It’s exciting when your team wins awards or appoints new people. Sharing the news internally is a great way to boost your team’s morale and instil pride. But if we’re brutally honest, most of the time, no one else really cares! So how do we make them care? How do we engage clients, customers, key stakeholders and potentially, media? Kate offers some tips :
- Link your news to an industry trend or topical issue – why have you appointed a new person? Do you need the extra resource to cater for demand in a certain area? Grab people’s attention, especially media. Throw some stats in there from a credible source to back up what you're saying. Just make sure you reference it.
- Focus on what the news means for your key audiences – yes, you won an award, but what does that mean for your clients or your customers? How will they benefit? Did they play a part in making it happen? Don’t make it all about you.
- Tailor your news story to your audience – One size rarely fits all! Don’t just blast out a generic media release. Make the story relevant to the industry or regional media you are targeting. This might mean tweaking the headline and introduction to mention a particular city or region. You might even change up the angle for different publications. Journalists like to see you’ve made an effort to deliver something relevant to their readers.
- Establish your spokesperson’s credibility up front – for a new appointment story, ask your new team member for their thoughts on a topical issue or trend and use that as your hook – as mentioned above. In the second or third paragraph, give your reader information to prove why this person is qualified to give an opinion about this issue. Did they grow up in the area? What tertiary qualifications do they have? How many years’ experience do they have in this field? You don’t need to summarise their entire career history. Keep it to one paragraph This will give them more credibility and encourage people to keep reading.
- And, finally, keep in mind that the communications channels you ‘own’ are often the best ones to reach your audiences. Post softer news on your social channels with a video, include a short story in your next newsletter or develop a blog for your website. There are a many different ways to ensure lots of people see the news that is important to you.
