BE SENSITIVE, NOT SELF-SERVING: GET EARNED MEDIA COVERAGE DURING COVID
Even on the best of days, striking the perfect balance between a newsworthy story and a brand's key messaging can be a challenge — and coronavirus dominating the news cycle has only brought new dilemmas to the realm of earned media.
In good news, getting coverage in the current moment isn't impossible — we're still seeing a high level of top-tier coverage for our clients, but it's important to be cognizant of the situation and make sure the brand doesn't appear to be profiting from other people's suffering. It's a time for brands to add real help and value, not a time for them to appear self-serving.
Be sensitive
First and foremost, that means brands and PRs need to evaluate the material and content they're pushing. They need to examine the story from all possible angles and work to be especially sensitive — if they have a trusted journalist, it would be worth running content past them before pitching reporters or releasing a press release to a wider audience.
Some brands are going to have an easier time being sensitive than others. Parenting-focused outlets are seeing an influx of readers due to school shut-downs, giving brands in that sphere an opportunity to offer helpful advice to parents, giving tips and tricks for keeping kids entertained and learning while districts are closed. Many people are turning to self-care and are worried about their mental health due to increased stress — brands can speak to taking care during this emotionally-draining time, offering genuine help to consumers and readers.
Be sensible
Other sectors with great opportunities for coverage include entertainment, online dating, working from home, pets and certain areas within finance, to name a few. Habits around those topics are currently in flux as people are finding and adapting to new routines, giving us an opportunity to pull unique and compelling data when we conduct research to support a client’s news story. At 72Point, we use strong data and public opinion research to generate interesting and newsworthy talking points that editors know will relate to a national audience and lead to good engagement.
We're being especially conscious of the kinds of stories we're pushing on our newswire, doing our own sense check between the editorial and distribution teams at every stage of a project. Most of our travel stories have therefore been put on hold — this time of self-isolation and quarantine isn't the right time to be pushing stories about vacations or traveling to popular, crowded destinations.
Be entertaining
Travel brands can still see great coverage though. We recently released a story for travel and tourism brand Visit Anaheim, which surveyed 2,000 Americans to find the nation's favorite superhero. The story worked because it was sensitive to the situation: Instead of pushing people to book trips, the brand's goal was to raise awareness for the upcoming Avengers campus opening at Disneyland.
One of the reasons that project, specifically, was so successful — with 125 pieces of coverage, 13M estimated coverage views and almost 25K social shares — was because it was on the lighthearted side.
With all of the news surrounding coronavirus and the current state of the economy — on top of school closures and layoffs, people are especially looking for lighter stories and for humor where appropriate. Giving some good news in this time of stress is a great way for brands to get coverage right now, while not forcing a tie to the current news cycle or appearing self-serving.
Be current
We've seen brands interested in taking an old project of theirs and running a small set of new data via an online survey to see how things have changed — a bit of a "then and now" view of the situation — and this is a great way to bring relevance back to an old story and show how coronavirus is affecting people's daily lives.
With ongoing projects, we're also seeing clients pivot their angles to focus more on the current news — it's encouraging to see brands be so proactive in this environment. While it might not be an option for every brand, it helps to show that brands are aware of the current situation and adapting to it — and allows the distribution team to have extremely relevant stats to share with reporters when the story is released on the newswire.
Timely research data is always something to aim for, and it can be used as a tool to bring people together and show them they aren't alone, even in this time of social distancing and self-isolation. It also opens new avenues for brands to be positioned within the current media landscape — as long as it's done sensitively and thoughtfully.
By Marie Haaland, Senior Creative at 72Point Inc.