Published On: Mon, Sep 19th, 2016

The hidden power of printed news

Sarah Ball, social media expert for the glazing industry and Client Strategy Director at PR & marketing specialists for glazing and construction, Balls2 Marketing, gives three top tips to get more from your published news 

sbYou’ve made it. Your news story is in the mag, your photo looks spot on and that’s that. Pat yourself on the back for a job well done. That’s where it stops. As they say, today’s news is tomorrow’s fish and chip wrappers. But we live in a digital age, and we think there’s more to get out of printed media. Getting in print is just the beginning. Follow our three top tips to get more from your printed news.

Share it – Some physical publications are also published online. So if your news has been published on an indexed website then get sharing. Take a photo of the printed coverage, copy the link and put it on your social media. Tag in the name of the publication and get posting. Don’t rely on one tweet, create a series of tweets over a few days to drive traffic to your article. Don’t forget to let people in your organisation know you’re in the press, they are the most likely people to share it. If suppliers or customers are included in the press release, tag them in too. We work closely with local newspapers for our consumer marketing and they tell us that they monitor the most successful stories on their website by the number of views and comments. Any additional traffic you can give them really helps, so when you share their link not only are you getting more people reading your news, you’re also showing that you are a valuable contributor to their publication.

Blog it – If it’s not on a news site that’s referenced by Google, get it in your own website in your news or blog section. Head it up with an intro to say this has been published in the August edition of the magazine or newspaper and put the article in, in full. If you’re short on words – you need a minimum of 500 words for Google – write an intro about the reason why this is important or the context it’s been written in. Take a photo of the published article to show. Even if it’s on a site that Google recognises then write a blog talking about the subject, thanking the publication and putting a link to the online article. Don’t copy and paste the article because it can be referenced as duplicate content by Google and you could get penalised. News sites often have high levels of credibility attributed to them from Google, so the link directly from or to the new site will give you the highest SEO value.

Link it – If you’re really lucky you’ll get an inbound link from the online publication to your website, which is good for your website Google page ranking. If it’s going to your home page, make sure there’s a reference to the article or subject that’s easily clickable. This will give you extra value from the traffic that comes in from the publication. If you don’t get a link from the publication don’t worry. You can create links the other way. Start with looking at external links. Link to the publication, customers and suppliers, you can get more from blog posts by linking internally on your website. If you mention a product or service, then link it back to that page on your website. These internal links are superb for what marketers call the visitor journey. We create these where there’s a logical next step to find out more to keep the reader interested. Think about the type of person that might be reading the piece and look at where they might want to go next. Customers may have a different map to prospects. At the very least link the article to a “contact us” page.

www.balls2marketing.co.uk