What media should you be sharing with your audience?

You’ve heard me talk (on numerous occasions) about building relationships with journalists (if you can’t remember - go and check out the ‘Journalists’ section of the Articles tab in the members’ area). A huge part of that is interacting with and sharing their work. Remember: journalists’ main goal is to create stories that are valuable to their audience, so if you consume, share and comment on their work in a thoughtful way, you are making their dreams come true.

Not only this, but sharing relevant media with your audience on socials is a great way to generate content when you’ve run out of ideas or are busy, it’s a great way to keep the conversation going with your existing and potential clients and it builds and deepens that connection with the journalists in your network.

This might all sound great, but knowing what to share with your audience can be difficult. After all, if you’re an artist, you’re not going to want to share every piece of news that comes out about art, are you?

Here are my tips for making those choices, so that they serve both you and your audience.

Pick stories written/ produced by your hit list of journalists

This is an obvious one, considering what we were just talking about above, but start by sharing any pieces that your current hit list have recently published. Before you do this, though, make sure it’s something that you or your audience would find relevant. An example might be, you have a business journalist on your list and she shares two pieces in a week: one about preparing your mindset for the recession and the other about a change to recent HR legislation. If your audience is made up of solo entrepreneurs, the first piece would be relevant to share with them whilst the second probably wouldn’t (given that, as they work by themselves and for themselves, they probably don’t have an HR department). So in this instance, you only share the first piece.

The same applies here whether it’s a podcast episode, a segment on TV or a written piece of journalism.

Pick stories that fit with your sales narrative

You probably have certain marketing messages that you share with your audience, so you’ll want to share media with them that fits with the point you’re always trying to get across to them.

Let’s say you’re that artist and your art focuses on raising vibrations in the home. You’re not going to share a story with your audience that’s about a new piece of research showing that art can cause depression (I have completely made that up, but you get the idea) but you might share a story about a new piece of research that shows people who display a lot of art in their homes are 60% happier (also made up!).

Focus on the stories that are preaching what you preach and that amplify the message you want your audience to understand.

Pick stories that encourage your audience to engage with you

It’s been said that the best kind of audience to have is a community - one that not just interacts with you, but interacts wtih each other. When deciding which stories to share with them, another great tactic to take is picking stories that encourage conversation in the comments. Not only with this boost your engagement ratings, it will also keep your brand at the forefront of their minds.

Now, of course, this comes with a caveat. If you choose a polarising topic, the comments are going to enter choppy waters very quickly. But if you pick something that might be useful to them, you’re more likely to see positive results.

This is what I mean: perhaps you’re a business coach and you see a story about the best ways to increase productivity. You could share this with your audience and ask them to add their own advice to the comments and encourage them to share which of other peoples’ suggestions they liked the most. This creates an engaging conversation with your audience that is both in line with your brand and useful to them.