent for the job.
For more visual information, view my Slideshare on Tips on Getting Your Startup Featured in the News.
