Pay Wall Predicament
Why PR People Should Advise Their Clients To Also Tell Their Own Story
St. Louis, May 2021 –You paid your PR agency top dollar to leverage their deep relationships with the media to pitch a story about your company.
- The good news is they were successful in getting a large part of the story you wanted published. While the story they published wasn’t exactly what you wanted, it was decent. It is not how you would have done it your, but it was not bad. Not great. But certainly good enough to share with your peeps.
- The bad news is you can’t share it online or via social media without most being prevented from seeing it by the media outlet’s paywall.
Ugh! It is what I call the proverbial “ Paid PR Pitch Paywall Predicament” of modern communications.
You want to reach both the audience that actually still reads papers and your digital followers. The problem is that when you share a link from the daily paper or the local business journal, your followers getting something like this.
Or this.
It is frustrating!
The whole point of getting a story out there is that you want to make sure your customers or prospective customers see it right? And today, a lot of your audience would more likely click a link to the story on LinkedIn, Facebook, your website or your email than actually read a published story or see a news story live on television.
Last year I shared a St. Louis Business Journal story about the formation of Greater STL to my followers on LinkedIn. I am a subscriber to the paper and get there blast emails multiple times every day. But the problem was that when I shared it, everyone – including subscribers – got hit with their frustrating pay wall. It happens to me all the time even though I’m a subscriber. The screenshots I’ve shared are good examples because it almost always happens when I click some news story shared by someone else on LinkedIn.
I ended up getting half a dozen people emailing me wanting to know what the story said. And several of those people where subscribers. It illustrates the PR persons predicament when it comes to using traditional media these days.
Today, it is all about the shareable link. If you can’t share the story, what is the point?
That is why I’ve gone all in with my business of trying to help people tell their own stories using professional journalists. At the end of the day, it isn’t about who published the story – it is about the story itself. That is why we help any individual or organization who wants to tell an authentic story honestly and memorably using brand journalism.
I recognize that many people don’t see the world the way I do. But as a communications professional who has been knee deep in this industry for a couple of decades, I am still surprised by the number of others in my industry that still don’t get it.
Here is a case in point about professionals that should know better. They are a digital agency specializing in helping clients market themselves online and via social media.
I literally laughed out loud when I recently clicked on their blog. I'll keep their name anonymous because I don't want to embarrass them, but I want to share this valuable lesson.
First of all, their most recent blog post was December 2020. Five months ago. It was a blog post with a link to an article in the local business journal. Here it is. I’ve redacted some of the key elements so they can remain anonymous.
BTW - guess what happens when you click the link?
You guessed it. Pay wall.
I was dumfounded that an agency bragging about expanding during Covid didn’t do their own article. They should be blogging more frequently. Their last blog post was five months ago and it was a link to paywall.
Perhaps they are too busy helping clients?
I get it. There are only so many hours in the day. Clients come first. My blog posting is low on my list too, but it shouldn’t be.
Perhaps they don’t like to toot their own horn?
I get that too. I’m not a big fan of that.
But in this instance, it was literally an advertorial sounding story associated with one of those lists they decided to proudly share on their blog.
The point is that as Digital Gurus for hire, they should know better.
They should own their own story and tell it themselves. Everyone should do that today. The advantage to telling it yourself is you own it. Literally. Copyright and all.
When traditional media outlets tell your story, they own it. They own all of it. The photos, the videos and all the copy. You don’t. As is painfully obvious in this unfortunate scenario.
The main advantage of having a traditional media outlet tell your story is you might reach a potentially a large audience. It also credible to have a 3rd party tell your story, especially a seasoned journalist.
Please don’t take this post – which I own by the way – as me suggesting in any way that you should avoid traditional media. To the contrary.
I think you should tell your own story and pitch it to the media. Do both.
To all the PR people out there my message to you is this:
You need to be helping your clients OWN their own story and share it professionally using a trained journalist. Use brand journalism.
If you don’t have someone in-house, hire StorySMART. We will help you share your client’s story professionally and ethically. And when you share it, your audience will see it.
I simply don’t understand why anyone would pay thousands of dollars to pitch a story to traditional media, but not -- at the very same time -- tell it themselves. Oh, and I can hear you saying, well the media outlet wants an exclusive. In my experience, that doesn’t apply to your direct storytelling.
When I was with the Cardinals, I would pitch “exclusives” to traditional media, but let them know we would be doing something following their story. Oftentimes, they didn’t see us as competition. They expected us to share our own story and would be disappointed if we didn’t have already have a story on our website.
So quit doing PR like you did before the internet and social media. Wake up and take a look at the world we live in today. 2021.
Gone are the days when everyone subscribed to the local paper or watched the evening news. Our media habits have changed. And are continuing to change.
Growing up, there was a time I never missed the 10PM news. I watched M*A*S*H and Nightline following. Maybe not in that order. It is a little foggy. Now, I almost never watch the local news live.
When I explain to my son Charlie that we had to make an appointment to watch a TV show like Seinfeld, he gives me that sad “ I feel sorry for you dad ” face. It is almost like “ dad, how primitive .”
Don’t be primitive when it comes to sharing your story. Otherwise you will find yourself in a predicament.
Own it. Tell it yourself. And then, by all means, pitch away.
