Narrow media: What are the consequences for you?

Amanda StockmannApril 17, 2019

What does narrow media mean for your PR? And what is the Google trap? Here are four trends in the media landscape plus a guide to using them to your advantage – and a list of new Danish niche media.

Media coverage in the right media gives credibility to your brand and can be used in online marketing and sales work.

But the media landscape is constantly changing and requires adaptation of your PR strategy: In the new media landscape, search engines and paywalls provide extra complexity. Read here how to behave.

1. The media is narrowing

Several nationwide newspapers have struggled with the economy for some years, after readers have moved online and cancelled their paper subscription. It has meant editorial restructuring where>> a simpler structure in the company has lowered costs<< more places. The media has narrowed down by downgrading the number of newsrooms.

At BT, which has the largest growth at Berlingske Media, the number of newsrooms has been cut to three, and the journalists work exclusively with ‘news’, ‘sports’ and ‘entertainment’. The other dailies have not (yet?) become so narrow, but the trend is going in that direction.

What does the narrowing mean for your PR work?

The media that used to write about your business may not do that anymore. Therefore, you need to look for alternative media – or angles – to get through.

With the right story for the right media, it may still be possible to find a channel for your news.

Do you want to come up with an accounting story for your fintech company in the major media? Has Berlingske or Børsen written about your company recently?

Use the online media search feature to find articles about you (or the competitor) or about topics like ‘tech’, ‘finance’ and ‘fintech’.

Call the journalist and say that you have a story that is interesting to him / her – who has written several accounting stories for Danish fintechs lately.

2. Niche media is gaining ground

As the larger media has tightened, niche media is on the rise. These media write about a specific niche – your industry, your target group’s industry, a profession – and therefore cater to a narrower and clearly defined target group.

Several major media outlets have jumped on the bandwagon and have started their own niche media *. See for example Jyllands-Posten’s Watchmedier , Børsen Pro Finans , Politics School life and Byrum (probably not the last media we have seen from Politiken Nicher). Even a narrow medium like the Engineer splits up into smaller niches on their medium The Engineer Pro .

See a list of niche media with specific audiences at the bottom of the blog post.

The niche media typically write about more “nerdy” and academic stuff. And because the niche material is particularly relevant to their readers, the media can more easily get users to pay for the editorial content – for e.g. to keep up with what is happening in the supply, dental or veterinary industry.

What does the progress in niche media mean for your PR work?

The niche media help you by gathering your specific target group in one place and can therefore be the right channel to use when your target group is narrow.

In addition, media coverage in the right niche media can have a greater effect on the bottom line than coverage in an omnibus media.

The right niche media will often go into more detail with specific specifications for your new software integration – and the story will be read by your core target group, who subscribe to the media and thereby have access to read the article about your company.

If the niche media is in its infancy, you may be lucky to get the article unlocked. The media might use it to pique the interest of potential readers if your story hits the target audience on the grain.

If the medium is already established within the niche, the target audience will often have access to read your story, so do not be intimidated by publishing it behind paywall.

3. Advertorials in progress

Another way that media houses secure revenue is with paid content.

Advertorials, or ‘native ads’, is a sponsored article that maintains the same editorial tone and format as the media in which it is printed. Therefore, each advertorial is written for a specific medium by either you, your PR agency or a paid writer on the medium.

Some commercials are also made as articles – for example the classic ‘Many people experience pain in the lower back, but with these pills…’, which consists of a mixture of images and text. It does not make them advertorials, because they do not have to live up to the editorial standard and are not included as an actual article in the medium.

Users read and share advertorials even though the content appears to be sponsored. If your article is legitimate and written based on the media’s editorial tone, then it does not lose its credibility just because you have paid for it. In other words, you should rejoice that the medium makes demands on style and content because it results in increased credibility.

What does progress in advertorials mean to you?

Advertorials give you the opportunity to draw on the media’s credibility, while at the same time having a great say in how your story is told. You also have the opportunity to come up with (selected) commercial messages that typically do not reach through the journalists’ filter.

Maybe you want to tell a story where you yourself are the expert, instead of journalists pulling the competitor in to “legitimize” your interpretation?

You can also use advertorials to ensure that relevant niche media brings news about you regularly so that you remain ‘top of mind’ with your core audience.

4. Click and lifetime

A popular misconception is that an article is “on target” once it has gone online.

Unlike paper newspapers, which are typically thrown out the day after publication, the online media leaves the articles on their side, so that the reading basket of online articles typically breaks only after several days. The article therefore has a longer life cycle online.

In addition to journalistic quality, you also measure the value of online articles on clicks, shares, and how long users read in them. Therefore, journalists typically assume that the column (headline) of your story piqued readers’ curiosity enough to make them click on the article.

A well-known saying in journalism is:
“A good column is evocative, arousing and comprehensive”.

Articles with a good headline get better placement on the site, more clicks, more shares on social media and attract more readers to the media page.

Sharp boxes fill in editorial meetings at all media houses. They must always fit the content of the article – ie. be ‘comprehensive’ – if the article is not to be dismissed as ‘clickbait’ (typically used for headlines that entice clicks by hiding what the article is about, or signaling sensation without it being real).

What does click and article life mean to you?

When you get a media coverage, you should activate it on social media . That way, you can give the article a longer life cycle, while of course you can share your progress with your network. In addition, popular articles are typically allowed to stay on the front page for longer periods of time.

If the journalist experiences that the story of your company is doing well on the site, he or she will typically also be more likely to write about you again.

When pitching to a journalist, have a well-thought-out, sharp and catchy box ready – approx. 5-10 words that quickly show that your story is good. Your chances are better if the journalist can see your story for himself with a good column that will do well on the site.

That is not to say that you can sell anything with skewed (but comprehensive) puns. Use the box to give your good story better chances of being read in the inbox.

5. Google: The back of the new media reality

Negative media coverage typically gets more clicks. And due to the long life cycle of online articles, a mention can haunt you for a long time after publication, should you be unlucky enough to get one.

Therefore, be careful not to trumpet the company’s difficult periods with large arm movements – even after the crisis is over.

Instead, divert your thinking to good things in life, such as being interviewed about a business crisis. Even if the mistake has not happened in your company.

‘We were close to bankruptcy, but got upstairs again’, can quickly end up as ‘Close to bankruptcy’. And you do not bother to have it as a search result on Google. Sanity will give the journalist fewer gold nuggets for scandal-clickbait.

In addition, you run the risk of a negative publicity ending up at the top of your business’s Google rankings – and staying put because the article remains on the media site.

A bankruptcy column can therefore be the first thing that potential investors, business partners or customers see when they google your business if you are not careful.

What can you do yourself?

If your success story ended with a “bankruptcy text” at the top of Google due to a sharp-edged box, you can try to enter into a dialogue with the journalist. The media will probably not tear down your article, but maybe you can negotiate placement, paywall or a new column – if the error has occurred with the journalist.

You can also work on getting more, and positive, media reviews through regular PR – or advertorials, which you can pay for get a long life on the media and thereby more clicks.

Want to explore your media coverage options? write to field or Jacob for sparring about PR.

Online niche media under major Danish media houses

Payment niche media at the larger Danish media houses:

Jyllandsposten

Finans.dk

Watch media under JP:

Advokatwatch
Property watch
Energiwatch
Finanswatch
Food watch
ITwatch
Medwatch
Mediawatch
Policywatch (on policies of importance to business)
Shippingwatch

The stock exchange

Børsen Pro Finans Investor news
Børsen Atelier – about art (free for Børsen subscribers until Easter 2019)
Stock Exchange Management – content is written by experts, for the time being free of charge for subscribers.
The exchange also owns Dagens Medicin.