Having a media presence can help any company stand out from its competitors, and attract potential customers, business partners, as well as investors. However, when most companies start out operating in their industry or their niche, they tend to face a lot of competition and big crowds, which means it’s not always easy to generate media coverage, positive public relations and buzz. That doesn’t mean it’s impossible—just that it takes a bit of time and effort.

Resource

One of the best ways for a company to stand out from its competitors is by generating positive media coverage in the right publications. To do that, companies need to start building media relationships by offering their expertise, opinions, and support to the right journalists. To figure out which journalists are going to be relevant to a company, businesses first need to go through the target outlet and figure out whose reporting and writing is close in interest to the company’s industry. Then, the company needs to send those outlets and journalists content, ideas, and different types of support. However, it’s important to remember that companies need to avoid outright self-promoting themselves or their solutions. Instead, they need to be focused on getting to journalists to find the background information they need, provide opinions or expertise on what the company is already familiar with, and identify industry trends. If the company is genuinely interested in helping these journalists and is authentic in its approach, that company has increased its odds of developing a positive relationship with the journalist or outlet, which means the business can come back to them with a pitch in the future that’s going to be a lot more likely to be picked up.

Attention

There is no secret key to how a company can grab the attention of the right outlets and the target audience. At the end of the day, it all comes down to the relationship that the company has with media outlets, as well as its branding. The key is to think creatively about what the company is willing to do to grab the attention of its target audience. There are numerous examples of how famous people and companies have managed to grab the attention of the entire world, that businesses can take inspiration from. Aside from creating something that’s truly attention-grabbing and borderline outrageous, another way for a company to grab the attention of the public is to talk about its values, mission statement, and its beliefs through its public relations and marketing efforts. In fact, companies can also capitalize on the attention that other famous brands or celebrities already have, and get them involved in those discussions, to generate a lot more attention from the public.

The author, Ronn Torossian founded 5WPR, a leading PR agency.